Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Border bashing - 24 May 2007

TriesteLeaving Divača, we headed to the coast in the brilliant sunshine and crossed our first border of the day, into Italy.

Seeing as we were so close it would have been silly not to visit Trieste to start the day. It is a large and busy city and it seemed that we saw more traffic in that one morning that the entire time we spent in Slovenia. KoperWe sat on the waterfront and drank a gold-plated iced coffee, walked a few streets and left.

Our second border crossing was back into Slovenia on the way around the coast to Koper. We must have been the first Kiwis that particular border guard had seen drive through. After consulting books and manuals, he waved us through.

Izola
Koper is Slovenia's main port. The old town is run down, but interesting.

Izola is no longer an island but a picturesque spot nevertheless. But, best of all was our focus for the day: Piran. This Venetian city still looks loved and is a pleasure to walk around.

PiranPiran



PiranIn spite of the heat we climbed the hill to the city walls and watchtowers at the top of the town: the wonderful view was just reward for our labours.

KoperAround the bay is the tourist town of Portorož which we breezed through on our way to view the salt pans at the foot of the Dragonja valley. Unfortunately we were there at the wrong time of the year as, naturally, the salt is harvested at the end of summer so all we saw were rectangular pools of water.

UmagTime for border crossing number three: into Croatia for the night. We headed for Umag on the coast, collected some Kuna to spend and wandered down the coast stopping for the night at PorečPoreč. Accommodation and food in Croatia seemed to be more expensive than Slovenia.

Sixth impression of Slovenia, not all the border guards are up to speed with visa regulations.

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