April 11, 2022

Slovenia is another country we have never visited so we were looking forward to today. Our sail in was beautiful as most of these Mediterranean countries are, but a difference today was that when we looked down from our balcony into the sea, there were literally thousands of big jellyfish!  We never saw so many before.

We arrived at 10 AM today and our tour was at 10:45 and was a walking tour of Koper.  We could get right off the ship and met our guide on the pier. This was the only place they stamped our passports.  Most ports did not even require that you have them with you, only Croatia and here, and they never checked or stamped them in Croatia.

Marajita was our guide today.  We walked into the old city first.  As we walked, she gave us some of the history of the city. This city was built on an island surrounded by swampland that was later drained. .  It was called Goat Island because of the many goats that lived here.  It was controlled in the 1400s and 1500s by the Venetian Republic and many of the buildings date back to this period.  The main square in the city is called Tito Square. The country is only 10 miles from Italy and both Italian and Slovene are taught in school and spoken by most of the population. Because Italy is so close, many people travel there to work as the salaries are higher.

The country is bordered by Austria to the north and to the east, Hungary.  Croatia is to the south and Italy to the west. Slovenia has barely 30 miles of coastline.

We visited the museum and the Pretorian Palace. The museum is celebrating 110 years. In the museum there were letters from people whose relatives lived through WWII. The exhibits were in Slovene and Italian and occasionally there would be a laminated sheet in English.  It was still interesting, though.  Some of the letters were in English.

Here are some of the sights of the city.

The city is shaped like a shield and Marajita pointed out all of the places we visited on this map that is in one of the squares.

This wall is where people could come and make their complaints!

The winged lion is the symbol of Venice and is seen all around the city. The large homes have wells outside to guarantee that they will have water. The sun represents the jellyfish and Medusa.

After our walking tour we went to a restaurant, Kapitalita which was along the harbor and we were served wine, potato chips and olives. The corner has the trunk of a vine and you can see the shadow of the vines on the roof.

Next door was a salt shop. They have a lot of salt flats here and the salt is famous. I bought some to take home.

Marajita said that the cyclists and other sports figures are excellent here and greatly respected. Of course she also mentioned Melania and Fiorello LaGuardia who were both born here.

Tomorrow is our last day of the cruise and we will visit Trieste Italy which is a short distance away.  We don’t leave here until midnight which means the shops and the casino will be closed.  It is a nice treat for the crew to be able to get off and walk into town.

I had a lovely facial today and tomorrow morning we will get our Covid tests.  We have a tour of Trieste and then sadly, we will need to pack because we leave for the Venice airport early in the morning for our flight home.