Piran and Istria

McKay:

Piran

We were headed at my request to the small beach town of Piran. As read-about, it was touristy, but only with Slovenes, Italians, and Germans. We took at lovely dip in the Adriatic from the “beach” of concrete and rocks. Trade-off: no sand in your face or bathing suit! Piran was hot like Florida and we quickly found why swimming was the favored activity. Nice. For dinner, we made reservations at a recommended fish restaurant and enjoyed some more fruits of the sea and lovely Slovenian hospitality (which is like Italian, with maybe a little Russian thrown in).

I have been overwhelmed with the flora in Europe this time of year! There are gardens EVERYWHERE! Everyone grows something. And there are flowers EVERYWHERE!! Every house has window boxes absolutely overflowing with brightly colored annuals – and not in the structured kind of landscaping way, but in a way that seems like the flowers just couldn’t help but be copious and brilliant because they don’t know how not to. It’s inspiring. I’ve been making a list of things I want to grow one day. And because of the lovely garden where we stayed in Piran, I have added kiwi to the list. She had two gorgeous kiwi trees growing in an arc over the seating area giving shade, beauty, and fruit all at once. I was wowed. Other things on the list include: sunflowers, figs, apples, and colorful flowers in my vegetable garden. Gorgeous.

Rovinj

Piran was lovely and relaxing, but we had to move on as we were not on a beach vacation, but a “seeing and experiencing” one. We left the next day for Rovinj (roh-VEEN). In Rovinj, we stayed a little farther outside of town at another sobe that was more on the side of family hotel. It was near the campside on the coast of the Adriatic. Very nice camping in Rovinj! The beach was lovely! We bathed again in the salty Adriatic and basked in the sun on the rocks while people-watching all the non-English speaking tourists. We were certainly rare English speakers in most of the places we went. After a wardrobe change, we took the boat taxi into Rovinj old town to enjoy its few but pleasant sights and scope out the festival it was celebrating. We picnicked at the top of the town and people-watched while licking gelato in the square until the famous Bora wind brought in some, shall we say, CHILLY weather. Tired and ill-equipped in our wardrobe to enjoy the rest of the small festival, we took the boat taxi back an hour earlier than planned and became extremely glad we did so because the next one would have left us rain-drenched and freezing. We win at boat ferry.

Opatija

The Istrian peninsula is very nice, but more suitable to a beach vacation mentality. Our speed, so recently in places like Vienna, was slow to change pace, although thankful for the less taxing wear on our bodies. In retrospect, I would have liked to plan more food tasting here as it’s a region known for gastronomy. But, maybe next time.

On the way to return the rental car, we stopped in Opatjia, former playground of the Hapsburgs. Like the German language realization, if I’d comprehended there would be so much Austro-Hungarian empire on our tour, I would have brushed up. Opatjia was very nice. It was filled with a wealthier crowd and nicer cement beaches with umbrellas to rent and pools shaped into the concrete coastline. We had coffee at a café and watched the waves crash and break Little Mermaid-style on the coast.

One fun interaction happened when I got change for the parking meter at a hotel and the concierge got so excited when he found out I was from Texas. It turns out he was a horse jockey and travelled much of the US… and remembers that Texas was where the local boys wanted to fight him for dancing with the prettiest local lady. Cute.