Štanjel, the stone village Maks Fabiani reshaped in the Karst

Maks Fabiani’s Ferrari Garden

Between the two world wars the architect Maks Fabiani was mayor and worked in Štanjel for twenty years. He planned access by car, solved the water problem, a serious matter in the Karst, and turned the castle into a place for the community. His best-known work is the Ferrari Garden, beside the villa of the same name, which blends woodland, orchard and meadow with circular paths. Today you enter through Natalija’s House, once part of the villa, which holds an exhibition on the garden and its architect.

During the Second World War part of the village burned and the castle was badly damaged. Restoration began in the 1960s and continues today.

The castle, the bora and the Spacal Gallery

The restored castle houses the exhibition «Nature and Man in the Karst», highly interactive, with Karst stone to touch, the village’s water system and a wind tunnel where you feel the bora at 120 km/h. Admission is €9 and, together with the gallery of Lojze Spacal (1907-2000), a great printmaker of the Karst and Istria, €11. The gallery opened in 1988 and since 1997 has also been a register office for weddings.

Parking, trains and when to go

Park below the old village, from 8am to 8pm, as only residents may drive in. The railway station, on the Sežana to Nova Gorica line, is less than 1 km away and keeps five columns designed in Otto Wagner’s studio. The steam locomotive that stood at the station until 2016 is now at the Park of Military History in Pivka. The Wine Festival takes place from 5 to 8 November 2026. To carry on, see Komen, Sežana and, for the region as a whole, the coast and Karst. For me it is one of the prettiest villages in Slovenia and well worth the detour.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Štanjel before prices climb.

Štanjel from 1402 to today

Štanjel is one of the oldest settlements in the Karst. Turn Hill was already inhabited in prehistory, and the Roman fort of Gledanica survives from antiquity. The village of terraced houses grew up in the Middle Ages, took its name from its patron, St Daniel, and appears in writing in 1402. It was walled against the Turks in the 15th century and enjoyed its heyday in the 16th and 17th centuries, which gave it the layout of alleys you see today. In 1508 the Habsburgs granted the estate to the Kobencl family, who strengthened the walls and remodelled the castle.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Štanjel before prices climb.