Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
If you want to get online anywhere, you can get a Paket Mobi USB modem for your
laptop for €15, with monthly connection fees from €29.
ADDRESSES & PLACE NAMES
Streets in Slovenian towns and cities are well signposted, although the numbering system can be a bit confusing
with odd and even numbers sometimes running on the same sides of streets and squares.
In small towns and villages, streets are usually not named and houses are just given numbers. Thus Ribčev Laz
13 is house No 13 in the village of Ribčev Laz on Lake Bohinj. As Slovenian villages are frequently made up of
one road with houses clustered on or just off it, this is seldom confusing.
Places with double-barrelled names such as Novo Mesto (New Town) and Črna Gora (Black Hill) start the
second word in lower case (Novo mesto, Črna gora) in Slovene, almost as if the names were Newtown and Black-
hill. This is the correct Slovene orthography, but we've opted to go with the English-language way of doing it to
avoid confusion.
Slovene frequently uses the possessive (genitive) case in street names. Thus a road named after the poet Ivan
Cankar is Cankarjeva ulica and a square honouring France Prešeren is Prešernov trg. Also, when nouns are turned
into adjectives they often become unrecognisable. The town is 'Bled', for example, but 'Bled Lake' is Blejsko
Jezero. A street leading to a castle
(grad)
is usually called Grajska ulica. A road going in the direction of Trieste
(Trst) is Tržaška cesta, Klagenfurt (Celovec) is Celovska cesta and Vienna (Dunaj) is Dunajska cesta. The words '
pri'
, '
pod
' and '
na
' in place names mean 'at the', 'below the' and 'on the' respectively.
Language Courses
The most famous and prestigious place to learn Slovene is the
Centre for Slovene as a
Second/Foreign Language
(Center za Slovenščino kot Drugi/Tuji Jezik; Map p 44 ;
01-241 86 47;
www.centerslo.net
;
Kongresni trg 12)
at the University of Ljubljana. There
are a number of courses available, including two- and four-week summer ones in July of
30 and 80 hours respectively for €270 and €580, and an intensive 12-week course (220
hours; €1300). Prices exclude room and board. The centre also sponsors free 1½-hour in-
troductory lessons in Slovene for tourists at 5pm on Wednesday from May to September
at the
Slovenian Tourist Information Centre
(STIC; 306 45 76;
www.slovenia.info
;
Krekov trg 10; 8am-9pm Jun-Sep, 8am-7pm Oct-May)
in Ljubljana.
Private schools offering courses in Slovene in Ljubljana include the academic
Miklošič
cesta 26)
, with courses of 30/85 hours starting at €240/590, and
Mint International
