Day Trip to Piran and Koper

Friday, July 29, 2016--Trieste to Piran to Koper to Trieste

Originally, we thought of staying in either Piran or Koper nearby in Slovenia.  Because of transportation options, and the closeness of the two, we eventually decided just to stay several days in Trieste and make a day trip to the two towns in Slovenia.  It has been a great decision because we have enjoyed Trieste so much and because today's outing was fine for seeing the two small towns.

Piran is a wonderful old walled city at the tip of a peninsula with many homes and passages that date back 600 years.  It has streets so narrow that one can almost reach fingertip-to-fingertip across them.  Like Trieste, it is built on hills, so there is also lots of climbing to see the sights.  We walked into town on one of the nice narrow streets lined with shops and homes.  The main piazza of the town is somewhat oval shaped with old palaces and government buildings. There is a small port filled with boats, and there are places to sunbathe and swim completely around the peninsula.  We wandered the swimming areas, climbed to the top of a hill for the views and to see St. George Church.  Then we wandered more of the narrow streets of town before catching a bus 3 hours later for Koper.

One of the most enjoyable experiences in Piran was watching and listening to a tour guide who brought a group of people up to the shady side of St. George Church where we were enjoying the breezes and the view.  He served them wine and told two stories in heavily accented English that made them even more funny to hear:  1)  The Slovenian anthem has a first verse that is about the pleasures of wine.  Therefore, he said, the anthem starts as a drinking song.  2)  The most expensive bottle of wine in Slovenia costs $2 million.  It comes in a diamond encrusted bottle worth $1 million and the wine is worth the rest.  He added, "The owner says that is no problem because there is always someone rich from the Middle East who has a big ego and a little penis."

Koper was a bit of a disappointment.  It's city walls are missing, and much of the older part of it needs restoration and/or has been spoiled by new construction among the older buildings.  It is a bigger city, however, and has shopping facilities that serve the whole region.  Once we realized we didn't want to spend more time there, we tried to get a bus back to Trieste at 14:30, but the next one wasn't until 17:30.  So we went to the nearby mall and wandered around.  Then we sat and watched people until time for the bus.

Back in Trieste, we solved our major problem--the one related to the need of a place to stay starting tomorrow in Ljubljana due to the fact that the reservation company we used has been closed for non-payments and had not paid the hotel we reserved.  Yesterday, we asked to reserve an apartment on AIRBNB, but there was no response by tonight meaning we had to start looking for a place again.  No other apartment there met our needs, so we started searching for an alternative hotel.  We found one and made a reservation.  Therefore, we won't be homeless when we get there tomorrow!

To celebrate, we went out for another night of music.  We heard two different bands on two different piazzas.  One was an American band called The White Buffalo.  The other was a local group that was actually more fun to hear and to watch.  At one point they were jamming with a box drummer, a bongo player, a didgeridoo player, a man making beat sounds with his mouth, a man reading poetry, and a man playing keyboard.  It was quite interesting.