It’s a tiny country, about half the size of Switzerland, and counts just over two million people. But the only way to describe pint-sized Slovenia (Slovenija), an independent republic bordering Italy, Austria, Hungary, Croatia and the Adriatic Sea, is that it’s ‘a mouse that roars’.Slovenia has been dubbed a lot of things since independence in 1991 – ‘Europe in Miniature’, ‘The Sunny Side of the Alps’, ‘The Green Piece of Europe’ – and, though they may sound like tourist-brochure blurbs, they’re all true. From beaches, snow-capped mountains, hills awash in grapevines and wide plains blanketed in sunflowers, to Gothic churches, baroque palaces, historic castles and art nouveau civic buildings, Slovenia offers more diversity than countries many times its size.
