Ljubljana - Queen Elizabeth II arrived in Slovenia on Tuesday for her first visit since the small Alpine nation won independence in 1991.

The queen and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, arrived at 2 pm at the airport outside the capital Ljubljana and were whisked away to meet their host, President Danilo Turk, at the nearby castle Brdo pri Kranju.

At a banquet there, the British royal couple were to meet caretaker Prime Minister Janez Jansa and others, including Croatian-Slovenian fashion designer Alan Hranitelj and climate experts Lucka Kajfez Bogataj.

On Wednesday, the queen was due to visit the Lipica stud farm close to Slovenia's Adriatic coast, where she was to be presented with a Lippizaner horse. The horse would however remain at the farm, reports said.

Security was unobtrusively stepped up in the capital for the three-day visit by the royal couple, who were staying at a hotel in downtown Ljubljana.

Accompanying the queen was British Foreign Secretary David Milliband, who was to take part in an international conference on sustained development.

On Thursday, the queen was scheduled to depart for her first visit to Slovakia.

Slovenia claimed independence from Belgrade following a short war in 1991. After a remarkable post-communist transition, it became the first ex-Yugoslav republic to join the European Union and NATO, in 2004.

The queen has been in Slovenia once before, in 1976, when it was part of the old communist Yugoslavia.

Her son, Prince Charles, visited a decade ago, describingvv the country as "one of Europe's best kept secrets."