It was the second to last day of our trip and none of us was up to a long and involved excursion. However, the undemanding sum of three euros and forty five minutes on an air conditioned bus held the promise of crossing a border and exploring the Slovenian medieval walled port city, Koper. I will take you on a very short tour of what we found there.
But first let me say thanks to anyone who's been following our trip and especially for the comments (Pastriarch and Co.!). It's been a fantastic voyage, mostly. I wish we could all have been here together, but I'm hoping this was the next best thing.
I have to admit it's often difficult for me to enjoy the views from a train or bus because:
a.) they go by too quickly
b.) I feel an urgency to record them
I can hardly ever do the countryside here justice with my phone camera...stuff constantly whizzes by and just when a vista opens up and I'm trying to get my phone turned on to capture it not only have I missed the shot but I haven't even gotten to see it myself. It's times like these when you wish:
a.) you were driving and could stop at your leisure to snap away to your heart's content
b.) you had a better camera that didn't shut off automatically when you weren't pressing the shutter button
c.) if you lived here you wouldn't have to worry about either a or b above
Anyway, here's one view of the ride from Trieste to Koper at around 60mph at approximately 12:45 pm.
At around 1:00 pm we got to the bus station in Koper. As soon as we hopped off the bus two teenage boys on those ubiquitous motor scooters revved their engines and then did a couple of wheelies as if to herald our arrival. The approach to town was not exactly something to celebrate, though.
We were given directions to take a main road straight into town. Fortunately for you I did not include the huge McDonald's anchor store that was strategically positioned so that one must pass it to reach the town center whether in car on foot or by bike.
As we were orienting ourselves we stopped at a cozy little cafe to freshen up. You can't see it but it's behind that tree in the middle of the picture below.
Finally (actually it didn't take more than a few minutes from the time we hopped off the bus) we got to the front wall of Koper. That arch on the left in front of A is an entrance.
Here's what the approach to the interior looks like and then some distance in...
It couldn't have been more than a handful of "blocks" before we came to this view:
Yes, that's a huge ship.
The old section, the walled part of Koper is very small. If you look on the map above it takes no time to get to the straight edge of the crescent but you can get lost in a thick maze of narrow lanes and piazzale between one edge and the next.
Here are more views of the port. N wanted to hunt for cars and noticed there were more of them along the waterfront.
At one point we came to this very modern elevator that was a weird contrast to the walled city. Below the walkway at sea level are some newer restaurants and a park where many people were sunbathing.
We went back inside the medieval part to look around some more. This is a view toward the central square or "trg", with a historic church and belltower.
If I can get more pictures to load I'll add part 2.
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