Slovenia seduces with autumn bliss

IT IS hard to imagine how anyone with a little foresight could ever starve in Slovenia, in south-central Europe, where I spent the last week.

My abiding image is of fruit-laden trees and vines, with plums, walnuts, apples and pears underfoot on the trails I walked, the only creatures availing of them being red admiral butterflies.

Food for free, indeed, and no need to search for it. Wild sunflowers, full of seeds, on the roadsides. Wild marrows in the undergrowth. I was enchanted by Slovenia, seduced by her autumnal fecundity. The weather was glorious, the harvest scenes reminiscent of Keats.