Most 'westerns' think that Yugoslavia was on the other side of the iron curtain…well, I am alpinist and mountaineer but never had problems in mountains »in the time of Yugoslavia« at least Slovenia/Italy or Slovenia/Austria. It was quite open border, much more as an example France/Spain border in 80-ies. There was only restriction that you needed to 'check in' on the police or army checkpoint, but truly I never did it and had no problems at all. When I was 16 and 17 years old, I had taken interrail ticket and traveled all over the West Europe during the summer holidays. That was quite common among Slovenian teenagers in the beginning of 80-ies. I didn’t feel any pressure or idea to not be a free person. When I had to obligatory serve YU army in Macedonia - I was in Stip, the same distance from Ljubljana as to Paris – then it was completely different story, although the same country. There was no chance to freely move in the mountains in the border area, we had even a, how to say “first shot then ask” guardians… as I was 18 years boy in that time, the military service was my first contact with the “Yugoslavia” and a cultural shock, as big that I spent my first three month of military service in the school learning “Serbo-Croatian” language, all I understood was only the intuition and the Slavic similarity of languages…