We had read that Slovenia was not only friendly and scenic, but also less touristy. Turns out all were true. It's indeed a great country to visit.

Don't let Slovenia's small size deter you because there are plenty of fun things to do and see. Slovenia has a small coastline on the Adriatic, but we choose to spend our sixteen days touring the interior, from bases in the east, center and west regions of Slovenia. It may sound like a lot of driving, but to cross the whole country on their modern autobahn takes only a few hours.

We flew into Flagenfurt, Austria, rented a car there and drove to Ljubljana, an easy drive of maybe an hour and a half. While based in Ljubljana we stayed for six days at B&B Petra Varl (http://www.ljubljana.info/bed-and-breakfast/) (a cozy place right in Old Town and run by a friendly and helpful young woman. Ljubljana was actually much larger than we had expected. It is a very clean city and for the most part graffiti free. We visited the castles, floated over the city in a balloon and day-tripped to Lipica. We also made it to the annual Cow Ball (Kravji Bal) in Bohinj and it was a blast celebrating the cows coming home with the locals.

From Ljubljana we headed east to a little village near Fram. We enjoyed our four days at Tourist Farm Stern (http://www.kovacnik.com/), a place we can highly recommend. This was a wonderful base for day trips. We explored Maribor, Ptu, and the smaller villages that dot this wine-growing region, Jerusalem among them. This region looked much like Tuscany, only greener.

For our final five days we were based in Lake Bled at Tourist Farm Mulej (http://www.mulej-bled.com/). We were happy to be three-for-three on our accommodations as all met our expectations. Lake Bled itself is quite touristy, but was a nice base for day trips. We traveled to the gorgeous Soca River and Valley, exploring little towns and villages. We visited the WW1 museum in Kobarid, Kropa with its Iron Works Museum and marveled at the spectacular Skocjan Caves, to name just a few of the many things we were able to see and do.

We really enjoyed Slovenia. It was a friendly country with much to see and do. We felt very safe everywhere we were day or night. My wife Shirley noted Slovenia had the cleanest bathrooms of any country we have visited.

We have some pictures of our Slovenia trip posted on our little web page. So please pay us a visit us at http://home.wi.rr.com/tomshirl/ and browse around.