Slovenia Gallery

Perched atop a 100m (328ft) cliff, Bled Castle is the perfect backdrop to a lake view. One of many access footpaths leads up from behind the Bledec Hostel. Admission includes entry to the museum collection as well as Castle Printworks.

September is an excellent month to visit because it’s the best time for hiking and climbing, and the summer crowds have vanished. December to March is high-time for skiers, while spring is a good time to be in the lowlands and valleys because everything’s in blossom. Try to avoid July and August, when hotel rates rise and there are lots more tourists, especially on the coast.

Ljubljana (help·info) (pronounced [ʎubˈʎa:nʌ]), is the largest city and the capital of Slovenia, the Central European state between the Alps, the Mediterranean and the Pannonian Plain. Ljubljana is situated in central Slovenia and has 267,386 inhabitants according to census in 2006. It presents nowadays the cultural, scientific, economic, political and administrative center of Slovenia. The city is divided into several quarters, formerly municipalities, which also correspond to the main electoral constituencies of the city: Šiška, Bežigrad, Vič, Moste, and Center.

Its transport connections, concentration of industry, scientific and research institutions and industrial tradition underly its leading economic position. Ljubljana is the seat of the central government, administrative bodies and all government ministries. It is also the seat of Parliament and the Office of the President of Slovenia.

Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: Republika Slovenija, listen (help·info)), is a country in southern Central Europe bordering Italy to the west, the Adriatic Sea to the southwest, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north. The capital of Slovenia is Ljubljana.

At various points in Slovenia’s history, the country has been part of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Republic of Venice, the Duchy of Carantania (only modern Slovenia’s northern part), the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburg Monarchy, the Austrian Empire (later known as Austria-Hungary), the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929) between the two World Wars, and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1945 until gaining independence in 1991.

Slovenia is the only former communist state to be at the same time a member of the European Union (currently holding its rotating presidency), the Eurozone, the Schengen area, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of Europe and NATO.