Brežice

Brežice sits on the last high ground before the Croatian border, at the confluence of the Krka and the Sava. Its castle holds the Knight’s Hall, a baroque room painted floor to ceiling on every wall and the ceiling too, and it is the single most impressive interior in this part of Slovenia; the rest of the castle is the Posavje Museum. Four kilometres downstream at Čatež ob Savi is Terme Čatež, the biggest thermal resort in the country, with outdoor pools open through the winter and a water park that runs all summer — a century of tourism on the same springs. North of the town the Bizeljsko wine district begins, where the cellars are dug into banks of pure sand, and the Mokrice estate on the border has the golf course.