Bratislava - Britain's Queen Elizabeth II Friday concluded a central European trip that took her to two ex-communist states, Slovenia and Slovakia, for the first time.

The queen and her husband, Prince Philip, headed home after two days in Slovakia and two days in Slovenia.

Both countries won their independence and became economic success stories after communism fell in Europe in 1989.

Slovenia was the first ex-communist country to adopt the euro, while Slovakia is set to make the switch on January 1.

Prior to her departure from Slovakia Friday, the royal couple toured the country's High Tatra mountains. The day included a ride on a funicular.

Then the queen dropped a hockey puck to open a friendly game between Slovak and British clubs in the mountain town of Poprad.

On Thursday, the queen was given a traditional Slovak welcome of salt and bread. She also inspected an honour guard and took a walk through the rainy capital.

She met with Slovak leaders and Sir Nicholas Winton, 99, the British stockbroker who had saved more than 600 mostly Czechoslovakian Jewish children from Nazi camps on the eve of World War II.

She also unveiled a memorial outside Bratislava dedicated to the Iron Curtain, the heavily-fortified Cold War-era frontier between the East and the West.

Slovak newspapers treated the queen's trip with excitement, comparing it to earlier high-profile visits by US President George W Bush, former Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pope John Paul II.

"The visit of the British Queen Elizabeth II is one of the greatest diplomatic events in Slovakia's contemporary history," the Sme daily newspaper wrote.

Slovakia and the Czech Republic, once united as Czechoslovakia, split ways peacefully in 1993.

The royal couple began their central European tour on Tuesday in Slovenia, a smaller country to the south that once was part of Yugoslavia.

It was the queen's second trip to Ljubljana but the first official visit since the Alpine-Adriatic country gained independence in 1991. (dpa)