A bearded mountain of a man sporting long black hair and demonic tattoos is lying on a pink inflatable couch, slowly drifting down the turquoise Soca River. He\u2019s holding a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and as he floats by his heavy metal brethren \u2013 themselves waist high in the chilly alpine water \u2013 he smirks. Cruising behind him are two five-liter plastic buckets, fitted and sealed with 8-inch speakers blasting out a soundtrack of extreme death metal. And towering above are the emerald green Julian Alps \u2013 part of the Southern Limestone Alps that stretch from northeastern Italy to Slovenia. They cast shadows on the rippling water below, darkening sections of the river as the burning sun tracks westward across a cobalt-blue sky.<\/p>\n
This is the kind of scene you\u2019d expect to see inside a glossy travel brochure, captioned with \u201cpristine paradise\u201d or \u201cidyllic surrounds\u201d or \u201cmother nature at her finest.\u201d It\u2019s certainly not an image you\u2019d associate with a heavy metal music festival. But here in Tolmin, 100-km north of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, the metalhead contingent comes to town each July for the annual Metaldays Music Festival<\/a> \u2013 a five-day affair of mischievous merriment accompanied by some of the most extreme music on the planet, surprisingly set in an environment that couldn\u2019t be more of a contrast.<\/p>\n I\u2019d come to cover the event for a music magazine back in Australia, and it served as my basic introduction to the Central European country that, let\u2019s face it, hardly gets any attention at all \u2013 but oh it should! True, it\u2019s not as famous as France and Italy and remains vast uncharted territory for most travellers. But Slovenia<\/a>\u00a0is definitely worth visiting.<\/p>\n\n