Slovenia's "second capital" Maribor is in a rush these days: over 30 venues, hundreds of concerts and all this put into two weeks of cultural highlights. The Lent Festival is one of the year's jour-fixes, attracting theatre, opera, ballet performers, classical, modern, and jazz musicians and dancers from all over the world as well as visitors.

Held since 1986, the festival got its name from the area alongside the Drava River in Maribor called Lent. Actually, one of the main stages is situated directly on the river, so this is maybe the first stop to get an impression of the festival. Special parts of the festival are dedicated to children (Children's Lent), folklore (Folkart Festival) and to jazz music (Lent International Jazz Festival).

Some of this year's highlights are the unplugged concert of THE Slovenian rock band Siddharta, the gig of reggae veterans Inner Circle and of Slovene song-writer Zoran Predin. And at the end, a personal recommendation: Today is the concert of Bombino, the Nigerian guiatar master, who is mixing traditional Berber rhythms with the driving bluesy force of an electric guitar.