The cover page is actually quite nice. Could be reused. Hint. Hint.

Ptuj has an advantageous situation as a bridgehead on the river Drava at the foot of the commanding hill of the Citadel. This is why the settlement was already existent in prehistoric days, probably as early as the Bronze Age. It gained particular importance as a castle-site in the early Iron-Age culture of urn-burials. The town of Ptuj succeeded Roman Poetovio, a major settlement, whose extent and opulence have not yet been completely explored by the researchers. Poetovio was at first the encampment of a Roman legion, and around it, a town arose. Ptuj’s famous cultural monuments include several sanctuaries of the ancient Iranian light-god Mithras, furthermore a statue of Orpheus (in Slovenian Square), and a good deal of prominent finds (in the Museum).

Ptuj is an outstanding medieval stronghold and a castle-site of the Slavs, who late in the 6th century commenced settling in those parts. Besides, Ptuj possesses also a place of worship, which seems to have been Old-Slavic. In the 9th century, the sway of the Slavic princes Pribina and Kocelj reached westwards as far as Ptuj; later on, the town devolved upon Salzburg and became a “civitas” — city.

Ptuj, a characteristic medieval town of feudal origin, is dominated and shielded by a mighty citadel with Romanesque nucleus and some Renaissance or early-baroque alterations. Ptuj boasts a typical widened market lane (at present; Prešeren lane); a Gothicized provost’s church with notable Renaissance tombstones; two medieval monastic edifices inside the former city-walls, and an altar with side wings, by Liab; a proud tower, a row of patrician wood-carvings and works of the painting art.

Ptuj is also a town of the Slovene national awakening in the 19th century, and a memorial to the unshaken resistance under German occupation in the Second World War, embodied in hero Lacko and his fellow-combatants. Since the liberation, Ptuj has been a town of actually universal upswing after many centuries of stagnation: for all its progress, Ptuj has preserved plentiful evidences of its millennial past.

Ptuj is situated in the vicinity of the wine-growing Slovenske gorice (“Slovene vineyards”) in a region of many castles, citadels and churches, in environs having — despite these monuments — kept a lively memory of the popular beliefs and folklore from pagan time immemorial, as e.g. the spring-symbol “Kurent”.