1936 On the Continent

in which manyold customs have been preserved. A little to the north is the
Savinjska dolina
(Valley), with the source of the Savinja, which falls in a grand waterfall over a cave from a height of 360 feet, and the spacious green valley of
Logar
(Plesnik), which lies between towering fir-covered hills and is one of the most beautiful valleys in Europe. The chief town of the district,
Celje
(Europe, Pošta), the Roman Claudia Celea and former seat of the Counts of Cilli, is very interesting and shows many traces of its historic past, including the fort above the town, the old church, the council house, and many historic monuments. Celje has a good park, a theatre, a museum, and is a great centre for swimming, fishing, hunting, tennis and winter ports. A similar sports centre is
Maribor
(Orel, Meran), the chief town of the hilly Pohorje and the second largest town in Slovenia. Often called the Jugoslav Meran because of its mild climate, Maribor is also an important cultural centre. It has a theatre, a museum, a library and an orchestra. The town is very picturesque, with many historic monuments, old fortress walls, a twelfth-century cathedral restored in the seventeenth century, a Franciscan convent, and an old bridge. Its park is one of the finest in Jugoslavia, and there is pleasant bathing from an island. It is also renowned for its wines.
    In addition to winter sports, Slovenia has many well-known spas.
Rogaška Slatina
(Kurverwaltung), which exports millions of bottles of its famous water annually, and is excellent for digestive and respiratory troubles, is a fully equipped modern spa with electric, steam, fir and oxygen baths. Because of its lively season, crowded with entertainments, concerts and dances, and its picturesque position amid green woods, hills and vineyards, Rogaška Slatina is a popular holiday resort for many besides those who take its waters.
    Other well-known spas, all lying in wooded mountain districts, include
Dobrna
(Toplice, Novigrad), which has fine parks, is famous for its goat-milk, yoghourt and kephir cures, and excellent for heart, nerve, kidney and urinary troubles;
Slatina Radenci
(Kurhaus), which is recommended for sclerosis, heart, kidney and digestive troubles;
Rimske Toplice
, a spa for rheumatism, asthma, and nerve complaints; sunny
Golnik
, situated amidstfirs and good for tuberculosis; and
Laško
(rheumatism, respiratory troubles, nerves).
Bosnia and Herzegovina
    Even if your senses should become so intoxicated with the beauties of Dalmatia and Slovenia that nothing would seem likely to impress you further, you will not be able to resist the fascination of Bosnia. For Bosnia, the Jugoslav “East,” is a land truer to the traditions of the East than Turkey itself. Here you will still find in a completely unadulterated form all those thousand and one curiosities which give the East its glamour, colour and mystery. Muezzins still chant their weird long-drawn cries from white minarets rising slender above ramshackle little wooden houses with latticed windows, men still sit cross-legged with long pipes discussing with Eastern stoicism the events of the day, and women still move about furtively with veils over their faces. Clear, fresh mountain streams still flow unhindered over cobbled, grass-grown streets through the middle of the town; donkeys laden with wood still appear suddenly from under the most unexpected arches, where a minute ago you established with absolute certainty that a cul-de-sac ended in someone’s backyard; and houses are still perched at angles which defy every known law of gravitation. Little wooden shanties, on whose immediate collapse you are bound to speculate, appear here as well-known meeting places where, round a splashing fountain below cool cypresses, you may sip Turkish coffee and survey the bustle of the market with its picturesque peasantry, its fatalistically unmoved Moslem vendors in fez or turban, and listen to the varied cries of vendors of bread, meat, vegetables, sweets, “boza” or lemonade.
Picturesque Bosnia
    Life is so fascinating here in its straightforward simplicity that it dominates all, even nature. Bosnia is not deficient in natural beauty, yet the peculiar deep green of Bosnia’s forests, the romantic beauty of its narrow mountain gorges, its rushing mountain streams and its wonderful waterfalls, which anywhere else would evoke exclamations of admiration and surprise, seem here in Bosnia to have been createdmerely as a suitable