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Back in the 1970s when I was learning Geography at school there were only nine countries in mainland Europe – France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Italy and Luxembourg. Each had its own easily-recognisable national characteristic – smelly cheese, clogs, chocolates, cuckoo-clocks, genocide and so on – with the exception of Luxembourg. No-one even knew where Luxembourg was, although it was generally imagined to be quite distant judging by the feebleness of the signal from its one and only radio station.

Nowadays there’s an ever-growing multitude of European nations – more than a hundred if the Eurovision Song Contest is anything to go by – and I freely admit that I had to reach for my gazetteer when I received an unexpected tip-off from a reader in Slovenia. (It’s just south of Austria, if you’re curious.) The young border town of Nova Gorica was the location, and I was was surprised to discover that half of it lies in Italy, where it’s called Gorizia. Readers of my report from Sanremo earlier in the year will understand why this set more than a few alarm bells ringing. Mere proximity, however, is no reason to tar the good people of Slovenia with the Italian brush so, with a weekend in hand, I packed my valise and headed east.

Nova Gorica – A sort of Slavic Peterborough

The first thing one notices about Nova Gorica is that there’s a casino on virtually every street corner, but that’s where the similarities with Las Vegas end. Nondescript residential and business zones, clusters of Soviet-era housing blocks and a Brutalist shopping centre complete a provincial townscape conspicuously lacking in glamour or razzamatazz. Most of the casinos look like somewhere you’d go to get your car serviced, but the Perla Hotel and Casino, situated in the centre of the town, exudes a modest degree of swank, with entrances done out in an exuberant nautical style, perhaps to give punters the impression that they are boarding an exotic cruise liner.  This, unlikely as it seemed, was the destination to which my correspondent had sent me – and there, to the right of the lobby, lurking behind a row of glass cases filled with gaudy souvenirs just as he had described, I found the Kaffè Dolce Vita.

It’s usually busier than this

Nestled in a crescent-shaped space hugging the outer wall of the hotel, the café has a moderately cosy atmosphere despite a preponderance of glass and stainless steel, and as I entered I was welcomed by a winning smile from a statuesque blonde waitress with a slight stoop and an interesting nose. I always start with a pot of English Breakfast Tea when breaking new ground. It’s not a mathematically precise standard, but there are certain boxes that should be ticked – robust, earthy flavour; rich, dark colour, and plenty of Assam in the blend. It’s surprising how far short of these benchmarks some ‘English Breakfast’ varieties fall. On a visit to Connecticut last year I was confounded by a brew composed entirely of smoked Chinese leaves – the only connection with English breakfast I could discern was that it smelled like kippers and after just one mouthful I had to gargle with grapefruit juice to get rid of the taste. Fortunately, there were no doubts about the quality of the tea at the Dolce Vita as it was supplied by Ronnefeldt, a German importer and blender with impeccable credentials. The question was, would the waitress do it justice? I watched with some satisfaction as she confidently spooned a measure of loose leaf into a mesh basket, dropped it into a pre-heated porcelain pot and sluiced the contents with demonstrably boiling water. I forgave her for offering me a choice of milk or lemon (only people with severe lactose intolerance issues should consider taking EBT without milk) and carefully carried the small oval silver tray to my table.

Satisfaction guaranteed

After such conscientious preparation the tea was hardly going to disappoint, and sure enough it set my taste-buds dancing and singing with delight from the very first sip. The truly remarkable discovery came when I went to pay for it and found that the total bill, including a generous slice of apple strudel, came to only €3.60 – about the same as you’d pay for a cardboard bucket of swill and soggy flapjack at the Upper Crust concession on Paddington Station. Realising that my tea budget would go significantly further than I had anticipated I greedily scanned the dozen or so other varieties on offer behind the counter and picked out a fine Darjeeling for my next pot – this time with a wedge of lemon.

With two days to fill I had planned sight-seeing trips to the Karst caves and Triglav National Park, but after the fourth pot I was feeling excessively relaxed and the weather was dreadful so, taking a necessary break from my libations, I wandered into the gaming area of the Casino. The customers, as far as I could tell, were predominantly Italian and mostly over 50, although there were quite a few young men with bouffant hair and unfeasibly tight trousers gliding up and down between the banks of slot machines, probably on the lookout for lonely widows having a flutter with the life insurance payout. The agents of fortune were on my side that day, and after half an hour of pulling levers and pressing buttons I had increased my original modest stake tenfold. Feeling flush, I graduated to the roulette tables where, in fairly short order, I bagged enough moolah to cover the entire cost of my Slovenian jaunt. That seemed like a good point at which to count my chickens, so I cashed my chips and returned to the Dolce Vita for a celebratory pot of sweet-smelling Ceylon. I was there again when the doors opened on the morrow and while the rain lashed down outside I spent a gloriously lazy day filling myself with tea and pastries and reading my hardback copy of The Hydrogen Sonata. It’s hardly the stuff that travelogues are made of, but by the time I retired to bed I felt as if I had lived the life of Bacchus.

A big hvala then, to Mr Marius Kovska for drawing my attention to this exemplary establishment. It’s clear that Slovenia has much to offer for the curious traveller and I fully intend to return for a longer stay when the weather has improved so that I can discover more about this overlooked corner of the new Europe.

I’ll be back…