Country Guide

The best-known and most visited part of Slovenia is the short (47 km/29 mi) but important Adriatic coastline. This region has a Mediterranean type of climate with mild winters and warm, sunny summers.

The coast is backed by high mountains, and winter rainfall is heavy. The one unpleasant feature of the winter weather is a cold gusty wind, the bora, which brings cold air from central and eastern Europe down to the coast for a few days at a time; it blows particularly violently in Slovenia.

Summers on this coast are not entirely rainless, and the fine, sunny weather is often interrupted by thunderstorms. Sunshine averages some four hours a day in winter and from ten to twelve hours a day in summer.

Inland climatic conditions rapidly become more typical of eastern Europe with cold winters and warm summers, and here summer is the wettest season. Slovenia includes part of the eastern Alps, with weather and climate very similar to southern Austria.

The table for the Slovenian capital Ljubljana illustrates conditions at moderate inland elevations.