Bank of Tourism Potentials in Slovenia (BTPS) promotes networking of ideas and their realisation oportunities in (Slovene) tourism arena. This is our Travel blog, where we will try to find different people willing to write about Slovenia and Slovenian tourism potentials. All in the name of even better tourism for which our Bank of Tourism Potentials is struggling 24/7. Stay tuned to BTPS and stay tuned to series of live reporting from Slovenian tourism scene!


November 29, 2010

Slovenian Mediterranean

Juan Lopez, young Spanish entrepreneur discovering Slovenian tourism (more pictures)

Only 47 kilometres of coast has Slovenia. Between Italy and Croatia, Slovenian Coast appears proud of itself. Last week I have been discovering the coast from Hrvatini to Sečovlje.

In this area the wind, the water and the salt of Mediterranean Sea join with the olive trees, vineyard, khakis, etc… Here, you can see the most beautiful colours of the sea and the earth; hear the wages, try different tastes…

My trip started in Portorož (Port of roses), I was working there in Istriana Tourist Service Portorož with Andreja Humar Fatorič and Lia; they explained me how they operate their business and showed me Vila Marina, a luxuries villa with 8 apartments, close to Marina Portorož. I stayed in Villa Salina during the time I was on the coast. The view from the Villa is incredible, you see the Sečovlje Saltpans (the photo of this blog is from there) and I recommend you go to the Saltpans and visit them. In Portorož, Andreja and her husband gave me to try: olive oil, cheese, khakis… Oh all it was very good!

Portorož was born as a thermal centre in the 18th century: water, salt, mud … with the years Portorož has become in an important tourist destination and hotels, restaurants, pubs, casinos… await the arrival of tourists (specially in summer). Only 2 kilometres from Portorož is Piran. The whole city is a monument. The first thing you see upon the arrival is the Saint George’s church Tower (similar to Saint Mark’s tower in Venice) and the most important place of the city is the “Tartini Square” I invite you to get lost in the side streets, go up to the walls and see the wonderful sightseeing of the sea and the white peaks of the Alps.

Continuing along the coast lies Koper (Capodistria), a beautiful town where Greeks, Romans and specially Venetians have left a great influence. When you go there you have to go to Tito’s Square and see “The Praetorian Palace”, “The Loggia” and “The Cathedral”. When I was in Koper I met Mateja Kozlovič, she showed me the apartments and rooms she rents: Kozlovič rooms in the middle of nature, with great views of the Adriatic Sea and the countryside. Mateja and her husband have an olive oil factory Oljarna Hrvatin and they gave me an olive oil bottle (I have tried and it’s exquisite.)

I came back to Ljubljana yesterday, I was very happy on the coast. And the weather was good (except one day when it rained all day), it was warm and sunny. Yesterday upon the return I saw snow. It was snowing a lot in all Slovenia except on the coast. So I have to prepare my winter clothes because cold and snow are now in Ljubljana.

See you soon and I am enjoying the first snow and be careful if you have to drive!

November 22, 2010

Dobrodošli v naravi! Dobrodošli v Bohinj!

Juan Lopez, young Spanish entrepreneur discovering Slovenian tourism (more pictures)

Incredible, wonderful…! All the adjectives are few to describe the beauty of the lake Bohinj and the Julian Alps! Last Thursday I took the bus from Ljubljana to Bohinjska Bistrica and I spent two days there and I visited The Triglav National Park.

When you arrive to Slovenia, the first thing you see is Slovenia’s flag. There are flags everywhere; you see the colours: white, blue and red and in the coat of arms you could see three stars, the Adriatic sea and the Triglav mountain. If there is a symbol in Slovenia this is Triglav (2,864 metres) and Slovenian people told me that you aren’t a “true Slovenian” until you climb the Triglav mountain. Last Friday I saw Triglav from Bohinj Lake; I think I’m going to learn to climb and the next time I come back to Slovenia I could try to reach the top.

And what can I say about Lake Bohinj? It is the largest lake in Slovenia (maximum length 4,2 kilometres, maximum width 1 kilometre), its primary inflow is the Savica River (I recommend going  to see the Savica waterfall, even when you have to climb more than 500 steps) and its primary outflow is the Sava Bohinjka.

This is the environment where I was last week: mountains, lake, rivers, forest… pure nature! And when is the best moment to go there? In summer you can enjoy walking, rowing in the lake, riding horses … In spring and autumn you see the different colours of the nature, climbing, hiking…And in winter, skiing is possible in different ski centres like Vogel or Kobla.

What is the best place for accommodation in Bohinj? There aren’t any doubts: the five star Bohinj Park EKO Hotel. This new hotel offers to their guests all they need: different kind of rooms (presidential suite, business suites, family suites, standard rooms…). All rooms with warm natural materials and high standard equipment offer a magnificent view towards Julian Alps. The hotel provides 8 different sized conference halls. Restaurant offers a pleasant ambient in selected natural materials, diverse and excellent cuisine and fast room-service. Guests can choose from authentic home meals, international cuisine, vegetarian and diet offer. The hotel has its own bowling area with 5 professional bowling lanes. Park Hotel is connected with Aquapark by an underground corridor and thus offers a unique water experience: swimming pools, saunas, fitness, wellness… What more can you request? 

I want to highlight one thing about the hotel. Bohinj Park EKO Hotel is one of the most advanced ecological constructions in Europe. They use a system which consumes less energy. They recycle water; they spend less electric energy with Led technology; walls are very well isolated. When you remove your card from its dock a system activates a time delay before disabling. On every window there is a sensor, which shuts down the air-conditioning after a certain amount of time. Computer system regulates climate conditions in the room; it adapts to the outdoor climate as well (temperature, moisture, sun, part of the day ...) and makes optimal living conditions. It’s essential that we take care of our environment; if not, will new generations enjoy the nature?

So if you had read the blog, and you  would like to discover the beautiful Slovenian nature, it’s the moment to go to Bohinj! I invite you to go. When? Right now! Prepare your ski equipment because it's starting to snow in the mountains.

PS: I prepared some Spanish recipes for the employees of the hotel. Here is an advice on how to prepare famous paella:

PAELLA

Ingredients for 6 people:
7 cups of rice (cup coffee)
3 cloves of garlic.
3 ripe red tomatoes.
1 / 2 cup olive oil.
1 / 2 rabbit or 1 / 2 sliced chicken.
150 grams of cooked peas.
6 small lobsters
6 king prawns.
150 grams of sliced squid.
250 grams of mussels.
250 grams of clams.
Condiment saffron yellow.
Sal


Preparation
Place a paella pan on the fire and add the oil.  When the oil it will be hot add grated tomatoes and minced garlic.Then lay the pieces of meat and fry them lightly. Then add the rice and mix well with a wooden spoon, then add the peas, squid, mix again and add water (twice that of rice), add the salt and saffron and let high heat for 5 minutes. After this time,  lower the heat and keep cooking for another 15 minutes. When you still have some souo, add clams and mussels, cooked in advance and place the prawns and lobsters decorating over rice.
When the rice is just right, remove from heat, let stand for 5 minutes and serve in the same paella.

November 19, 2010

Let’s help all people travel!


Juan Lopez, young Spanish entrepreneur discovering Slovenian tourism (more pictures)

Hello, I am here again. Ten days ago I wrote the last blog and I anticipated some things about what I would write in this blog. So, I’m going to start:

From the first days of November I have been working in the company PREMIKI on a project Turag4all (http://www.turag4all.eu/). As you know  this company focuses on accessible tourism, they want that all people could travel (specially the people with disabilities), so I went to their office and I help them. The first day I went to Turag4all I was with Dolores (the boss) and Dolores’ team: Kaja, Fanika, Kristina and Silvia. All of them are very friendly and I have enjoyed working with them.
The company started as a project financed by the European Social Fund and Slovenian Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs and it is at the beginnings. So, I have seen how an enterprise is born and how it grows. 
At the start they are getting in touch with different Slovenian associations, and hotels in search of collaboration. They visit the hotels and if the accommodations have facilities for disabled people they give them the certificate “Disability Friendly” and they promote these places. At the moment they promote different hotels in Slovenia.

The company has taken part in the World Travel Market in London (from 8th to 11th November 2010), in this fair there were more than 5,000 companies from all over the world (18 of them were from Slovenia) and more than 24,000 visitors attended. At that event people from the company met people from all over the world and they have established contacts with people and companies from Croatia, Bulgaria, Italy, U.K…. In the next days Dolores is going to Valladolid (Spain), very close to my city, to participate in the third international congress on accessible tourism for all.

I helped them translate the turag4all.eu webpage to Spanish and I have looked at some contacts with Spanish companies to try establish some links with Slovenia. I’d like to highlight the organization FEAFES, Spanish Confederation group of federations and associations of people with mental illness and their families. They organize trips for people with disabilities in Spain and in Europe (París…). In my opinion I think it could be very interesting if Turag4all could work with them or other similar associations.

I have worked very happy and I have learnt differenent things that I consider very useful in my life.

Now, I’m going to prepare the suitcase because I’m going… I´m going to Bohinj, because Bohinj Park Eko Hotel is waiting for me.

See you soon.

November 08, 2010

Happy to be here

Juan Lopez, young Spanish entrepreneur discovering Slovenian tourism (more pictures)

I want to write right now, yes it’s my birthday! I’m getting older and older, but I’m very happy. I’m lucky to be here in Slovenia, I’m blessed to work here, I’m pleasant to discover this country.

I have a lot of things to tell you, so I’m going to start at the beginning. On October 29th I went with some friends to Budapest (Hungary) and we spent there some days; on October 31st we visited Bratislava (Slovakia) and on November 1st we were in Vienna (Austria), we had a great time and enjoyed it a lot.

But now I will tell you about my work. At the social tourism workshop I attended last week I met Barbara Vodopivec from Humanitas. Humanitas is a society for human rights and supportive action. It is a voluntary, non-governmental and non-profit organisation. Its principal aims are to offer assistance to less privileged groups at home and around the world, to represent and assert their interests, and to promote tolerance. And during this week I’ll make an appointment with her because I’m interesting about the things they do. So, in the next blog you will find more information about Barbara and Humanitas.

During this week I have worked on my business plan. When you start your business plan it’s difficult because you don’t know exactly what you want, you can hardly predict things such as the expenses and incomes that you will have …but in my opinion it’s useful because it can help you think about the target audience, define comparative advantages, threats in the environment etc.

Also, I have been investigating innovation in Spanish tourism since this is the area my host entrepreneur Dejan is most interested in. There is a public company whose objective is to merge new technologies and tourism: SEGGITUR. That company aids in the management, development, implementation and maintenance of various projects. I’ve read about different projects and I think there are two very interesting: the first one is the webpage http://www.spain.info/ they run because it writes about all the most interesting things in Spain. The second one is http://www.europeseniortourism.eu/, the webpage that promotes Spanish tourism for people over 55 years old.

Also I have searched for innovative tourism products in the region where I come from: Salamanca. Salamanca is not a very big town (160,000 habitants) that lies in the centre of Spain, 210 km (2 hours) from Madrid. Salamanca is very famous for the University and a lot of people visit the city because of their studies (about 30.000 students every year) and for the monuments (the old town is a Unesco World Heritage Monument). So, Salamanca is a city with a lot of tourism potential but if people don’t offer new and different products, I believe that tourism development will stagnate.

The last things that people have done in Salamanca to attract tourists are:
-    Build and Promote Golf Courses
-    Promote Rural Tourism.
-    Experiences new sensations in Palaces or Castles.
-    Enjoy the food and the wine: catas de vino, vinoterapia, chocolaterapia
-    Spas & Health Resorts
-    Visit bulls in their environment
-    Academies where they teach you to cut the jamón ibérico
-    Outdoors Sport: cycling, hiking, trekking, canoeing, ride horses, paintball
-    River Cruises

And I’ve started working in tourist agency Turag4all, a company that promotes tourism for people with mental or physical disabilities. In the next blog I’m writing more about the things I’ve learnt and the things I’ve done with them.

To finish I’d like to tell you that on Thursday 4th November my sister and her boyfriend came to Slovenia to visit me. Like a good host I showed them around Ljubljana, we took hundreds of photos: the castle, Prešernov trg, river Ljubljanica, Dragon bridge, old town, the Town hall, Saint Nicholas Cathedral, Kongresni trg, art deco buildings… and all the places that make Ljubljana a small, but very beautiful jewel. On Sunday 6th November we discovered Bled Lake and Bohinj Lake (the last one in Triglav National Park). What can I tell you about these places? Bled is all beautiful: the castle built on top of a 130 meter cliff overlooking lake Bled, the church in the middle of the lake, the sightseeings of the alps mountains… and later we went to Bohinj… I will not tell you anything about Bohinj because I’m visiting Bohinj Park Eko hotel in mid-November (so you have to wait until I write to discover Bohinj area).

As you can see, dear readers, I don’t have a lot of time to waste in Slovenia, time flies so quickly… and I have to discover so many things…. I hope you like my blog and I'll see you soon.