Northwest Slovenia is one of Europe’s borderlands, a place where the ebb and flow of history has left the landscape littered with the remnants of fallen empires. The Soča Valley changed hands four times during the twentieth century: from Austria-Hungary, to Italy, to the Nazis, then the Yugoslav republic,

It was when the waitress brought out the lard on toast that I knew I was going to like Kranjska Gora. We had arrived on a grey and drizzly day in the Julian Alps, and a TripAdvisor tip-off had directed us down a narrow street to Lačni Kekec [http://www.

As the car edged further up the track, by now just two deep ruts in the mud, the bleeping parking sensor reached a crescendo, like a heart monitor on a TV hospital drama. We came to a stop with a sickening clunk, and the engine cut out. For a second