Reflections of Slovenia
There’s nothing much here. A concrete marker, a starred-blue Euro signpost and two unused border-control buildings.
We’ve just arrived in Slovenia. But wait, one step back and I am in Italy. One forward and I am back in Slovenia. Standing astride I can stand in both countries at once!
A Deserted Border Town Straddling Italy & Slovenia
I’ve always lived on islands, first the UK and now New Zealand, and the fluidity of land borders, especially across the ‘borderless’ EU is really making my head spin! On an island there’s a transition; it takes time to cross the water, or fly through the air; there’s a physical division when you say farewell to one country before you say hello to another.
Here you can blink and miss it.
In the last few months we’ve journeyed in our camper van through France, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and Italy before arriving in Slovenia. Why is it then that it’s here that really makes me reflect on identity more than any other place we have been to?
Maybe it’s the fact we’re racing away from Northern Italy at a time when coronavirus is filling the headlines with towns under ‘lockdown’ and cases radiating across the planet. We have a huge feeling of relief as we cross the border in the dark. It felt as if we were "on the run", but now we have escaped. We relax for the first time, believing we’ve left the coronavirus threat behind us and don't have to worry about being caught in a town that gets locked down.
We are however, slightly bemused that the border is deserted.
What if we did have the virus? Does anyone care? Does anyone notice?
There’s plenty in the news about travellers being screened through airports, but what about touring camper vans? Or the cars, bikers and walkers who we see ‘popping’ into Slovenia from nearby Italian towns for the cheap cigarettes and diesel, or to enjoy the beautiful coastal scenery, "Venetian" towns and clear blue seas with backdrops of olive groves layered on the hilltop terraces?
Piran, Famed for Its Venetian Architecture
The capital city of Ljubljana has less than 300,000 inhabitants. In the late '80s I had visited the city as part of a month inter-railing around Europe. It wasn’t called Slovenia then, but Yugoslavia and really was just a ‘tick on the list’ to say I’d been to an ‘Eastern Bloc’ country. My lasting memories are of sparsely stocked supermarket and of ‘burek’ a cheap, filling and tasty street snack of filo pastry filled with cottage cheese. I'm pleased to find that supermarkets are now abundantly stocked and the burek is as tasty and ubiquitous as my memory!
The falling of the Iron Curtain and the fighting in the Balkan region has changed the names and borders of many of the countries that filled the news in my teens and early twenties and left me confused.
Piran - The Town Square Used to Be the Inner Harbour!
According to Wikipedia, the country we now know as Slovenia has in turn been part of the Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Carolingian Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Republic of Venice, the First French Empire of Napoleon I, the Austrian Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire. During World War 2 various parts were annexed or occupied by Germany, Italy, Hungary and the Independent State of Croatia.
A Small Country In the Centre of Europe
It has alternatively been named the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs; the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes; the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and, after WW2 was a founding member of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, (later renamed the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). It became the Republic of Slovenia in 1991.
Got it?!
Me neither!
New Zealand’s history on the other hand is pretty simple, primarily based on just two ethnicities - Maori and European. Even that sometimes brings challenges as the two different perspectives seek to understand how to live in harmony. The United Kingdom on the other hand has an arrogance of having been the conquerer rather than the conquered in recent history and still struggles to recognise the havoc it wreaked on the world while building its empire.
Slovenia makes me wonder what it is to have a country’s identity when you have such a myriad of cultures and your ‘home’ nation can change by the flick of a man-made pen stroke. It’s a history that has influenced Slovenian food, architecture, languages and outward looking economy. I wonder what that means to the people who have lived through these changes.
Without having been conscious of it, I know that living on an island has shaped my perspectives of life and the world and so too that must be true of those living in Slovenia, nestled at the top of the Adriatic, at the tip of the Balkan State’s cul de sac.
As travellers we only skim the surface of a country and perspectives are easily created by the few people we meet, so I am well aware my view is my view and not that of a researched expert. I liked the people for feeling comfortable in their skin. Proud of the natural beauty of their land, of the economy and politics, with no obvious feeling of inferiority to its bigger neighbours, in the way New Zealand's psyche sometimes
suffers against Australia. Biking In the Hills - With Italy in the Background
Rather than finding a country with an identity crisis, Slovenia seems a nation that is comfortable with itself as having been created by its experiences, rather than inhibited by them. The people we meet are friendly; comfortably flipping between Serbian and Italian in their own conversations; speaking English to us as tourists. They serve pasta and gelato by the coast, sausages and stews are favoured nearer the borders of Austria and Hungary.
The karst rock landscape is home to incredible underground caves and overground creates the local wines - red Refosk and white Malvasia. I enjoyed our tasting experience at the wine shop in Izola, but didn't really think much of the wine itself!
With just 2m people and 54% of its land covered in forestry - it's a small country that feels welcoming to visit. I loved exploring the pretty coastal towns with stunning clear bluey-green sea which looked so inviting for a swim until I dipped my feet in and realised how cold it is in March! It was fun (and tiring) biking to the interior with hills covered in vines and olive groves going underground in the UNESCO World Heritage caves of Skocjan. The beer was good; the wine 'so-so' and the pastries kept me coming back for more. Now I can locate Slovenia on a map I definitely want to visit it again.
Sampling the Local Vino
Post Script
This blog was written in Slovenia during our visit in March 2020. We spent a week in Slovenia, 5 days in Croatia before heading back to Slovenia where we planned to 'sit out' Coronavirus. It quickly became obvious that was untenable and after a race back to the UK and selling our camper van we flew home to NZ. To see more, check out Global Gumboots vlogs Running from Coronavirus #1 and #2