Our first house-sitting experience was up in the Slovenian hills looking down on the small town of Celje; home for the next 3 weeks. Though it’s Slovenia’s third-largest town, it has a population of less than 40,000, so it feels like basically everyone knows everyone, and each other’s business. The town itself is quaint and historical, and we walked down and back up the steep hill most days accompanied by the dog we were looking after.

One of our biggest hurdles has been making sure the internet is suitable for our work needs. Being able to work via internet is a huge advantage for us in regards to making it possible for us to do this whole ‘house-sitting’ thing, however, we have come to realise that, unfortunately, you cannot rely on the internet being fast enough for our needs, and you cannot rely on the house-sitting host to always fully understand what “fast upload speed” means. That being said, we (I mean Matt, really) have always figured out a solution in the end. Our house-sit in Slovenia ended up having internet only marginally better than dial-up, but thankfully the cell data plans were big enough to accommodate our usage.

One of the highlights of Celje is the castle on the hill behind the city. You can get a lovely view of the castle from the Savinja River, or basically anywhere in the town, and vice versa. This is probably the main draw-card for visiting the castle, though the history, architecture and torture chamber exhibit are also interesting. At certain times of the year, there are interactive experiences, festivals and concerts held here (more info here).

Celje was once occupied by Roman forces, and therefore much of their older history is intertwined. Sites of Roman ruins can be found around the city, and a guided visit to the Pokrajinski Muzej will bring you below the current town, to the remains of the Roman town once there – you can even walk across the section of Roman road that was uncovered. While the historians and experts are trying to raise enough money to reconstruct what they can from the rubble, there is apparently enough leftover pieces of debris (often large pieces of marble with carvings in them) that they have started using them as public seating around the town. A few other things in the area that are worth a visit are the public treehouse in the park/forest across the river from the town centre (especially if you love a good nature walk), and the Stari Pisker is a great place to grab a good burger or meat dish.

An easy drive from Celje is a town called Šempeter. If the Roman ruins in Celje were your jam, then you’ll probably enjoy this too. Just off the main road is a Roman Necropolis, some of which was discovered in an orchard in the 50’s, and some pieces were found in the Savinja riverbed. We made this stop on our way to the Pekel Cave, where we took a guided tour that led us between the stalactites and stalagmites, up a large flight of stairs and spat us out at the top of the hill that the cave is under.