Greetings from Slovenia [antikvár]

si^Flovenia is a crossroads of nations, a crossroads squeezed between the dominating Alps and the humble Pannonian Plain. Native Slovenes return home after years of exile, somé after months of study or weeks of job, all with a burning heart. Foreigners come to meet new friends, to consolidate old ties, to sign contracts. Or - those who appreciate this green garden of Europe - to listen to the silence of mountain lakes, to see the glory of sunrise and sunset on high summits, or to compete with the waves of the Adriatic.The roar of aircraft at the Ljubljana airport is stifled by gusts of wind from the high slopes of the Grintovci. A short drive to the east is Slovenia's capital, Ljubljana, and to the west a fairy-tale island dwarfed by the cliff-hanging castle of Bled. A short distance to the south, you can hear the chatter of Piran's Slovene-Italians on their afternoon stroll. At the opposite corner of this land spread the groves of the lower Ledava plain, where the west wind sweeps across the Slovene-Hungarian bordér.The almost eight kilometre tunnel through the Karavanke is the world's 14^ longest tunnel. It is Slovenia's latest and brightest gateway to the world. The tunnel not only shortens the already short distances within Slovenia, but alsó makes Europe as a whole much more readily accessible.The very top of the 2864-metre high Triglav, who rubs shoulders with other majestic Alpine summits, is perched above a precipitous thousand-metre-high north face. From this truly majestic mountain, the eye catches the blue reflection of the Adriatic Sea in the Gulf of Trieste, and to the east, the contours of the Slovene-Croatian Gorjanci rangé.But let's get a good view of the land from ground level. Let's have fun recounting statistics; let's follow the descriptions of tranquil lakes and silenced mills by the river, of castles and solitary farmsteads, of karst caves and virgin forests, of traces of the distant past, and of Slovenia's natural and cultural heritage. Let's take a moment and savour the images of a country in its Sunday best and its everyday clothes.Marjan Krusií