Koroška (Carinthia) comprises three valleys – the Mežiška dolina, the Dravska dolina and the Mislinjska dolina valleys, and three mountain ranges – the Pohorje, the Karavanke and the Savinjske Alpe, that mark the landscape with an independent originality and solidity.
A little above a thousand square kilometers and some more than 74 000 inhabitants put this region amongst the smallest in Slovenia. It is also one of the oldest Slovenian industrial regions. The previous centuries gave start to mining in the area (the beginnings of mining allegedly date back to the Roman era); and afterwards ironworks and wood industry have flourished here. Today we are trying to present the work of miners, crofters, charcoal-burners, raftsmen, carpenters and blacksmiths most authentically and vivaciously as an important part of our heritage.
The wholeness of the mountain nature and the woods with an extensive net of mountain roads are offering a wide choice of discovering strolls to the peaks of Peca and Raduha and in the wide vastness of Uršlja gora, Olševa, the Smrekovec, the west Pohorje and the Kozjak range; as well as to the slopes of picturesque alpine valleys. You will find the stops in these routes equally beautiful and exciting as the natives, the proud heirs of “the self-sown”, welcome you with their rough, but kind-hearted hospitality.
The charm of Koroška is therefore held not by the glorious monuments but the small treasures, moulded in nature or by man, or by them both.
There are many treasures, scattered over the hidden nooks of villages and nearby mountain valleys under mighty peaks. Koroška, in words of its regular explorers and adrenalin-enjoyers, is “an originality of small treasures and nooks in wilderness in the middle of industrial world – as if it were at the end of the world when it actually is at the cross-road of Europe”.
You are invited to find out more about this original and colourful world!
www.koroska.si