The Best of Italy! (Sort of)

31^st July – 1^st Aug

Ok so having a very special visitor over from England I decided it was my responsibility; in fact my duty to show her the best that Italy has to offer. After a long and deep thought process I realised the place I had enjoyed the most thus far on this trip was Ljubljana in Slovenia. Not having enough time to visit the capital again we decided that a trip to the seaside town on Koper would be the destination of choice in Slovenia, how we would soon regret choosing it.

This time I didn’t have the luxury of a car driving friend with days off so we were reduced to take the trip via public transport, the peasant wagon. Our routing was this:

Marco Polo Airport --> bus to San Dona di Piave --> Train to Trieste --> and then final bus to Koper!

Easy peasey! It shouldn’t take us too long; or so we thought! We being myself(obviously), Ben and Liat.

Having not put much thought into the timings of any of these connections we didn’t really feel any need to rush, which to be fair was probably a good thing. Ben’s flight arrived on time and off we trotted to wait for the bus at the bus stop. The bus was due at 1205 and 1235. It was 1155. The bus arrived at about quarter past so who knows if it was late or if it was early. I was just happy it had turned up! The very nice lady helped me put Ben’s wheel chair in the luggage compartment and the girls got on and chose seats. 40 minutes later we were sat in the only Italian bar open during siesta eating a strange Italian roll thingamajig that tasted really good. It was also Ben’s first sampling of Italian chocolate syrup, sorry I mean ‘hot chocolate.’

Thinking that the bus stop we got off at would be close to the Train station was our first mistake. Turns out it was a good twenty minute walk away, which doesn’t sound like a lot but with the Italian heat, a suitcase, 2 rucksacks and a wheel chair on uneven surfaces, it’s not the most pleasant of walks. That’s when I realised lapsus numero duo (mistake number two), I had forgotten my hat! Too far into the trip to go back I decided, I don’t need it, I’ll manage so I will.

My Makeshift Hat

After a bit of a walk, and the wind being in the right direction we found ourselves somehow at a cute little railway station, not dissimilar to Rochdale, except this one was sunny and didn’t have the same urine smell in the subway that Rochdale railway station has. We bought us tickets and the ticket agent did his bit for the environment by putting all 3 passengers onto the same ticket, I thought that was very conscientious of him, it’s these little things that if we all did them could, combined, make a huge difference to the world.

Blah blah blah train came we got on it, we arrived in Trieste, we got off the train again, but for wandering around eventually found us bus stop, turned out the next bus wasn’t for hours, 7pm, so we went in search of a place to sit down, because well, we hadn’t sat for long enough already today.

Surprisingly, Trieste was nice! I was expecting to have some dirty little Italian boarder town but the building were pretty and it had canals (why this impresses me considering how close I am to Venice I still don’t fully understand). In fact I think I actually LIKE Trieste, if it hadn’t been for the reservation I had foolishly made the night before for a Motel in Koper then I think we would have stayed here. Our quick (sorry couldn’t resist) pit stop allowed us to find one of the best things out about Trieste, the Spar there (or DeSpar as it is known locally) actually has tables and chairs outside so you can sit out and watch the world go by. It’s a very good idea; I can see Tesco’s doing it soon.

Unfortunately we had to leave and go for us bus across the border into Slovenia. The bus took about 40 minutes and the crossing was barely noticeable, except for the 3 or 4 casinos that straddled the frontier. The Australian man sat behind Liat described it perfectly when the bus stopped at its final destination ‘Is this Koper? I’m not getting off here!’ Unfortunately for him, and us, the bus wasn’t going anywhere else so we jumped into a taxi and drove to our Motel for the night.

This was when we thought things were looking up, the room was nice, it was big, it was very clean, we even had a balcony, and we even had a KITCHEN! We found a supermarket next door and bought ourselves a nice cock-taa and some wine etc and decided to pre-drink before hitting the nightlife that Slovenian port town Koper was bound to have in abundance. All those cargo ships must have crew who need, have earned and deserve a night out!

'Cock?'

'-Taa!'

When we got back to the room with us wine, we found, no crockery, no cutlery, no pans, no glasses, no mugs, no kettle, no colander, no oven proof dish, no salad bowl, basically nothing, we didn’t even have anything to drink our very expensive Slovenian wine from. I’m just glad we stuck with a screw top because I’d hate to have to ruin a good Slovenian white by corking the bugger.

A Vintage Slovenian White

Undeterred a few plastic glasses had found their way to Slovenia in our bags with us and it seemed a terrible shame for them to go to waste. All showered and changed we decided to sample one of the restaurants underneath our Motel. It turned out our Motel was used mainly as student accommodation but was hired out during the summer months, probably explains why we have a kitchen and no utensils. This however meant that we had bars around where we were staying. How good was that? Well it might have been, had the bars had people in them, but they didn’t; I guess the students might have something to do with them being full. Full of enthusiasm still we settled on a charming little place named ‘City Burger ‘because, well , we had little else choice for food. Ben decided on pizza, I chose a chicken burger and Liat the vegetarian that she is, ordered a ‘Veggie Burger.’ Now Italy is not very big on vegetarian processed foods, sure you can get ‘pizza margarita’ or ‘spaghetti aglio, olio, e peperoncino’ but in the 4 and a half months since I’ve been in Italy I’ve not seen so much as a Linda McCartney Sausage so you can imagine how excited Liat was to have an actual ‘Veggie Burger.’ She was literally sat on the edge of her seat anticipating how good it was going to taste. The food came and I was happily tucking into my chicken burger when Liat began laughing hysterically. Turns out in Slovenia a ‘Veggie Burger’ isn’t actually a burger. In Slovenia a ‘Veggie Burger’ consists of a few lettuce leaves, 2 slices of gherkin, 2 slices of aubergine, 2 slices of tomato, and a cheese slice, you know those really cheap plastic type tasting cheese slices. It was basically my Chicken Burger but with the chicken breast removed. How glad I was that I didn’t choose.

Wow Cock-taa is cheap in Slovenia

As you can probably sense, this became one of the highlights of Koper. It also felt quite fitting and seemed to add itself nicely to the rest of the ‘quirks’ which we had encountered on this thus so far short trip. Being suitably reenergised from a pizza, chicken burger and effectively a vegetable sandwich we decided to hit the bar which the receptionist had kindly recommended. Jumping into a taxi ‘Bella Vita Bar’ had no idea was going to hit it. Or rather we didn’t know what we were letting ourselves in for. Turns out Bella Vita Bar is in the middle of an Industrial estate, and is the only bar in the town that actually has people at it. We were clearly the only non Koperians in the bar and stuck out like a sore thumb. The bar was quite busy but had a strange atmosphere. Maybe it was the half naked girl the bar paid to dance who was wearing bunny ears which made us feel a little uncomfortable, or maybe it was the fact that she appeared to be dancing to a different song than the rest of us but we couldn’t enjoy the place.

I think we lasted 30 minutes and decided that Bella Vita bar was far too decadent for our humble tastes and decided that our ‘expensive’ Slovenian white wine and plastic glasses seemed like a much better option. Ordering a taxi the operator proudly announced that a Lexus would be there soon, and you know what, it was. Things for the first time this trip seemed to be going well. The driver even appeared to speak English, good enough for us to learn some local phrases we thought. Eager to learn something more than ‘Hvala’ and ‘Prosim’ here is the conversation between us and the driver:

Us – Oh you speak English?

Driver – Yes, of course, I speak English

Us – Oh good, maybe you could teach us a few words in Slovenian. What is the Slovenian word for ‘cheers’?

Driver – Yes I speak English. Motel Port (our hotel)

The driver did not say another word to us for the rest of our journey. Our luck must have run out.

Ok I had originally planned on writing the rest of our adventures in Koper as a separate entry but let’s be honest, there isn’t a huge amount to talk about when one is describing Koper. It’s basically an industrial town with a couple of communistesque buildings, a few pretty buildings, and nice round about oh and some place for boats to stop and drop off stuff.

Me and my Bicycle

Classy Place

Bazzing Sign

Breakfast had been provided by our hotel, and if truth be told it was one of the things which swayed me into booking the Motel Port Koper. When I read breakfast was provided I was not quite sure how it would work. Actually that’s a lie, I presumed it would be like any other hotel where you went to a dining room and ate off of a buffet, breads, fruit cheeses and meats. If I was expecting full English I knew I wouldn’t be getting one on this side of the Channel. What I didn’t expect is what was to follow. Choosing to spend some of the morning on the balcony before breakfast I had noticed that the families on either side of me seemed to be eating the same brand of yoghurt and drinking out of plastic cups. I foolishly thought they must both enjoy the same brand of yoghurt (or more likely it was cheapest and they were both tight, after all they’d both stayed in the cheapest hostel I could find in Koper) and I guessed that the plastic cups had been provided by the hostel in their rooms and the cleaners had merely forgot to give us ours. Knowing how much I forget to do when cleaning I didn’t think it a farfetched idea, after all what else could it be? Could the Motel Port Koper actually expect people to collect their breakfast from a small room and then expect them take their paper plate and plastic cup of coffee back to their rooms? The answer is yes they could. They did however provide us with big green bowls to carry our breakfasts in if you wanted a big one, or like us you wanted to make sandwiches for lunch. All in all it wasn’t a bad breakfast, just a very very very strange way to do things, but I guess this is what you have to expect when you go to these strange and exotic destinations.

Liat's improvised knife

We wandered around and found a couple of monuments, we had no idea what they were for so we made up stories ourselves. This monument is in support of all the people who built Koper’s world famous round about. It was such a good round about that they even took a picture of it and made it into a postcard (it’s the postcard i chose to send to my Grandad). The roundabout is as special as it now gives locals a way out of Koper and into the rest of the country which I know is filled with lots of wondrous delights. 

Round About Monument

This monument is to commemorate the founder of Koper. Legend has it that when he built the town, people were forced to move here and threatened with giant palm leaves if they tried to leave. One night the village folk organised a coup, killed the founder of the town and built a fountain/bridge type thing over his body so that he couldn’t come back to life and build another town. 

The Dead Bloke's Monument

I feel bad now. I’d hate to give people the impression that I didn’t like Koper because I had a very good time there. It’s just that Slovenia has much better places to visit and if you actually read this and decided you wanted to Visit Koper let me know and I can give you the details of our hotel, it was very conveniently located within walking distance of the train and bus stations and next door to a huge supermarket. Although if you do think that you still want to visit Slovenia, but fancy missing of Koper then I may just have to come and join you for a drink.