Slovenia lies on the crossing point of four great routes across Europe, including the ancient Amber Route from the Baltic to Italy and Greece. It lived on the edge of empires like Rome, and was later the contact zone between the German and Hungarian kingdoms. What has that crossroads position meant for trade and culture over the centuries? Archaeologist Dr Tina Milavec of the University of Ljubljana gives a picture of a central European land of mountains and forests between the Alps and the Mediterranean, the Pannonian Plain and the Balkans.