Europe Travel Guide

Nova Gorica (population ca. 25,000, 36,000 including suburbs) is a town and a municipality in western Slovenia, on the Italian border. Nova Gorica is a new town, built in 1948, when the Paris Peace Treaty established a new border between Yugoslavia and Italy, leaving nearby Gorizia outside the borders of Yugoslavia and thus decapitating the area of lower Vipava valley from its regional center.

To the south of the town lies Kostanjevica Hill, home to the Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady and a 17th-century Franciscan monastery whose treasures from the past are rich indeed. The last members of the Bourbons, the French royal family, are buried in a crypt beneath the church (Charles X himself, and members of his family and entourage). He fled France following the revolution in 1830, finding refuge in Gorizia, and eventually eternal peace.

The last descendants of the royal French family the Bourbons are buried at Kostanjevica Hill. Opposite Kostanjevica Hill, north of the town is Sveta Gora (Holy Mountain), a peak of 682 m that has attracted pilgrims for 450 years. The view from there is exceptional, and on a clear day visitors can see as far as Istria, Venice, the Dolomites, and the Kamnik and Julian Alps. The mountain top is home to a magnificent basilica, where concerts are occasionally held, a Franciscan monastery, and a museum to the Isonzo Front.