Being home to the Museum of Apiculture, Radovljica is synonymous with beekeeping and thus, honey. Additionally, Lesce is home to the Beekeeping Education Centre of Gorenjska, or CRICG for short. The centre organise various events throughout the year, some more aimed at beekeepers themselves whilst others are intended merely for lovers of bees and all things honey. CRICG houses a beeswax processing plant, a honey bottling and packaging room, a tasting room, and a shop selling a wide range of honey and honey-related products. There is also currently a fascinating exhibition of bees’ honeycomb which will be on view until the end of December! You can find out more about CRICG here – http://www.cricg.com/eng.html

The centre is also visited by beekeeping enthusiasts from far and wide, such as this Indian beekeeper who recently came and made this short video about his visit – https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2K2vDAqcfz4

One of the events CRICG organises, is the annual ‘Honey in Cuisine’ workshop which was held last week in Radovljica and which I always eagerly attend. The workshop was led by one of the school’s professors whilst the dishes were demonstrated and cooked by some of the school’s talented and enthusiastic students who had given up their free time to do so. For us participants, we were able to help a little, watch, mingle, and then – the best bit – eat all the delicious dishes. In an effort to show it’s versatility, each dish, of course, included honey, even the savoury dishes where the honey acted merely as a subtle flavour enhancer rather than being instantly detectable or overpowering. These are just some of the dishes that were cooked up:

To start: Canapes and a duo of soups – Carrot soup & Fruited Barley Soup

Main courses included Slovenia’s famous kranjska klobasa sausage cooked in teran wine, buckwheat krapi, štruklji, and baked polenta

Finally, desserts included a specially concocted and very colourful, creative and original ‘bee’ drink, made using layers of honey liqueur, advocaat, ice-cream and cream.

Slovenian beekeeping is also well-known for its colourful and unique painted beehive front panels, called ‘panjske končnice’ and the oldest one in the world can be seen in the Museum of Apiculture in Radovljica’s old town centre. You can also watch a DVD about beekeeping in Radovljica, the English version of which features my dulcet tones! More information can be found here – http://www.muzeji-radovljica.si/_eng/CM-introduction.html

With Christmas fast approaching, Radovljica’s residents gathered last week to help decorate the old town centre and turn it into a winter wonderland. The Christmas tree is almost finished, the lights up, and the decorations in place so we are now officially ready for the festive season! This year, each weekend in December, Radovljica will be hosting an Advent Market together with a full programme of accompanying events for all the family. You can read full details of the programme here – http://www.radolca.si/en/what-to-do/events-1/festive-december-in-linhart-square/83/110/

Additionally, this year, Tourism Radol’ca have launched a competition to find a new winter drink; something to make a change from the usual bog-standard mulled wine which is usually on offer at this time of year. The drink must incorporate at least one typical local ingredient such as honey, chocolate, honey liqueur…. and may be alcoholic or non-alcoholic. The prize will be a luxury weekend break for two at Vila Podvin in Mošnje where the food is prepared and cooked by one of Slovenia’s top chefs, Uroš Štefelin. You can read more about Vila Podvin here – http://www.vilapodvin.si/

More information about the competition, the rules, the prize etc. can be found here – http://radolca.si/en/radolca-drink-competition/

I actually feel that I’m beginning to lose the plot of late due to the constant rain, low cloud and lack of sunlight. Actually, right now I’d be happy to see the sky, let alone the sun! I used to make notes in my diary, to record the weather, where I’d been etc. so I could write here about it. However, these days I don’t bother since there seems to be little point in recording yet another soggy walk with my umbrella. So, dear readers, I do hope that at some point, in the not too distant future, I’ll be able to get back to blogging about all the great outdoors things there are to do in Slovenia; after all that was my original intention. However, at the moment, given the weather, glorious hikes in the mountains seem but a distant memory. Thank goodness then that I live in Radovljica where, whatever the weather, there is always plenty going on!

© AdeleinSlovenia 2014