Slovenia 6 - should we call it Koper or shall we call it Capodistria

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And so to Slovenia. We by passed Trieste and Miramare. We had planned to visit but parking proved a little more difficult than we had anticipated so we drove on. Slovenia being a Shengen agreement country meant that we could just drive in without showing our passports. We only planned to stay a day here before moving on south for some sun and relaxation. Our destination was to be Croatia but before getting there we had a little bit of Slovenia to see. Depending which history you prefer we were staying in Koper . This is the Slovenian name . If you prefer Italian history then we were in Capadistria. The region owned by the Venetians for hundreds of years.

And so to a little history. In 1420, the Patriarch of Aquileia ceded his remaining possessions in Istria to the Republic, consolidating Venetian power in Koper. The city grew to become the capital of Venetian Istria. In the 16th century Kopers population fell due to plague to between 10,000 and 12,000 inhabitants, due to repeated plague epidemics.When Trieste became a free port in 1719, Koper lost its monopoly on trade, and its importance diminished further.



According to the 1900 census, 7,205 Italian, 391 Slovenian, 167 Croatian, and 67 German inhabitants lived in Koper.



Assigned to Italy after World War I, at the end of World War II it was part of the Zone B of the Free Territory of Triest and controlled by Yugoslavia. Most of the Italian inhabitants left the city by 1954, when the Free Territory formally ceased to exist and the remainder of the country became part of the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. A sort of ethnic cleansing - Italians back to Italy . With Slovenian independence in 1991Koper became the only commercial sea port in Slovenia .



We stayed on Camping Adria a very large campsite which would have been hell in the summer months but now in the Spring it had plenty of space and few visitors. We parked as far out of the way as we could . Next to the road which seemed quiet and the bowling alley which seemed closed . Never found out if it was open or not. The toilets and showers were excellent and the site is an ACSI one which cost us 16 euros to stay. There is a restaurant on site and we ate there . Glenn chose a mixed grill and I chose an Istrian stew. It was noisy being a Sunday and a Bank Holiday to boot. All of Italy and Slovenia were out Sunday lunching. You don’t notice much though after good food and good wine and the lapping of the sea to relax you. If there was a down side to the camp then it had to be the rows of statics along one of the camp roads. These are usual in this part of the world and here they looked like a refugee camp. All huddled together.

Can you imagine a camp plot with nothing on it? Well these plots are big and along comes the weekender/holiday maker who brings his old caravan with him and parks it up on the plot. He puts a fence around the entire plot to protect him and his belongings from his neighbours and turns it into his castle . Then he brings along an awning to make his living space bigger. On top of this he stretches the most enormous tarpaulin under which he places at least another two smaller tents, a cooker, a microwave and a refridgerator. Outside he has hammock stretched between two trees, tables and chairs with a vase of lilac placed in the middle and a shed for the children to play in. And this is just one plot. Each plot has the same configuration and makes the campsite look a tad scruffy. Still you can imagine the owners coming down each weekend and for their holidays and throughily enjoying themselves .

We were only staying to go into Koper and caught the 9.07 bus into town 80 cents fare for the 25 minute bus ride. We were dropped off at the main railway/bus station and walked back into town. The buses don’t run between Ankaran and Koper often so we had about three hours to kill. Now in some places you can waste three hours easily. Here it was going to be difficult. It is a small town. There was a main square which was Venetian, very pretty and had a campanile with clock . It was not possible to climb the campanile. There was a church. Nice from the outside but dour inside. We found a few medieval streets and sat for a while drinking coffee and eating baklava which was sticky and very sweet and a cake called Figaro. Mainly chocolate with something like caramel along the top , nuts and something similar to rice crispies. Not my finest hour in choosing cakes .

We decided after walking the square twice, walking the two streets twice we had nothing more to see and walked back to catch a taxi home. It was worth the 10 euros to get back and we had a conversation with the taxi driver who had a boat and sailed the Croatian islands in his spare time.

When we arrived back we packed up Suzy which doesnt take long and headed out on the road for Croatia . Out with the passports . The moths would fly out of them as this was the first time they had been taken out of our bags since we left England at the start of the holiday.

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Slovenia
What a beautiful part of the world