First certified guides and first public walks on the Ljubka’s Trail

17. 03. 2025

Gorizia, 7 and 8 March 2025 – The Forum of Slavic Cultures and the Lojze Bratuž Cultural Centre celebrated International Women’s Day in a very pleasant and working way. On Friday, 7 March, they awarded tourist guides and students of the Cankar Vega Zois Higher Secondary School with certificates for the successful completion of the training for tourist guides along the Ljubka’s Trail. The participants of the training were introduced to the life and work of Ljubka Šorli and the writers of Goriška in six modules, and learnt about the cultural and artistic history of this region. They learnt about Ljubka’s Trail and the stops along the way, and practised their tourist guiding skills. The award ceremony was hosted by Marco Fior, a member of the O’Klapa theatre group and a student of the P. Trubar Classical Lyceum in Gorizia, and was addressed by the Director of the FSK, Dr Andreja Rihter, and the President of the Lojze Bratuž Cultural Centre, Franka Žgavec.

On Saturday, 8 March, the first guided tours of Ljubka’s Trail took place in Gorizia, where around 40 participants explored the life and legacy of Ljubka Šorli and her literary contemporaries and predecessors from Gorizia. The walk started in the courtyard of the Lojze Bratuž Cultural Centre, one of the points along the Ljubka’s Trail, where the guides presented the history of the centre. The group walked along the Coronini Street to the Riva Plazzuta 18. Here, in the first cultural educational centre for Catholic Slovenians in Gorizia, the Emil Komel Music School was based, where Ljubka Šorli taught violin. Passing the Cultural Centre, one of the two Slovenian theatres in Gorizia, they came to Corzo Verdi 17, a former teacher’s college attended by Marica Nadlišek Bartol, editor of the first Slovenian women’s magazine »Slovenka«. The group continued their walk along Dante Street, where the house of Mara von Berks, an ethnographer who wrote studies on South Slavic, African and Roma women, is located. The tour continued past the »Trgovski dom« (»House of Commerce«), along the Rabatta Street, where the birthplace of Gizela Belinger Ferjančič is located, and along the Rastello Street to the Piazza della Vittoria square. The two-hour walk along the Ljubka’s Trail is part of the Women Writers’ Route, a cultural trail certified by the Council of Europe.

The guided tour is part of the Italy-Slovenia Interreg project and is part of the official GO!2025 programme.

The project is funded by the European Union through the Small Project Fund GO! 2025 of the Interreg VI-A Italy-Slovenia 2021-2027 programme, managed by the EGTC GO.