Terrains around Lipica are typical karst terrains. The main vegetation in the past were oaks, but now are pine forests. Forests now cover only one third of Kras. As I know in the past big part of forests in the Kras was cut down to ensure enough wood to build Venice. Unfortunately most of forests were cut down totally what open space for strong bora wind to blow earth away. Stone walls we can find on the Kras were putted together to stop the wind from blowing earth away. We can find only small trees and high bushes on some Kras areas.

First competitions were organized on maps Lipica 1,2,3, Blatnice and once on the map Ilirska Bistrica. Terrain around Lipica is quite stony and bushy on some parts but very technical demanding. I still remember what French trainer Michel Gueorgiou (Thierry's father) said when he came for the first time with French national team in 1999. It was something like:" They need to read the map and to get use to do orienteering on such a demanding terrain in early spring. They can train for speed all the year and anywhere." They used only Lipica 1, 2 and 3 maps (Dutovlje was not made jet but some others were available). Maybe this also helps Thierry to became a world class orienteer. 

Some people don't like such terrain very much. That was the reason that I looked around and find new area around Dutovlje (15 km north from Lipica). That part of Kras was not cut down in the past so you can find some nice forest with high oak trees and good runnability. Last five years we made 3 maps there (Dutovlje, Krajna vas, Veliki Dol).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
part of Emil Wingstedt interview from 2002

How do you like Slovenian terrains? 

(laughs) As you can see, it's getting worse and worse... (laughs) The first day at the Lipica Open (on the map Lipica 3) it was OK (Emil won the race there), yesterday at training it wasn't so bad, but the Italians were faster... and today it was terrible. Today I could really see how bad it can get. And I've hurt my tigh today, so tomorrow I'll have big blue marks on it (laughs)... No, really, it is lovely... So many stones make it so hard to read the map and run at the same time. And there are so many details... I guess I should be here more often to run faster. But it is very good to see, from time to time, that there is still a lot to learn. Though I'm not sure if I wanted to know I still have THAT much to learn (laughs)

(from interview on Orienteering on line 2002- Ivan Nagy)