Slovenia

Slavic ancestors of the Slovenes settled the eastern Alps and their forelands by the sixth century, briefly forming the early principality of Carantania. From the fourteenth century almost all Slovene-speaking lands — Carniola, and parts of Styria, Carinthia, and the coast — were under the Habsburgs, where they stayed, apart from Napoleon's short-lived Illyrian Provinces, until 1918. The Protestant reformer Primož Trubar printed the first Slovene books in the sixteenth century, and the Romantic poet France Prešeren became the national bard in the nineteenth.

After the First World War the Slovenes joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia. The Second World War brought partition among Germany, Italy, and Hungary, a strong Partisan resistance, and civil conflict. In socialist Yugoslavia, Slovenia was the smallest and richest republic, closest to Western Europe.

Slovenia declared independence in June 1991. The Yugoslav army intervened but withdrew after the Ten-Day War, the briefest of the Yugoslav conflicts, and international recognition followed within months. The country joined NATO and the EU in 2004, adopted the euro in 2007, and entered the Schengen Area the same year. It has since been a stable parliamentary democracy, if with frequent changes of government.

Slovene culture places unusual weight on language and poetry: the national holiday, Prešeren Day, honours a poet, and a verse of his work is the anthem. Choral singing is widespread, with thousands of amateur choirs. The Roman Catholic Church shaped the calendar and the countryside's churches, though regular practice has declined.

Beekeeping is a point of national pride — the native Carniolan bee, the folk-painted fronts of traditional hives, and the proposal that made 20 May World Bee Day. The landscape carries other distinctive marks, above all the kozolec, the slatted wooden hayrack found on farms across the country.

Life is oriented outdoors. Hiking, cycling, skiing, and climbing are mainstream pursuits, Ljubljana has a strong café and festival culture, and many families keep a rural house or vineyard cottage for weekends. Environmental awareness is high, and Ljubljana was named a European Green Capital in 2016.

About 2.1 million people live in Slovenia, roughly a quarter of them in the Ljubljana urban area. Home ownership is high, incomes are the highest of the former Yugoslav states, and the economy runs on manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, car parts, and services, closely tied to Germany, Austria, and Italy.

The country is compact enough that people commute across it, ski in the morning and reach the coast by afternoon, and cross into Austria, Italy, or Croatia routinely. The population is ageing, and rural areas in the east and the mountains have thinned as people moved to the centre.

Weekends and holidays revolve around the outdoors and food — mountain huts, vineyards, mushroom foraging, and family lunches — and cross-border shopping and day trips are part of ordinary life.

Slovene cooking draws on its neighbours: Alpine dumplings and cured meats, Italian-style pasta and risotto on the coast, Hungarian paprika stews in the east, and Balkan grilled meats. The rolled walnut cake potica is the festive centrepiece, and štruklji — rolled dough parcels, sweet or savoury — appear in many regional forms.

Signature dishes include the Carniolan sausage (kranjska klobasa), jota (a bean, sauerkraut, and potato soup), idrijski žlikrofi (small stuffed dumplings), and the layered prekmurska gibanica pastry. Buckwheat, in porridge (žganci) and bread, is a traditional staple.

Slovenia produces good wine in three regions — the orange and Rebula wines of Goriška Brda, Teran on the Karst, and the whites of Štajerska — and the Slovenian side of the Collio. The country punches above its weight in fine dining, with Ana Roš of Hiša Franko in the Soča valley internationally known.

Lake Bled, with its island church, cliff-top castle, and the traditional pletna boats, is the iconic image, and quieter Lake Bohinj lies deeper in the mountains inside Triglav National Park. The park protects the Julian Alps and Mount Triglav, the national symbol, along with the Vintgar Gorge and the emerald Soča River, a centre for rafting, kayaking, and the via ferrata.

The Karst region gave its name to the landform and holds two great cave systems: Postojna, entered by an underground train, with the ruined Predjama Castle built into a cliff nearby, and the vast river canyon of the UNESCO-listed Škocjan Caves. The Lipica stud farm, origin of the Lipizzaner horses, is close by.

Ljubljana has a castle-topped old town, a riverside remodelled by the architect Jože Plečnik — whose works across the city are a UNESCO site — and a lively market and café scene. On the short Adriatic coast, Piran is a Venetian-Gothic town of tight lanes and a sea-girt square, and the Logar Valley and the Kamnik–Savinja Alps in the north offer some of the country's finest scenery with fewer visitors.