It has been said that some residents of the Salzkammergut village of Hallstatt in Austria resort to dining in motorway service stations to avoid the crowds of tourists that flock to a picture postcard perfect location which in its own way is becoming similarly beleaguered, and held hostage, just as is now commonplace in Venice…
Lake Bohinj welcomes all who arrive with the best of intentions
The Great Reset is a term that has been bandied around for the last year, primarily in the wake of and to some extent the continuation of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Seen by many as more a basis for what conspiracy theorists have presaged for years than a coordinated global response to Covid-19 and the…
What a refreshing change: Bohinj seeks symbiosis where tourism is secondary to local sensibilities
Making tourism work has at times been hard going for the Bohinj region of Slovenia during the last few years. If losing hundreds of guest bedrooms as the inexorable decline and eventual closure of historic hotels the Zlatorog and Bellevue wasn't a bitter enough pill to swallow(along with deteriorating fortunes at the Ski Hotel Vogel…
Bohinj: A desire for better, not more tourism conflicts with its bucket list reputation
It was June 1999, with the dying embers of the Kosovo conflict but several hundred miles away from my vacation in Slovenia's Bohinj region. What though to many without any knowledge of Yugoslavia and the relative geographic proximity of its former component parts was a risky location for my holiday, could not have proven to…
Bohinj: Hotel Bellevue seeks novel solution to meld modernity with ‘Agatha Christie’ history
Little did I realise in May 2004 that my eight day stay in Lake Bohinj's Hotel Bellevue was in effect the nascent stages of its own ersatz funeral wake, that would only conclude over a decade later. I had previously vacationed in the Bohinj region three out of the previous five years, all within the…
Covid-19: Will the environment feel a backlash from the consequences of coronavirus?
Covid-19 has made it extremely hard to visualise a future when once more we can fully exercise our freedom, and plan the vacations and gatherings so often taken for granted. And yet, the majority of the world are only a few weeks, in some areas days, into a strict regime of restrictions aimed to halt…
Adria Airways and Sukhoi: Cancelled agreement mired in claim and counterclaim
The dramatic cancellation of a deal to supply Slovenian flag-carrier Adria Airways with a phased delivery of fifteen Sukhoi Superjets has provoked a divergence of reasons behind the now annulled agreement. Much is therefore unclear, although it is blatantly unequivocal that both parties will insist on pursuing their own face-saving narrative. The need for owners…
Bohinj: Slovenian Cryptocurrency millionaire invests in ailing hotel stock
An update from: Bohinj: finally some hope for Hotel Zlatorog? A quartet of Bohinj-based tourist accommodation providers have been bought by Bitstamp co-founder Damijan Merlak, finally drawing to a close shameful scenes that saw several of the area's preeminent hotels fall into disrepair under the gaze of its powerless municipality. Purchased from erstwhile owner Zmago Pacnik…
Is Adria Airways’ impending use of Sukhoi-built aircraft an ominous bellwether of its future?
In what seems more a desperate, last throw of the dice than a shrewd, if albeit pragmatic change of aircraft supplier, Slovenian flag-carrier Adria Airways have quite possibly made a future-defining decision that does little to guarantee the Star Alliance member's ongoing presence in the skies of central and eastern Europe. With a potential fifteen…
Bovec: European Union funding sought to fund Kanin cableway modernization
It is surprising that Bovec-Kanin, the only Slovenian ski resort that comes close to being classed as snow sure, is but a few years from its current cableway apparatus effectively being branded obsolete. Without intervention from the north western frontier town's municipality the advent of 2022 will be marked by the effective cessation of Mount…
Slovenia: Spring conditions fail to dampen Maribor’s Golden Fox weekend
This weekend's annual Golden Fox Ski World Cup programme saw the best female exponents of slalom and giant slalom take on the Radvanje piste adjacent to Slovenia's second city Maribor, and part of the Pohorje massif. Despite occupying a modest altitude Maribor's yearly skiing jamboree has endured, although spring conditions meant an astonishing 95% of…
Alpine Europe revels in recent snowfall as Climate Change threatens an uncertain future
Significant snowfall in the Alps over the last few weeks has done much to reinvigorate some already worn pistes, with certain areas receiving their first measurable, and much welcome, dump of the season. As though is often the case precipitation was far from evenly spread across the ranges of central Europe, with some lower-lying resorts…
Bohinj: Rebuilding the Hotel Zlatorog vital for the region to work with what it has, rather than initiate a building gold rush
As 2018 draws to a close another year will pass that has seen little obvious change in the fortunes of Bohinj's once iconic hotel, the Zlatorog. Empty for at least the last five years the Ukanc-based facility still ostensibly remains in the hands of failed hotelier Zmago Pacnik, who seemingly closed the doors once every…
Maribor Airport facing its very own China Syndrome
The potential loss of large amounts of farmland and tree cover abutting Maribor's airport flies in the face of an 'environment first' credo that Slovenia has become synonymous with, and of which it is rightly proud. Representing something of a reality check of what value is placed on prime agricultural and arboriculture that serves not…
Slovenia: Sustainable tourism the only way to protect Bohinj from becoming the next Venice or Dubrovnik
Striking a precarious balance of promoting sustainable tourism that doesn't alienate those it wishes to attract to the region remains the municipality of Bohinj's greatest challenge. Increasingly swamped with primarily day tourists, Bohinj had previously been an antidote to Lake Bled - a byword itself for the grim realities of mass tourism and the negative…
Maribor: Continued inertia stalls chances of realistic(or any) development of its airport
With little to show for their grand, albeit barely believable plans to turn Maribor's Edvard Rusjan Airport into a regional commercial and freight hub since acquiring the facility in 2016, the now entirely Chinese group of investors have continued to keep their cards close to their chest, although it has been assumed that a lack…
Slovenia: Bovec seeks European Union stimulus for cross-border developments on Mount Kanin
Much has changed for the Bovec region of northwestern Slovenia since the cessation of operations in January 2013 of its iconic and eponymous Kanin cableway, precipitated by a near-catastrophic fall to earth of several of its carriages. The reason to this day for the collapse has never been ascertained, or at least been made public.…
Slovenia: Maribor’s residents seek to protect local countryside from wholly unnecessary airport expansion
Residents living adjacent to Maribor's Edvard Rusjan Airport are rightly concerned by plans to expand the facility. Doing so could not only see the loss of forest and a large parcel of agricultural land, simultaneously undermining Slovenia's hardwired 'green' credentials, but also ultimately be an exercise in futility now that the modern, fit for purpose…
Maribor Airport the real victim of VLM Airlines’ demise
To describe VLM Airlines as Maribor Airport's 'anchor tenant' somewhat stretches a definition more associated with large retail concerns, situated to attract custom to smaller, adjacent businesses. Despite offering a modern, fit for purpose terminal, VLM were though all Maribor's Edvard Rusjan Airport had, aside from sporadic charter flights for visiting soccer teams. Having recently…
Europe’s Alpine Regions fail to escape the scourge of plastic litter
The utter indifference some hikers and skiers show their alpine playgrounds never ceases to amaze me. Perhaps naively I assume that the act of communing with the mountains instead of merely viewing the jagged landscape from afar, a la Mark Twain*, and the considerable physical effort in doing so, indicates affection for their surroundings and…
Alpine Adventures, Soccer, Central Asian Autocracies & Secessionist Politics 
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