Slovenia collection

I thought it would be fun to upload cards I received a longer time ago. So from now on you readers can expect cards from 2009/10/11 as well, as I began collecting in 2009. So far I received more than 1300 postcards and I'm eager to show you more of that! Here a few cards from my collection of Slovenian postcards

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. Its incredible mixture of climates brings warm Mediterranean breezes up to the foothills of the Alps, where it can even snow in summer. With more than half of its total area covered in forest, Slovenia truly is one of the greenest countries in the world - and in recent years it has also become Europe's activities playground.

Among Slovenia's greatest assets, though, are the Slovenes themselves - welcoming, generous, multilingual, broad-minded. As far as they are concerned, they do not live emotionally, spiritually or even geographically in 'Eastern' Europe - their home is the very heart of the continent. [source: lonelyplanet]

Sent by: Ivana, Špela & Majda

Celje

Where the Voglajna joins the Savinja River as it turns abruptly south toward the Sava, we find Celje, the third largest city in Slovenia. Its cultural legacy testifies to rich and turbulent centuries. Originally "Keleia", a Celtic settlement where Noricum coins were minted, in the period of Emperor Claudius it developed as "Celeia" into the most important Roman borough and a most important economic and military center. 

Celje became the capital of a principality when the Counts of Celje were elevated to the status of princes in 1436. Allied with the German Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg, they struggled ever more bitterly ther Hapsburgs for political supremacy in Central Europe. When Count Ulrik II was assassinated in Belgrade by his Hugarian rivals in 1456, the cry "the Counts of Celje today and never again" marked the end of their dynasty and the city came under Hapsburg rule.

 
Celje defied natural disasters and enemies such as floods and the Turks and continued to develop its flourishing trade and commerce to strengthen its position as one of the most important cities in Lower Styria. 
The railway brought industrialization in 1846, which marked the end of the old times and the transition into a new exciting century in which Celje became a city with a lively cultural and tourist beat, a highly developed social life, a commercial, trade and fair center, and attractive surroundings. [source: slovenia.info]