Slovenia is a large forest stretching between the Adriatic and Austria with a modest population of just over two million souls. It also has mountains. In the north, the easternmost foothills of the Alpine chain stretch out as they reach the Austrian border. Here, in the Kamnik and Savinja Alps, there is the glacial valley of Logarska Dolina, one of the three alpine valleys that make up the Solčavsko region and one of the most beautiful in Europe.
In this protected natural parkseven kilometers long, the stables have Venetian arches, the neighbors play the zither under the lime trees and the houses smell of mint and wild oregano. The picture could not be more bucolic. Wild, endangered orchids can be seen on trails that climb alpine peaks through twenty-billion-year-old forests. Only here there are more than a thousand species of plants, a third of all those that grow in the country.
