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Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Maribor, Slovenia.
Portoroz, Slovenia.
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Two Jems and a Gem (source: 1,2,3).
American newspapers generally ignore Slovenia, but every once in a while you’ll find something in a travel section somewhere, like this recent story from the Boston Globe: Slovenia a multi-faceted Jem of Central Europe. Note that the word is actually spelled "gem." Humorously enough, "Jem" is the name of a militant Islamic terrorist organization, Jaish-e-Mohammed. (Army of Mohammed) or the delicious Welsh musician. (See above) I don’t think they meant either.
Otherwise the story follows what seems to be the standard formula for writing about Slovenia, in which the following points are always assiduously mentioned:
1) Ljubljana is a mini-Prague or the next Prague or the sister of Prague.
2) Bled is gorgeous/awesome/bodacious.
3.a.) Everything is small and easy-to-reach, which makes exploring Slovenia easy.
3.b.) Although everything is small and easy-to-reach, the writer still doesn’t travel anywhere east of Ljubljana, ignoring Celje, Maribor, Murska Sobota and half of the entire country.
4.a.) Slovenia is great because it’s "hidden," "off-the-beaten-path," "uncrowded," and "unknown" to the filthy, stinking tourist masses.
4.b.) Although Slovenia is great because it’s off-the-beaten-path and not touristy, the writer only visits the main tourist sites of the country: Bled, Postojna, Ljubljana. At no point does he/she leave the beaten path.
I think that just about covers it.
(Thanks Jesse!)
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Typical.At least, they write good things. Unlike what they do about poor Belgium.
Well, they won us some coastline. Officially it’s length is 46.6 km (29 miles), not 39. Or do they know something more?
Hm… maybe it’s just because the coffee still hasn’t kicked in, but I’m pretty sure I know what cause the unfortunate spelling error - I’ll bet the author wasn’t sure wether to use word "jewel" or "gem" - hence: "jem" :)))
Although everything is small and easy-to-reach, the writer still doesn’t travel anywhere east of Ljubljana, ignoring Celje, Maribor, Murska Sobota and half of the entire country.Entirely understandable, I’d say.
" former Yugoslav leader Marshal Josef Tito" Pop-quiz question. what’s wrong with the above?
Josef? It should be Josip Broz
Nicely spotted, Matej. If the Croatian Foreign Ministry gets wind of this, it would be a pretty compelling bargaining chip for them. ("Even the Boston Globe thinks you have too much coast — we’re not the only ones!" etc…) I’m not sure about the "Josef" thing. The BBC spells (misspells?) it like that here — not sure if it’s the Anglicized-Germanic version or what.Also: I remember hearing a different story about the dragon bridge — something about it wagging its tale when a virgin crosses the bridge or something similar. Not the "you’ll come back to Ljubljana" deal. What are the stories? Are there more than one?
Jah obviously the correspondant believes in a CIA plan that put Tito
on the power years ago. He is actually from Montana and his name is
Marshall Joseph Tyto. AGain…what can you expect….
Hm… being born and bread in Ljubljana I must confess that I do not know of any legend about the dragon bridge…. There is a legend about having a decent mayor, but that’s a different story
Born and bred in Yugoslavia, I had absolutely no idea that Tito’s
name had been an issue abroad. After posting the above, I checked the wikipedia Tito talk site
and found out there is indeed confusion about this, and several people
seem to believe "Tito" was a surname. Hm, live and learn.I suppose calling him Josef Tito would be a bit like saying this man’s name was Bob Knievel …
Ah well…. Better that than mistaking "our" Tito with, say, Tito Puente
well, judging from the first line at the wikipedia talk page, they did initialy confuse Tito with some russian cosmonaut…
and several people seem to believe “Tito” was a surname. Hm, live and learn.
I believe it’s because of the name order:
-the “partisan names” (or any nicknames for that matter) are usually written at the end, e.g. Josip Broz - Tito (the “-” was usually dropped in Tito’s case)
-while the correct English (international?) form is a nickname in the middle, e.g.
Josip “Tito” Broz
Generous article. Though from all the generic points Micahel exposed one would wonder whether or not there’s a computer program around that makes a random "article on Slovenia", just like MS Word makes pre-made greeting cards.About Josef… I’m not sure with grammatical rules on this, but maybe it’s allowed to change the names in such a manner? Seeing as though Stalin is constantly mentioned as Joseph Stalin in english history books, yet his real named transcribed from cyrilic would be something like "Iosif".
Whait, you’re saying Tito isn’t Tito’s surname?? Damn, I am a Slovenian… and I thought it was his surname…
Or at least I didn’t think it was his name or ‘nickname’. 
you have a strong point there, freddie. stalin is as much a nickname (nom de guerre, i believe the proper term is) as tito is. josef (or josip) tito just sounds strange to us ex-yugoslavians, because we’re not used to this particular word order.
Michael, True, there was a mis-spelling. But, is it possible that the correct spelling should have been "Jam" rather than "Gem"?Tasty, thick, sweet, squished Jam. ANy country can be a Gem; very few qualify as Jams.
Jam? As in this Illuminatus! group?
I saw that article a few days ago, and have to say it’s one of the worst written ones I’m come across in awhile. Except for the few quotes from his LJ tour guide, you never get the impression that the writer was even in the country. Everything could have been copied and pasted from the web. (If you knew how much freelance travel writers get paid by newspapers, you’d understand why.) You’re absolutely right on about the generic presentation of all these stories. But it’s also a hard sell. I’m regularly in touch with editors, pitching stories, and the usual response goes something like this: "Oh yeah, Slovenia’s great. We ran a story about a year ago on Ljubljana (or Postojna or Bled, etc.). Get back to us eight months."
After spending more than 32 hours on planes and in airports, without any real sleep, I’ll make this brief: Your observations are dead-on, Michael! BTW, I’ve often wished that more travel writers would go beyond the Bohinj/Bled/Ljubljana/Postojna/Piran corridor — not necessarily ignore those places, but maybe, just maybe, add a line or two about the majestic Soca Valley or the country’s many vineyards, for instance. However, we also have to admit that we see these articles from a different perspective than outsiders, and that every one of them is welcome.
^^Boy, I am tired. By "them" I meant articles about Slovenia, not (necessarily) outsiders.
Back in 2000, my dad and I visited Slovenia, and yes, we did the "tourist" thing, visiting Ljubljana, Lake Bled and Postojna. But since we have relatives there, we stayed in a private home in Vrhnika pri Lozu (oft confused with "big" Vrhnika, even by Slovenians), a very small town where my great-grandfather was born. We were also convinced to hike to the summit of Mt. Sneznik (definitely off the beaten path for two Amerikanski flatlanders
with a local brass band and we enjoyed a quiet, non-touristy stay in a quiet corner of Slovenia. We also survived two nights in the lovely Park Hotel in Ljubljana, whose accomodations are more like Army barracks than a hotel, and a nice stay at the Pension Jagodic right before our departure. While in Kozarisce we did manage to get a young tour guide for Grad Sneznik that spoke excellent English (somewhat bolstering Michael’s earlier lingua franca article) and gave my dad and me a personal tour. All this and the serendipitous arrangements with previously unknown and recently discovered (before the trip) family there helped immensely in making our stay quite enjoyable. The parish priest in Loz spoke no English but showed me some interesting highlights of the church building there as we conversed in (his excellent and my somewhat broken) German. My conclusion on the language issue was that age was the dividing factor between English vs. German as a second language. Older folks learned German, younger ones leared English in school. I suppose the latter is a remnant of the Austro-Hungarian Empire…Add to that a three-day side trip to the Croatian island of Pag, and you have the perfect combination of tourist and native activities ;-)My eternal gratitude goes out to Ales Medic, Andrej and Zdenka Trubacev, Maria Trubacev, Franc and Silvia Sepic, Meta Sepic and Jakov Palcic for making that trip the trip of a lifetime.