Cultural heritage

Cultural heritage jewels can be seen everywhere in Brda and it primarily depends on us what will attract our attention.

For the visitors interested in architecture, there is plenty to be seen in Brda. From the remnants of simple and modest coloni houses with “žbatafurs” (kitchen extensions with hearths) to castles with mighty towers, castle courtyards (Dobrovo, Vipolže), as well as fortified medieval villages (Šmartno).

There are several clustered villages with narrow alleys where you can see wooden balconies, small lattice windows and many other typical details. Worth of interest are also dry stone walls skillfully built of sandstone, a gray-brown rock typical of the Brda area. True gems are of course to be found in churches: in various parts of altars and other furnishing, in interesting paintings, murals… all the way to patriotic inscriptions from the time after World War II.

Fans of ethnological curiosities will be attracted by wine-growing, wine-storage and fruit-growing traditions while more persistent explorers will be acquainted by the locals with past and present customs and holidays as well as with the peculiarities of the Brda dialect some of which are quite amusing. Part of cultural heritage are also specialties of Brda cuisine you can enjoy in various places in Brda, especially during ethno-colored events.
 

000050 CMYKThe Brda area is indisputably one of the most picturesque landscapes of Europe which was given its special character by the turbulent past and where the traditional way of life has been preserved for much longer than elsewhere in Slovenia. The remnants of medieval architecture, vestiges of the colonate and the consequences of the 1976 earthquake are perhaps only three signs of the past that were imprinted deeply in Brda and in lives of its inhabitants.

Several castles in Brda, along with churches and the picturesque medieval village of Šmartno, are dating
from the Middle Ages. The colonate, this peculiar way of contractual relationship between landlords and tenants, called the coloni, could still be found in Brda even in 1950s. The lives of local people were also deeply affected by the two World Wars - the first one caused mass refugee movements while after the second one, a substantial part of Brda remained in Italy due to a new border.

And the earthquake of 1976 which shook Brda houses to their foundations also completely ramshackled all
aspects of people’s lives. The old was very quickly giving way to the new and the modern. Changes at every level were getting ahead of themselves and were creating great disharmony. In many cases, a tractor came to the house before a toilet or a bathroom.