As Slovene tourist destinations go, Idrija, a town of seven thousand, is usually considered an afterthought, if it’s thought about at all. It’s 20 kilometers to the north of the more celebrated Karst area, and just a bit farther from the laid-back coast; to the north lie the Alpine beauties of Bovec, and to the west, near the Italian border, the rustic charms of the Goriska Brda wine country.
Idrija sits on the edge of the Idrija Fault, which separates Slovenia’s subalpine region from the porous Karst. The surroundings are a geologist’s playground; the land is a study in soil erosion, with scores of pines lying tumbled roots over teakettle into roadside gorges.
At first glance, beyond its attractive setting in a basin surrounded by high hills and low mountains, Idrija may not overly impress a visitor. But, like nature, its treasures like to hide. And since the locals aren’t inundated with tourists, they’re unfailingly gracious to any who happen by.
To understand Idrija, one must know that it is, or was, a source place of two very diverse materials: mercury from the mine, and snow-white bobbin lace, lace for purists, from a centuries-old tradition taught at home and in a celebrated school. Masculine and feminine principles epitomized. Yin-yang out the yin-yang. A dangerous substance extracted by men in a dangerous occupation, from dark tunnels below earth; and lace, knit in intricate patterns by women’s hands from white cotton thread in the sunlight. This legacy provides Idrija with a poetic balance, and the town screams authenticity from head to tail. A place like this couldn’t be phony if it tried. To journey here is to make a humble but rewarding pilgrimage.
Idrija, which has the low-key, almost somnolent vibe one finds in any smallish Slovene town, has an idiot-proof street layout: the town core is shaped like a short, fat fish, with bulbous Gewerkenegg Castle (former mine HQ) as the tail. Points of interest start at the junction of the Idrija and Nikova rivers and run in a more or less straight line down to the Idrija Town Museum located in cute old Gewerkenegg.
Mercury and Idrija have been linked from the latter’s birth; it’s the reason for the town’s existence. Even Idrija’s name derives from the Latin term for mercury, Hydrargirum, and the town seal features the familiar figure of the Roman messenger god posing on tiptoe. The liquid metal was discovered here in 1490; in 1508, when ore rich in cinnabar crystals (a mixture of 20 percent sulfur and 80 percent mercury) was found, the mine boomed and Idrija went along for the ride. Miners, who received wages substantially higher than the regional average, and managers flocked here from as far away as the Czech and German lands, all then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
History and museums aside, Idrija is also a contemporary town with a private life of its own. A flyer posted on a wall advertises, in English, a local house-party rave ("BE THERE OR YOU WILL REGRET FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE"). That weird, huge yellow postmodern structure at the river junction that looks like a central postal sorting center is, in fact, a middle school. Neat A-frame houses are built into the sides of hills, on many levels, forming a neat symmetry with the warrens below ground.
Besides lace and tourism, modern Idrija is home to several large manufacturers of electric motors and furniture; less celebrated than mining, certainly less dramatic, but undoubtedly healthier.
Idrija is also home to my favorite piece of Central European statuary. You can have your elaborate plague pillars: I’ll take Idrija’s modest fountain topped with a perfect little statue of a 19th-century miner, pickaxe and hammer in hand. All the town needs is a companion monument celebrating the Unknown Lacemaker, waiting for her man.