Day 26 - Rejeka/Trieste/KoperJun 29, 2005
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Saying goodbye to the ferry at Rejeka
The narrow streets of Koper are a highlight
| Weird day, off the boat at 7:15am. Straight to the bus station, trying to get to either Koper or Piran in Slovenia. Couldn't be done. We could, however, go straight through Slovenia, and end up in Trieste in Italy, and then get another bus back into Slovenia to Koper. This is what we planned. The next bus to Trieste was at 12:00pm, so we killed some time in Rejeka wandering, shopping, and lots of nice coffee. Eventually we were on our packed bus to Trieste. If your geography is strong, you will know that Slovenia at this point is only 45kms across, so you go through the border checkpoint of Croatia/Slovenia, and then 45kms later, you go through Slovenia/Italy. Some 7km into Italy is the city of Trieste. It was 36 degrees as we entered Trieste, and the 4.50 Euro beer at the bus station did nothing to cool us down as you can imagine. The bus back to Koper was in 90 minutes, so we killed time at the bus station, because it was too hot to wander anywhere else. When our full bus left, we were surprised that everyone on board seemed to be Italian, but clearly living in Slovenia. A browse through the guide book set us straight. Most of the coast here was given to the Italians after WWI, but taken back off them after WWII, however the international boundaries were only finally ratified in 1975, so I guess there are heaps of Italians living in the area, who woke up one morning to discover they were Slovenian... Anyway, we arrived in Koper, checked into a motel and headed into town in the still blazing heat. Koper is an industrial place, with a large shipping port area, but the old town area rivals anything we have seen to date. The narrow cobbled streets are great, and this is a town begging for a face-lift and some tourism investment (although it is nice to have the place tourist free for us at the moment). We wandered the streets for a while and then found some money, and had a beer and a great little meal near the marina. While we were sitting there, the place was hit by a strong, but short wind squall out of nowhere. It whipped up dust and sand, blew awnings down and wrecked havoc for 5 minutes, and just as quickly vanished. We wandered the streets some more, and then headed back to the hotel, where we were treated to an amazing electrical storm display that lasted hours. |
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