For froggies like me, the definition of EC Europe is very simple: everything that geography books didn't teach us before 1990.
Similarly than the lure of ski resorts in the Alps is pulling masses of Polish tourists, the unknown is for us the carrot at the end of the stick, no matter how high are the mountains in the "wild east"
I'm just back from where near you live too, BK. Croatian mountains are small but some things make them unique on the map of the world.