Slovenia… Douze Points!!!

It must have been like one of those nights when everybody was glued to the television to watch the Eurovision Song Contest. 

When I saw the picture of a bar in Sevnica, Slovenia, with residents cheering for the election victory of Donald Trump; those were the words that instantly came out from my mouth. Slovenia… douze points!!! Slovenia twelve… points!!!

Anyone above a certain age in Europe remembers how Eurovision song contests used to be; a national battle of pride and a burst of sheer satisfaction with every "douze points" received and a devastating failure if not.

 The crowd cheering with champagne glasses at hand seemed very content, though their glasses probably did not have glitzy expensive stuff but a humble local sparkly, most likely a bubbly Istenič from the Lower Sava Valley or the local Posavje wines. The wild connection between a sleepy Slovenian town and the U.S. elections is hard to comprehend if one does not know about the past of the new first lady. Melania Trump, once hometown girl Melanija Knavs, is now the pride of Sevnica! She grew up in her birth town and then went to school in Ljubljana before she set sail for the wild world of international modeling. It seems like a cliché story of rags to riches. Riches it is correct, but the little town of Sevnica, and Slovenia in general, is far from rags; actually the country is a hidden gem of Europe and remains largely undiscovered.

Slovenia is like a set stage of the old film "The Sound of Music," with the story of Melanija being not so far from it. The country closely resembles the Austrian and especially the Swiss landscapes when the Swiss Alps were only becoming discovered by the world jet set. Slovenia, however, offers much more; its unique geographical location...