Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
( 539 15 73;
www.hotel-zvezda.si
; Trg Zmage 8; s/d €31/52)
This 36-room
cara-
vanserai
is just a bunch of rooms above a pub-restaurant of the same name. Still, the price
is right.
WHITE STORKS
The white stork (
Ciconia cicconia
), or
beli štrk
in Slovene, is Prekmurje's most beloved symbol. Country people
consider it a symbol of luck and honour for a pair to nest on their rooftop. The storks arrive in spring and spend
the warm summer months here. Come mid-August, they migrate south on a 12,000km trek to sub-Saharan Africa
for the winter, returning in the spring.
Storks build their nests on church steeples, rooftops or telephone poles. The nest is repaired every year, and can
weigh as much as 500kg. Storks live on a diet of worms, grasshoppers, frogs and small rodents. If food is scarce,
however, it is not unknown for parents to turf their fledglings out of the nest.
Slovenia's stork population (around 250 breeding pairs) has grown over the past two decades. Nevertheless, the
white stork remains a vulnerable species primarily because its hunting and breeding grounds - the meadows - are
being destroyed, dried out and regulated.
Eating
SLOVENIAN
Gostilna Lovenjak €
( 525 21 53; starters €6.50-12.70, mains €7.50-16.10; 11am-10pm Mon-Thu,
11am-midnight Fri & Sat, 11am-6pm Sun)
This atmospheric
gostilna
serves such Prek-
murje favourites as
bograč golaž
(Hungarian-style goulash soup), roast suckling pig
served with noodles and indecently rich
prekmurska gibanica
. There's a Sunday buffet
and live music at weekends.
Gostilna Rajh €€
( 543 90 98; Soboška ulica 32; meals from €20; 10.30am-10pm Tue-Sat,
11am-4pm Sun)
In Bakovci, a village 5km to the southwest, this
gostilna
specialises in
local dishes and boasts a large cellar of regional wines.
SLOVENIAN
Okrepčevalnica Grill €
BALKAN
