Slovenia: A Visit to the Tržič Museum
December 3rd is a special day for museums in Slovenia. On this date, many museums and galleries offer free admission in honour of France Prešeren, Slovenia's greatest poet, who was born on December 3, 1800.
Since it had been many years since I last visited my hometown museum in Tržič, Nada and I decided to take advantage of the occasion and spend a couple of hours exploring it.
Housed in the historic Pollak Manor, the Tržič Museum showcases the trades and industries that shaped the town's development over the centuries. The permanent exhibition, The Wealth of Trades, presents the rich heritage of shoemaking, leatherworking, textile production, indigo dyeing, blacksmithing, wheelwrighting, and several other crafts that once provided a livelihood for much of the town's population.
One of the highlights is the extensive shoemaking exhibition. Tržič has long been synonymous with shoemaking, and the museum tells the story of the craft from small family workshops to the rise of the famous Peko factory. Original tools, machinery, photographs, and hundreds of shoes offer a fascinating glimpse into a trade that left a lasting mark on the town.
The museum is also home to the Slovenian Ski Museum, which presents the history of skiing from its earliest beginnings to modern competitive sport. As one of the cradles of Slovenian skiing, Tržič naturally receives special attention, with exhibitions dedicated to local champions such as Bojan Križaj, Mateja Svet, Žan Košir and also my aunt Lojzka Meglič.
Ski and medals, some from my aunt.
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| My aunt in the middle. |
A reminder of the golden days of skiing in Tržič, with historic skis and a chairlift seat from the legendary Zelenica ski resort, where generations of skiers rode the chairlift between 1965 and 2012.
Shoemaking required patience, precision, and good lighting. The cobbler's lamp ensured that every stitch and every detail could be clearly seen.
A Hauschulz Berolina piano from Berlin-Neukölln stands beside dental instruments, a reminder that tooth extraction was once part of a barber's trade.
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