Slovenia is the fourth ‘new’ country I’ve been to in 2009, I started with Malawi when I bicycled a stage of the Tour d’Afrique. Then there were mid-year trips to Costa Rica and the Faroe Islands. Finally I walked across the border from Gorizia in Italy to Nova Gorica in Slovenia. I stayed in the Albergo Transalpina my last night in Italy, my room looked out over the Piazza Transalpina and back in the days of the iron curtain that’s where it was, right in the middle of the square. It’s new Europe, I left the hotel and strolled straight into Slovenia.

A bus took me to Ljubljana a remarkably pretty little city where I did all the Slovenian tourist things including climbing up (well I took the funicular up, I climbed down) to the castle overlooking Prešernov Trg, the town’s main square.


Looking down on the town centre from the castle tower

In the middle of the square is a statue of Slovenia’s greatest poet, France Prešeren. 








Leave the square, walk a short distance up Wolfova ulica and you’ll find a terracotta figure of a woman looking out from a ‘window.’ She’s Julija Primic and she’s gazing lovingly across the square at the poet’s statue, although in fact the look should be in the other direction. He was the admirer, she never fell for him and he never got over the rejection.


Presumably the restaurant where I had my very Slovenian dinner that night (pork knuckle) was named after her – Julija.

Ljubljana felt remarkably stylish and well off, an impression confirmed in a ‘post Berlin wall’ article in The Economist for 7-13 November, Slovenia has the highest GDP per person amongst the old Soviet bloc countries. Which still leaves it at only just over 60% of the Western European average.

I finally got around to flying Ryanair. I’ve flown on assorted LCCs – Low Cost Carriers – but never had a reason to get on the European airline which generates all the bad publicity. Michael O’Leary, the airline’s outspoken boss, specialises in being controversial. OK they’re not really going to charge fat people more, add a fee for using the toilets or offer standing room tickets, but hey, it’s all good publicity.

I had to fly from London to Trieste in Italy and Ryanair were offering seats for £14.99, it was a no brainer. The flight left on time, I got a window seat, my carry-on bag fitted their strict limits, I’d brought along my lunch from Stansted Airport’s Pret à Manger outlet (cheaper than the sandwiches they flogged on board). I’d printed out my boarding card beforehand  (Ryanair doesn’t offer airport check in, except for a premium additional charge). In the air I resisted buying a Ryanair €2 scratch card (to help you get rid of loose change of course) and I ignored the subway-style adverts plastered along the overhead bins.

So what was not to like? Well my only real complaint was the £5 charge for paying for my ticket! Quite a few airlines these days load on charges for credit cards, while not giving you much option to pay by another method – Ryanair don’t charge if you use the rare Visa Electron card. Furthermore the charge – a 33% loading on my ticket – is per passenger, not per credit card transaction.


‘We’re still cheapest,’ is the Ryanair response, which is often (but not always) true. There’s no romance in air travel anymore is the mantra, cheap is what it’s always about. Not true, I can still get a kick of the view out the window, even a Ryanair window. And coming back to London, not with Ryanair, I flew out of the airport at Ljubljana in Slovenia. It’s a small airport which not only has free wifi throughout the terminal it also has some romance, in the form of a small collection of Slovenian-built aircraft hanging over the check in desks.

Over the years I’ve travelled in many malarial regions and taken plenty of anti-malarial drugs. Touch wood I’ve never had malaria, but malaria can take a long time to present, so my travels in Africa earlier this year could still effect me. I certainly know I’ve been at risk because I’ve travelled with people who were less careful or even less lucky and came down with malaria.

Our advice and suggestions for protecting yourself against malaria has evolved and developed along with changes in the dangers, the protection advice and the anti-malarial drugs available. Check our Asia & India, Africa or Central & South America health guides for more information.

Earlier this month I went to a briefing on malaria put on at the London office of the Financial Times. The FT has put out a report on Combating Malaria.

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Friday 20 November - from 1.15 pm - Hostelling International are celebrating their 100th anniversary worldwide and their 75th in the USA. They're putting on a forum on Backpack Diplomacy - Youth Travel as a Force for Change and I'll be taking part in the dicussions at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.





 

Last October I did some travelling in Newfoundland, Canada’s eastern island province. More recently I’ve been kicking around Alaska for a forthcoming TV program in the Lonely Planet/National Geographic Roads Less Travelled series. Two novels helped to develop my picture of these places:

You couldn’t ask for a better introduction to the confusion and problems of modern Alaska than Seth Kantner’s Ordinary Wolves. Like the author Cutuk grew up in a sod igloo, leading a life more closely aligned to wild Alaska than the Eskimo population of the nearest settlement. Despite his Iñupiaq name he’s torn between two lives, unable to be at home with either. There’s an interlude in Anchorage, where he doesn’t fit in either, and at the end you’re left lamenting the wilderness purity, the land of ordinary wolves, which may be gone forever. It’s a magic book.

Newfoundland didn’t join Canada until after WW II, prior to that time it was a not terribly successful colony and then a not terribly successful ‘semi-autonomous’ country. In 1934 things got so bad that Britain had to step forward and recolonise it, ie pay the bills and take over the government. After WW II Joe Smallwood led the campaign to join Canada, rather than head back to independence or let Britain go on running the place. Wayne Johnston’s The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is the fictionalised story of Joe Smallwood’s troubled life.

Overlooking Bogota, Colombia in April 2008

When Maureen and I arrived in Sydney the day after Christmas 1972, after a six month Asia overland trip from Europe, we had 27 cents left between us. In late 1973 we started Lonely Planet Publications ... read more