14th European Congress of Veterinary Dentistry

The Congress was organized under the patronage of the Veterinary University of Ljubljana headed by an excellent local organizer, Prof. Dr. Zlatko Pavlica  a veterinary dentist himself.

Not only did he managed to set for the participants excellent lecturing conditions and audio-visual equipment in the modern congress center Cankarjev dom, but also took care of the social programme that included a welcome reception, a gala dinner in the Ljubljana castle and one trip to Postojna Caves and Bled.

The lectures were interesting and brought some novel issues related to veterinary dentistry. New topics and excellent lecturers included the presentations of Frank Verstraete, Brook Niemec and Colin Harvey all 3 from USA, Dea Bonello from Italy, and John Robinson from UK, and many others.

Austria was represented by Dr. Gerhard Biberauer (Fig.2) with an interesting and exhaustive presentation on evaluation of canine malocclusion in dogs, and Prof. Zetner with a poster presentation on an antibiotic containing polymer for use in the treatment of periodontal disease (Fig. 3).

The next photo (Fig.4) presents the European founder of veterinary dentistry Prof. Zetner (left of photo) together with Prof. Harvey the American counterpart and initiator of veterinary dentistry in USA (middle of photo) and Dr. Crossley from UK (right of photo)

The weather was excellent on both congress days, thus allowing the shooting of many photographs of which the most representative will be presented together with a short description of Ljublijana.

Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, is a dynamic Central European city lying at an altitude of 298 m above sea level in a broad basin between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea (Fig5). It covers a surface area of 275 km2 and has a population of 276,000.

In Ljubljana the old meets the new; and it seems that history has spent all of the settlement's five millennia preparing it to become the nation's capital.

It has managed to retain traces from all periods of its rich history from the Renaissance, Baroque to Art Nouveau periods, characterized in the house fronts and ornate doorways of the city centre (Fig.6 and Fig 7), the romantic bridges adorning the Ljubljanica river (Fig 8 and Fig 9), the lopsided rooftops (Fig. 10 and Fig 11) and a park reaching deep into the city centre (Fig 12).

Here eastern and western cultures met; and the Italian concept of art combined with the sculptural aesthetics of Central European cathedrals (Fig 13 and Fig 14).

The Ljubljana castle dominates sumptuously the city (Fig. 15 and Fig 16) offering staggering views of the city in all its panoramic might (Fig 17 and Fig 18). In short: Ljubljana is a city that people often return to because of pleasant memories of previous visits.

It is similar to a number of other pleasant European cities - yet it is different - and if you want to be fully assured that Ljubljana is an interesting, pretty and friendly place then just asks the locals - they love it (Fig19).

And with a name that, according to one theory, means beloved, how could they do otherwise (Fig 20)?