This website is an archive from 2016

This site was actively maintained from 2006 to 2016. Since then I have kept it online for historical interest, but have made no further updates. Much of the information in these pages is now incorrect or obsolete.

Slovenia | Books

Travel Guides

Short descriptions of Slovenia appear in four of Lonely Planet's regional guides listed in the Overview section: Europe on a Shoestring, Eastern Europe, Mediterranean Europe, and Southeastern Europe. For good measure it is also included in their guide to Central Europe.

The Rough Guide to Slovenia  (3rd edition published April 2010) - Norm Longley

Typically detailed coverage from Rough Guides, allocating a generous 352 pages to this small country.

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Slovenia - Lonely Planet Country Guide  (8th edition published May 2016)

I have used both the Lonely Planet and Rough Guide on different visits to Slovenia. Although I generally prefer Rough Guides, in this instance there is little to choose between them, and the Lonely Planet is now more up to date by several years

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Slovenia - The Bradt Guide  (2nd edition published May 2008) - Robin & Jenny McKelvie

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The Julian Alps of Slovenia - Cicerone Walking Guide  (2nd edition published May 2015) - Justi Carey, Roy Clark

More than 50 mountain walks and short treks, organised around five bases in northwest Slovenia (Kranjska Gora, Bovec, Kobarid, Bled, and Bohinj. The routes range from relatively easy valley walks to high-level treks requiring more experience. Cicerone also publishes guides to the Slovene High Level Route and the Karavanke mountain range.

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Ljubljana In Your Pocket

As well as a typically detailed city guide to Ljubljana, IYP covers a range of destinations in Slovenia, both urban and rural.

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In Your Pocket

Background Reading

It appears that very little has been written about Slovenia in English. Even the books about the former Yugoslavia listed in the Overview tend to pass over Slovenia in silence. The modern travelogues The Impossible Country and Through the Embers of Chaos have only a handful of references to Slovenia between them, and the index of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon points to only three references in its 1100 pages.

The Radetzky March - Joseph Roth

Back then an Austrian District Commissioner of the stamp of Herr Von Trotta would have been less distressed by news of his only son's death than by the mere suggestion that he had conducted himself dishonourably.

I suppose I'm stretching a point by classifying The Radetzky March, the great novel of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as a book about Slovenia or the Balkans. But its central characters do come from Slovenia, and anyway this book deserves to be read by anyone with an interest in European history or literature. Roth creates a compelling sense of impending doom, as the Empire's elaborate rituals and codes of behaviour prove insufficient to stave off its collapse.

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