Slovenia

For such an amazing place, few people in the West know very much about Slovenia that is correct:

· Slovenia sits east of north eastern Italy and has a population of about 2 million people. The standard of living is equivalent to that of Greece or Portugal

· It is commonly confused with Slovakia, most famously by George W. Bush.

· The war of independence from Yugoslavia lasted 10 days in 1991 and cost 66 people their lives. There are no land mines. Slovenia largely escaped the recent carnage in the Balkans. The polite and honest Slovenians are keen to move on.

The "two for the price of one" two-hour flight from Gatwick on Saturday was very pleasant. From the air western Slovenia is a patchwork of mountains and verdant hills and fields. The forests covering almost half of the country extend right up to the edge of the airport.

All this vegetation needs a lot of rain. In Slovenia, even the hitchhikers and bicycle riders use umbrellas. A classic symbol of Slovenia is the hay drying rack in a field, covered to protect against the precipitation. They are used to dry a whole host of other things as well from wood to corncobs. Thankfully rain impacted our holiday remarkably little.

The capital Ljubljana is a quiet pretty city, which we navigated virtually stress free: how can this city be so close to Italy? While it is well planned, we got the distinct impression that we were battle hardened by our few hours trying to navigate across Naples in March. Ljubljana might be a pleasant place to spend a day, but it is not the reason most people go to Slovenia. The country also has a slice of apparently sunny coastline, which you will miss if you blink. The day we went turned into a damp squib with a dangerously foggy return trip to our farmstay.

The countryside has so many surprises. On our first full day we went to a Beekeeping Museum: an apiarist's dream complete with traditional folk-art beehives. We walked down the truly breathtaking Ventgar Gorge with its amazing light. And we were transported on a "pletna" rowing boat over the fairy tale Lake Bled to the gorgeous church draped small island of Blejski Otok, the only true island in Slovenia. Across the lake stood a classic castle, perched high on a sheer cliff.

This is still a strongly agricultural country. In the fields scythes are often still used. Slovenia even has a Museum of Alpine Dairy Farming (they seem to like their esoteric museums). Even the monks at Pleterje Monastery still tend land near their wonderful simple church: complete with an altar made out of plain stones and taped choral singing activated by approaching tourists.

Slovenia must be the only country in the world where the journey is often more spectacular than the destination. We spent so much of the first few days simply being stunned by all the vistas of alpine beauty.

But there was stunning scenery at our destinations as well:
· The natural caves, arches and river idyll of Rakov Skocjan
· Walking through the clouds on Velika Plannina following a vertigo inducing cable car ride
· The jaw-dropping scenery of the Logarska Dolina Valley: stunning even by Slovenian standards
· Vast numbers of churches, often perched on high
· A good number of striking castles
· The amazing Skocjan Cave, a World Heritage listed massive expanse of a cavern which felt like the start of our own personal journey to the centre of the earth

It seemed almost mandatory to venture into the mountains. The far northwest around the Vrsic Pass is truly beautiful, where it is almost impossible to believe now that almost a million people lost their lives in the madness that was World War One. We walked, clad in t-shirts and shorts across snow in a glorious and almost deserted area under mountain peaks. My lower density per square centimetre of shoe largely saved me from Jen's regular iniquity of falling through the snow.

And the food was generally great: from the wonderful shellfish of the Topli Val restaurant, to our pumpkin seed oil drizzled salad to the gorgeous traditional cooking of farm hostess Jana.

Not every experience was great. We drove to the "forgotten" northeast corner, which sits adjacent to Hungary. Yes, there were storks nesting on telegraph poles, but the land was flat and boring and the attractions were either closed or not that great. The forgotten corner is forgotten for good reason.

It is truly mystifying why there are still less tourists than before 1991. The scariest things today are:

· Dodging manure spreaders
· The number of adventure sports on offer
· The "workout" the windy mountain roads exact on drivers
· The number of road kill hedgehogs
· The linguistic dexterity of the Slovenians. Italian, German, English and Serbo-Croatian are commonly spoken. Much of the graffiti is in English
· The amazingly fit Slovenian cyclists, including children, climbing steep roads
· Inconveniently close borders. We accidentally drove to the border with Italy only to turn back. And we deliberately drove to the border with Croatia to take a short cut back into Slovenia but were turned back.

It almost wouldn't be a postcard these days without some unusual tale. We decided to get healthy and go to one of the natural spa towns. The first one seriously diverged from our expectations: it was full of foreign geriatric convalescents, sort of like a health farm for chronologically challenged Eastern Europeans. So we went further a field to another. Unfortunately Jen's search for a toilet at this new Spa was hampered by Slovenian signage. While Jen was busy with her call of nature, I got the Full Monty experience: we had accidentally walked into the naturalist section, and we're still not sure whether it was mixed sex.

The finale of our holiday was our first tandem paragliding experience off a local mountain. The adventure operators played Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World for us as we ascended before hand. At the launch site there was appropriately enough an empty can of "It Gives You Wings" Red Bull. Jen was reasonably nervous and was pretty happy for my pilot and me to go first. It was a shock to be airborne so quickly and successfully after all the worst-case scenario instructions. Floating above the tree-clad mountain was truly wonderful, and I enjoyed my "driving" lessons. It was great to be able to chat and pose for photos when Jen's paraglider came close. Our strongest memories are of when the pilots deliberately induced very rapid spins, which provided a maximum g-force of about 3 -4: at 6g people start to pass out. I found mine simply rather unsettling. Jennifer felt really unwell, but resisted the urge to vomit over the local village, overcoming her nausea an hour after the flight. Even so, we both agreed it was a great experience and want to do it again.

As we were preparing to leave we were treated to a great thunder and lightning storm: it’s a good thing we paraglided in the morning.

Slovenia is definitely one of our Top 5 Holidays of all time. And it was so cheap, one example being our 8 night stay at a self-catering farmhouse complex for a little over £130. We urge you to go while it is still reasonably unspoilt by mass tourism.

Andrew & Jen.