Piran: The Seacoast of Slovenia

Today was my first "travel" day in Slovenia. Uroš kindly offered to accompany me on local day trips to see some of the great sights here in Slovenia. It's less than 90 minutes from the seacoast (very much like southern California) to the Alps, where you can ski to your heart's content! Janez' place in Dragomer is right in between the two areas, so it's easy to go either way.

Today we visited Piran, an old Venetian town, built on a small peninsula and protected from the rear (land) by a large fortress or city wall. The photos will give you a good idea of the layout of the town and how it was protected from the Turks and other marauders.

Janez and Meta have a small vacation apartment in a very old building right near the tip of the town. Uroš and I visited it today, just to peek in and see. It's on the first floor (just above the ground floor) and in the rear of this small building. That's Uroš standing in front of the entrance.

We visited the old church near the top of the town. The main doors were open, but a large gate kept me from entering. Fortunately I could get my camera lens through the iron bars for a photo. The churches in Slovenia are just beautiful!

After a leisurely lunch at a small seaside restaurant, where we had fried calamari, french fries and salad, we walked to the boat harbor and asked a local fisherman why all of the fishing boats were flying homemade black flags. He replied that it was part of a regulation to identify the boats. I had imagined that they were all part of a funeral flotilla. Guess the imagined story was more interesting than reality in this case!

The coastline of Slovenia is only about 35 miles long. It's really tiny, squished between Italy and Croatia. This week, there is a referendum in the country to decide whether or not to allow international arbiters to decide the results of a border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia regarding where the border lies in the coastal waters. There has been a conflict in recent years regarding the traffic of fishing boats, etc. and tempers are flaring on both sides of the argument. In this photo, you can just barely see the city of Venice behind the two boats in open water, just west and north of Piran.

After leaving Piran, we drove into the hills and found a little vineyard town in a small valley that had an old Romanesque church surrounded by fortress walls. It didn't look like much from the road, but I had heard that the town, Hrastolvje, had a small stone church with amazing frescoes painted on the walls inside. Indeed, the walls and ceilings were completely covered with medieval (1475) scenes of both everyday life (farming, family, etc.) as well as Biblical scenes. The paintings were intended to educate the illiterate population, and they were beautifully preserved. I'm really glad I made the effort to go off the beaten path for this particular site. Unfortunately, they wouldn't allow any photography. Fortunately, there is a good website with 360 degree panoramic interactive images of the interior. Click here to get to the website and then click on the word "interior" in the descriptive text to get to the images.

Tomorrow, Uroš and I will likely go to one of the cave systems and maybe a castle near our Urbas family ancestral land. The caves we will likely visit are in the municipality of Postojna (Postojnska Jama) and the castle is called Prejamski Grad, which means "castle in front of the cave". Tomorrow evening, I will be picked up here in Dragomer by our cousins, who will take me visiting other cousins for the evening. I'm looking forward to that very much.

Finally, here's a photo of Janez and Meta's house in Dragomer. It is typical of a middle class home and made of large bricks (kind of like our cinderblocks, but of red clay), which are then covered by a rocky stucco-type material. It is troweled on and stroked horizontally in 4-6 inch strokes. This is evident by the paths of the small rocks in the stucco that are dragged by the trowel as it is being pulled along the surface.

This house is a three-story split level. There is a single car garage here on the left front corner as well as another 1.5 bays on the right front corner. The first level (half a floor down from the front entrance) is a daylight basement, where Uroš lives. A half floor up is the main living level... an office, a half bath, a living room, kitchen, dining area, and the outdoor terrace you can see on the left of the house. The upper floor is two large bedrooms, a small room and a full bath. The balcony you see on the upper floor at the front of the house is the bedroom I am occupying. It is very comfortable and Janez has put a small bistro table and chairs on the balcony for me to enjoy. However, it's the main terrace just off the kitchen that I enjoy the most. It's a beautiful home and very comfortable!