We collected a handful of tourist brochures from the racks adjacent to the luggage carousal in the compact airport in the Slovenian countryside outside of Ljubljana. A young boy in the company of his family, likely awaiting the arrival of visiting relatives, smiled at us and proudly proclaimed in heavily accented English, “It is Slovenia.”

I had to be persuaded to come here. My wife, Pamela, had accompanied me on a business trip to Germany with the understanding that we would tack on seven days of vacation somewhere in Europe. I’ve always thought August is the least desirable time for Americans to visit the continent. It’s usually hot and humid and the people of the north lay siege to the countries in the south where I would typically prefer to visit. They overwhelm the hotels, transportation systems and points of interest, not mention the patience of the inhabitants who stay home to serve them.

So, I was prepared to listen when Pamela made a strong case for Slovenia. My better half had been encouraged by the sole member of the Slovenian fan club of her book and blogs; a charming and persuasive woman with whom she’d struck up a friendship while corresponding via the Internet over the past few years.

Although Slovenia had not been on the top of my list – or even on it for that matter – I eventually went along with the plan. I sold myself on the chance of discovering a hidden gem in the old East Bloc before it was totally overrun, much as have been Prague and Budapest, by bargain-traveling European “weekenders” clutching worn copies of popular guide books.

I’ll admit it helped mightily that our Slovene cheerleader not only offered her expert and extraordinarily detailed personal trip planning services, but even volunteered to throw in her husband and the family car for an excursion or two. “You must come to Slovenia!” was her constant refrain in e-mail exchanges with my now equally enthusiastic wife.

A barrage of travel links extolling the virtues of the former “Ex-Yu” republic soon began appearing in my e-mail in box. Clearly, this was a battle being waged by an indefatigable two-woman front.

Hence the deal was done. In breaking the news of our travel destination in succession to our American and then German friends, we received the same raised-eyebrow response, “Slovenia?”

A few weeks before our departure I roamed the shelves of our local Los Gatos, California library. If I’m going to the Balkans, I thought, I must finally sort out its complex history. One-hundred pages into the most readable of three academic histories on the region I threw in the towel. “Everyone pretty much has fought and or dislikes everyone else,” the gracious and knowledgeable husband of Pamela’s new Slovenian best friend would later neatly sum up to me while chatting during a long drive.

Ask just about any Slav about Balkan history and you are likely to get a passionate one-thousand year blow-by-blow chronology of who did what to whom. All as if it had happened yesterday. The same husband later honestly conceded he had once lacked the fullness of this mandatory recitation. That changed when he was conscripted into the old Yugoslav military in the waning years of its existence. “I had to learn this history … almost in self defense,” he quipped, “Because all of the Serbs, Croats and others knew it by heart.”

Fortunately for me, the broad brushstroke “recent” history of Slovenia proper is easier to grasp absent the rest of the region. Beginning in the 13^th Century it became part of the Hapsburg/Austrian-Hungarian Empire, where it largely remained (barring the occasional revolt and a brief period under Napoleonic French rule).

After WW I, a large part of its western territory was ceded to Italy as a war prize. The remainder of the country became a component of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Following WW II Slovenia was one of the six republics that made up the communist Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. It was only in 1991 that Slovenia first gained its independence.

The view from the balcony of our hotel room overlooking the alpine Lake Bled, a medieval castle, the country’s only island and the town of Bled itself is stunning. We are in the Grand Hotel Toplice, where President Tito held court at state functions and today’s visiting heads of state and dignitaries are often quartered. There is an impressive photo archive of VIP guests in hallway off the lobby. Granted, one can no more get a “true feel” for a country while staying in a tastefully restored 1930s five-star hotel than by packing in with a gaggle of fellow foreign travelers at a local B&B. But this is nicer than any such place I’ve been privileged to visit – anywhere in Europe.

Our Slovenian hosts make the most of a rainy day by taking us to tour one of the many impressive “karst” caves. Rivers here have tunneled into the soft limestone making for dramatic underground hiking. Early inhabitants of the region gave rivers several names, not understanding that these streams of water submerge and reemerge several times over.

We also make a stop to view corrals teeming with the famous Lipizzaner horses. Our local guides underscore that these are, “The original ones!”  We get a healthy dose of mountains and history on a winding drive through the Julian Alps, where views of the jagged peaks are interspersed with monuments to the southern front of the “War to end all Wars.” A long and diplomatic negotiation between the sexes gains a welcome concession of time to visit the WW I museum at Kobarid. That’s in exchange for lunch at a local Italian restaurant, nonetheless.

We next drive to briefly visit the Adriatic coast at Trieste, Italy, stopping to playfully snap photos by the signs and a ghost town of facilities that not long ago marked a well-armed border crossing to and from a communist state.

Pamela and I go on a walking tour of the capital city of Ljubljana where we are spending the second half of our stay. A lovely and smart tour guide regales us with a polished litany of the history of this city of some 270,000. She sprinkles in a wealth of humor and anecdotes in her descriptions with what we’ve come to understand as chronic understatement. We visit the city hall, medieval fortress, churches and famous bridges. We walk by the main building of the university that has a student body of 60,000. During this and subsequent strolls through this picturesque downtown we are drawn to the multitude of cafes and restaurants that spill onto the sidewalks along the river. I can’t resist the Czech Pilsner beer on tap.

It’s obvious in the shiny high-tech funicular that takes us up to the fortress … in the new glass pedestrian bridge near the iconic old “Dragon bridge” … and in the city center’s expansive pedestrian zone … that massive work and investment have gone into improvements and beautification in just the past five or so years. The architectural, exhibit and graphic design is all very pleasing. Art is everywhere. Modern sculptures and structures blend in with the old. And it all works.

Our walking tour guide had summed up Slovenia with the word “diversity.” She justified this overused label by highlighting impressive statistics such as the percentages of land covered by forests and mountains and nearly 50 dialects of Slovene. All of this in a country the size of the state of New Jersey with a population of just over two million.

However, far more impressive is a point she later makes: Until its independence just 20 years ago, Slovenia was always a dominion – subject to foreign rule or subordinate to its Balkan neighbors. It was consistently under heavy top-down cultural and political foreign influences. For hundreds of years under Habsburg rule, for example, the official language was German. For decades after that, in a significant portion of the country, it was Italian. Later, Slovene was less dominant among the Slavic languages of the former communist Yugoslavia.

Although this country has strong historical ties to Austria and Italy, its language and culture more closely approximates its southern Slavic neighbors. Yet through this long and fractured history Slovenia has still managed to maintain a distinct culture and self-identity. That is what really blows us away.

Our gracious hosts invite us to their home for a send-off dinner. The evening dissolves into the wee hours of the morning with a delicious flow of Slovenian food, wine and conversation. They are proud of their small country, but never boastful. They express disappointments in the nepotism and petty politics of their fledgling democracy and of the still limited economic opportunities. We actually feel the need to remind them that Slovenia is but two decades removed from a command economy. Yet their self-deprecating humor, self-criticism and minor inferiority complex appear to us to be endearing and healthy national traits.

Between the pulling of corks, we openly exchange our insights and impressions of each others’ countries and cultural idiosyncrasies. Our hosts fearlessly speak English with a rich and lively vocabulary. We admire that she could also have this conversation in fluent Italian or German; he might have also added Croatian to the mix. We laugh and toast time and again. We are all very tipsy and teary eyed when the taxi arrives to herald the end of what we now call a rich adventure.

In the early days of our visit I had thought of clever slogans to describe this country: “Switzerland without the Swiss,” “Slavic Light,” and “Unpretentious Italy” were leading candidates. But none of those really fit. No doubt, that young boy at the airport had it right all along. It is Slovenia.