Dr. shred video6/29/2023 After dinner, Kreslin and his friends, members of his band but guests, too, grabbed instruments and played an impromptu concert, just for the pleasure of it, as the moon rose high above the roll and roil of accordion, violin, guitar and hammered dulcimer. My wife and I attended a party at the Kreslins’ weekend home there, with dozens of other guests, from DJs to government ministers, all gathered around a bubbling cauldron of bograč, a rich goulash spiked with paprika from the nearby Pannonian plain, and ripping apart deep-fried catfish from the nearby Mura river. Kreslin grew up here, in his father’s gostilna, or country inn, listening to bands mixed of Slovenians and Gypsies, and speaking a dialect that is unintelligible to most Slovenes. This is a flatland of storks and slow-churning wooden mills on the river, with a lively and culturally influential population of Gypsies. Vlado Kreslin, a Bruce Springsteen-like musical icon in Slovenia, introduced me to the wonders of Prekmurje, the furthest-flung region of the country, on the Hungarian border. I struck up friendships and collaborations with many of the people I met in this way, working my way through a who’s-who of interesting Slovenians. In Slovenia, everyone writes their own email, and even the prime minister is just a message away. I set about contacting people I found interesting – for instance, the great folk-rock musician, Vlado Kreslin, the world-famous chef Janez Bratovž, and the expat Bosnian actor and director, Branko Đurić – and requested interviews. I wanted a local’s-eye-view of the secret facets of this “hidden gem”. Having chosen this country as my new homeland, settling in the charming three-castled alpine town of Kamnik, just north of the capital, I wanted to get to know it in a more intimate way. It is one of the safest countries in the world, not to mention the cleanest (it won National Geographic’s 2017 World Legacy Award, as the most sustainable tourist destination, and Ljubljana was Green Capital of Europe in 2016).Ī quintessentially Slovenian view, near Jamnik. Beyond the confines of charming, Zürich-like Ljubljana, Slovenia offers travellers a destination that is easy to navigate (with English spoken just about everywhere). While cheap flights from London have made it an easy weekend destination, and the capital, Ljubljana, is popular on the stag and hen circuit, the entire country boasts wonderland landscapes. ![]() But those who come to this tiny country nestled between the Alps and the Adriatic seem to feel they’ve discovered a little-known paradise. There are only so many times that Slovenia can be called a “hidden gem” and still claim to remain hidden. This has meant that I’ve become something of Slovenia’s foreign cheerleader, and recently I even released a book, Slovenology: Living and Travelling in the World’s Best Country, that is part memoir, part travelogue, and part essay collection singing its praises. Slovenia has been, for me, a land of opportunity. Summer in Ljubljana … busy but beautiful. Once I’d got through the nerve-racking bouts of scythe-sharpening, bark-shaving, axe-wielding and, yes, even wife-buying traditions, and was permitted by the grumpy-looking villagers to enter the church and carry on with my wedding, I knew that this was the place for me, and have since come to feel truly a part of it. In order to marry her, on our wedding day, I was obliged to survive the dreaded shranga, a gauntlet of pre-nuptial feats of manliness required of aspiring grooms from beyond the Slovenian mountain village confines. And that is where I fell in love – with the country and the future Mrs Charney. After forays into Venice, Florence, Rome, Madrid and Leiden, I ended up in Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital. I lived in eight European cities, each for at least a month, to get a feel for what it would be like to move there indefinitely. Fast-forward to 2006, when I was a postgraduate student, and I wound up embarking on a longer, “slow food” version of my rail smorgasbord.
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