Novo Mesto — "New Town" — is the largest town in the Dolenjska region of south-eastern Slovenia, roughly an hour's drive from Ljubljana on the way to the Croatian border. It sits in a loop of the Krka River, which curls around the medieval old town in a near-perfect horseshoe, and the skyline is dominated by the twin spires of St Nicholas's Cathedral on its bluff above the water. The name is misleading: the town was founded by the Habsburg Duke Rudolf IV in 1365, which makes it over six and a half centuries old — new only by Slovenian standards.
The old town is small, walkable, and still gathered around its main square, Glavni trg, with the early 20th-century town hall at one end and the narrow arcaded streets running off toward the river. The Franciscan church and monastery, founded in 1472 by monks fleeing the Ottoman advance, is worth stepping into for the library and the quiet cloister. The chapter church of St Nicholas on the hill has a Tintoretto altarpiece — a real one, painted in the 1580s — which is an unexpected find in a small Slovenian town. The Dolenjska Museum in the old provost's house holds the finds from the Iron Age hillforts that surround Novo Mesto, which in the first millennium BC was one of the most important Hallstatt-culture centres in Europe; the gold, bronze, and amber jewellery from the local burial mounds is remarkable.
Around town, the Krka valley is quietly beautiful — low wooded hills, vineyards on the slopes, pilgrimage churches topping almost every rise. Otočec Castle, about ten kilometres north-east, is a small moated Renaissance fortress sitting on a river island, now a luxury hotel and restaurant. The Cviček wine produced in the surrounding hills is unlike anything else: a pale, tart, low-alcohol red made from a blend of native varieties, drunk young and cold with river fish. And the Krka river itself is one of the prettiest in Slovenia for a canoe paddle or a summer swim.
Most travellers rush past Novo Mesto on the highway between Ljubljana and Zagreb. If you have an afternoon, stop — you will have the old town almost to yourself.