Občina Jesenice

Has the beauty of a century-old industrial complex ever struck you as much as that of a theatre or an opera house? Did you ever wonder why? You might find the answer in a story of steel and daffodils, of hard work and dreams of beauty.

Beautiful and magnificent as a cathedral, the more than a century old Stara Sava – an erstwhile steel mill settlement – seems like a sanctuary of human strength and faith in progress. Thus a near totally preserved industrial heritage site relates the story of the almost slave-like existence of its workers, who lived in housing owned by the mill's magnate and even had to buy their bread from him. It also tells of the iron used for the construction of Eiffel Tower, the steel of the Titanic and the composite alloys used in the Large Hadron Collider - world's largest particle accelerator - at CERN.

And then, as if by magic, each May the mountains above the town are covered in millions of white daffodils reflected in the iron, steel and the eyes staring out from old pictures.