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Back in 1967 Agatha Christie and her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan took a holiday on peaceful Lake Bohinj, in what was then called Yugoslavia. The crime writer had a horror of the press, and she would always attempt to travel incognito, choosing places where she was unlikely to be recognised. She thought that this fairly obscure corner of southern Europe was a safe bet, but she was wrong; word soon spread and before long the local media was besieging the hotel.

One of the more audacious of the paparazzi, a young man called Janez Cucek, reserved the room next door to the Mallowans. When he heard them come in, he did an imitation of the man from Milk Tray, climbing across from his balcony to theirs bearing a bunch of flowers. Max, Agatha's husband, was furious at this invasion of their privacy and wanted to call the police, but Agatha calmed him down and agreed to answer a few questions.

One of her answers became the headline of the resulting scoop for Cucek's newspaper. The journalist had asked her whether the trip to Bohinj was the prelude to a new book, and whether the lake was going to feature in its pages. Agatha considered the question for a moment, and then she replied, gazing out across the water, that Bohinj was "too beautiful for a murder."

And so it was - and it still is.

Given the recent turbulent history of the Yugoslav Federation it is probably not surprising that Lake Bohinj hasn't changed greatly in the forty years that have passed since the crime writer's visit. Equivalent Alp-surrounded lakes in neighbouring Italy and Austria are all highly developed, but here there are still just a handful of hotels, none of them allowed to build on the water's edge. These include the original stayed in by Agatha and Max, the Bellevue. In fact you can still reserve her room, number 204, for a nominal extra charge and gaze out across the lake towards the mountains as she did.

But the land is no longer quite so incognito as it was in her day. Lake Bohinj, with its neighbour Lake Bled, is one of the most beautiful regions of a small nation now called Slovenia, the first nation-state to secede from the Yugoslav Federation before the bloodshed started. After a decade of putting its house in order, it has just emerged as the surprise winner in the latest Observer/Guardian poll of the nation's favourite travel destinations, beating such perennial favourites as France and Spain.

Those who know Slovenia (not to be confused with Slovakia, once part of the Czech Republic) are not surprised that it should come out top, for this is the Switzerland of the Balkans. Bordering Italy to the west, Austria to the north and Croatia to the east, it has a wide variety of landscapes that are more commonly associated with its neighbours: the sparkling Adriatic coastline, the verdant Alpine pastures and of course the mountain-cupped lakes, straight out of the Sound of Music.

The man credited with launching Bohinj and Bled as resorts for the discerning general public, back in the 1860s, was a Swiss healer called Arnold Rikli, who promoted the health benefits of eating very little and walking naked in the mountains. These days Bled places much more emphasis on fine dining and genteel relaxation, while Bohinj, more mysterious and lonely, remains the focus for walkers, although you don't have to do it textile-free.

Agatha may have chosen Bohinj for its seclusion, but Bled is the more popular and picture-book pretty. At its centre stands a church-crowned island, its bell often tolling for a weekend wedding. On the eastern shore it is overlooked by a castle on a rock, a castle with butter-coloured walls and a red Leicester roof. Motor vessels are banned from its surface, with transport services provided by sculling water-boatmen who belong to 20 designated local families. The peace is so intense you can almost hear it dripping, and there's nothing to stop you walking all the way around the lake admiring the giant pike hanging like dead branches under the overhanging trees.

In fact both lakes have a long history as the watering holes of the elite, from the days when Austro-Hungarian emperors used to send their families here for the summer holidays. To speed communications with Vienna they had an alpine railway cut through from Jesenice to the vineyards at Gorizia, carving through 43 tunnels, across bridges and through meadows where drying racks are hung with scythe-cut hay. The railway still runs; the ticket I bought in Bled station was written out by hand by the stationmaster, and the train was full of students with rucksacks.

Bled's tradition of imperial patronage has continued right up to the present day. Marshal Tito, the architect of the former Yugoslavia, had a monumental summer house built in 13 acres of parkland on the shores of Lake Bled, and here he received the likes of Haile Selassie, Krushchev and Indira Ghandi. Today the Vila is a four-star hotel, and its monumental, functional and understated 1950s style, with mostly original furniture commissioned by Tito, has turned it into a trendy designer hotel almost by accident. Vila Bled was the first Relais & Chateaux recognised property in the former eastern Europe, and its clientele continues to be discreetly significant: William Hurt and Jeff Bridges have recently been seen here.

The hills around the lakes are full of waymarked trails, from simple circuits to much more challenging mountaineering up Triglav mountain, which at 2,864 metres is seriously high. On one day I tackled the path around Bohinj and up to Slap Savica, a giant waterfall which erupts from a hole mid-way down a huge cliff, and creates its own little vortex of wind and mist. Another day I took a far gentler route down the Vintgar Gorge, where you look down on sipping trout from a dramatic wooden walkway fixed to the stone walls. "Looks good enough to swim in," I suggested to my guide. "It's so cold you'd be sexually unrecognisable when you came out," was his reply.

On both lakes you can rent rowing boats and Canadian canoes, and spend the day on the water, fishing. For more active visitors there's canyoning and mountain guides for hire, and for the less active there are plenty of waterside restaurants where you drink a glass of wine and read, or even write, a book.

Slovenians have an understandably deep affinity for their countryside, and a large proportion of those who live in the cities during the week escape to their country roots at the weekend, to tend their vegetable patches. Accordingly Ljubljana, the capital, empties like a gurgling jug on a Friday afternoon - making it one of the most peaceful capital cities in Europe for a weekend break.

It is a pleasant, pocket-sized place,virtually traffic-free. The river Ljubljanica threads right through the cobbled city centre, a lurid green ribbon perpetually bandaged by little bridges. At its heart the city is reminiscent of Salzburg: cobbled, tea-shoppy, with flurries of art nouveau and overlooked by a castle on an outcrop of rock. Most of its grandeur - all that street furniture of pillars, obelisks and pyramids - is the work of one man: Joze Plecnik, who studied in Prague. For two decades in the early 20th century Plecnik was given a free hand in dressing up what was effectively a country town, to make it look like a capital.

Despite its size, Ljubljana is deeply cultural. Opera, theatre, and art exhibitions are thriving, and the cinema-going public prefers films about Virginia Woolf to anything starring Sylvester Stallone. At the weekend it also has Slovenian-style shopping experiences. The first is the vegetable market beside the cathedral, where farmer's wives from the hills come to gossip and sell their bunches of herbs. The second is the arts and crafts market, which takes place every Saturday morning along the banks of the Ljubljanica, where chic Slovenes come to browse and pose in the pavement cafes.

It was in this riverside market that I came across a box of Agatha Christie books in Slovenian. Picking one up, in surprise, I asked the stallholder whether Slovenians thought of her much these days. "But of course," was the reply. "We love Agatha. She used to come here for her holidays."

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