Slovenian town cashes in on Melania’s rise
Most of the passengers I meet on my frequent flights to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, are there to explore the city’s charming cobbled streets or else they are heading further afield to pretty Lake Bled or to the magnificent medieval seaside town of Piran.
But that could change next year. The country has a new attraction – an industrial town sitting on the bank of the country’s longest river. While much of Europe nervously awaits Donald Trump’s inauguration, people in Sevnica are expecting a tourism boost.
Sevnica, about 80km from the capital, is where Melania Trump was born. She may have left the town as a teenager but that’s not going to stop local entrepreneurs from celebrating her rise by renaming their priciest pizzas and pancakes after Melania and dusting them with edible gold.
Local sights include the fivestorey block in the Naselje Heroja Maroka area where Melania and her sister Ines grew up and the white villa their parents Amalija and Viktor built in the hills.
The main tourist attraction is the castle, which offers superb views across the old town and St Nicholas Church to the River Sava. The castle has Baroque and Renaissance interiors, four towers, and a fresco in a disguised Lutheran chapel (it was built to look like a farm building to hide its real purpose).
I’m here to sample the topquality wines. Slovenia’s varieties may not be as well known as those produced in neighbouring Italy and Austria, but the country has been making wines since before the Romans arrived.
The city of Maribor boasts the world’s oldest living vine (450 years). Sevnica is in the heart of Posavje, the smallest of Slovenia’s three wine regions but the only one that produces more red than white.
The star grape here is blaufrankisch – probably brought to the region when it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Sevnica Castle’s own vineyard uses this grape and the castle hosts an annual blaufrankisch festival in June.
If beer is more to your taste, the spa town of Lasko – a 30-minute drive north of Sevnica – hosts a beer and flower festival in July. If you’re feeling peckish after a glass or two of the local brew, crepes are ubiquitous in Slovenia, filled with local honey or walnuts, or smothered with chocolate spread. As a homage to Melania, a restaurant at Lisca has pimped its pancakes with blueberries, a bourbon and vanilla filling, ice cream, cream – and edible gold dust.
Surely a pancake fit for a first lady… if Melania ever decides to return to her roots.
For more, see slovenia.info and visitsevnica.com