To Piran, Slovenia’s lovely hidden seaside town

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Did you know Slovenia had a little bit of coast on the Adriatic Sea? Probably not. Why would you know something like that unless you visited Slovenia yourself? Just one of the many reasons that travel is instructive – you learn basic facts about the areas you visit. Today, Masayo and I found ourselves traveling from the capital, Ljubljana, to the true hidden jewel of Piran beside the sea.

The impetus for this trip is that we’ve been hanging around Ljubljana a few days waiting for a package that’s coming from Japan for Masayo; it’s arriving at the Japanese embassy in the capital but it hasn’t come yet and the embassy is going to be closed for the weekend. Spending the weekend waiting it out in Piran is like a little mini vacation-within-a-vacation. The town was suggested by Lucáš, who’d shown us around Prague a few weeks back.

Always good to follow some insightful local advice when traveling.

In the morning in Ljubljana my blood sugar was 151, about what it nearly always is in the morning these days. It’s those post-dinner readings that are still the most difficult to control – although actually today would turn out to be nearly all bad after this breakfast reading. Ah well.

I went out to the town square to find doughnuts and coffee for our breakfast in the room at Viva Rooms. The doughnuts came from a bakery that was, surprisingly, open early on a Saturday, and the coffee came from a vending machine just outside the guesthouse: still trying to find actual full cups of coffee, not large cups with an inch of coffee in the bottom.

Trains don’t go between Ljubljana and Piran, so after checking out of Viva Rooms (where they forgot to charge us for the laundry they’d done for us, which I didn’t realize until after we’d left) so after we checked out, Masayo and I hiked up to the bus station and bought our tickets.

On the big highway bus bound for Piran, I got out my laptop and earbuds and finally listened to a new album I’d bought on iTunes a couple days ago: From Berkeley To Bakersfield, the new double album by one of my favorite bands, Cracker.

The bus wound around the gently hills and farmhouses of western Slovenia along a quiet country road. Rusty sheds, fields of yellowing straw, and dramatic grassy inclines passed by as the music flowed into me. And it all fit; the album (as you can tell by its title) is very Californian, one half wise-ass coastal hipster rock and one half countrified reflection. I felt as if I were actually riding through central California, except for the occasional Slavic lettering on passing signs.

We made it: Piran!

The bus pulled into Piran before lunchtime, and we disembarked and looked at our new surroundings: the Adriatic Sea was to our left, stretching out towards Venice and (just to our north) Trieste in northern Italy, and ahead was the town itself: low, boxy, tan-colored red-roofed buildings crammed into tight, haphazard rows, looking ancient, sturdy and thriving all at the same time.

Piran is small, and is situated on a very small peninsula so that the sea is never that far away. We walked along the water’s edge straight to the place I’d booked a room via booking.com – Val Hostel, in a quirky old turquoise building on the corner of two dark but friendly alleys.

A woman came into the large lobby and dining area to check us in, though she didn’t seem to be expecting us. But it was all ok; our room is on the second floor and is small but, as all rooms in Piran, perfectly located. The bathrooms and showers were down the hall, though it didn’t seem like anyone else was staying at Val. I put my insulin in a refrigerator in a room across the hallway – I always take advantage of that when it’s available, but here in Europe in winter I’m not too worried about it.

Then it was time to explore Piran a little. It’s a fascinating town to walk around: the alleys are narrow and the buildings tower high overhead, about five floors above, and seem to actually bend in and block the sunlight. They zigzag and criss-cross each other and you just dart this way and that, getting ever more lost. But you can’t get too lost – after a few minutes you always come out to the edge and get a sea view stretching to the distance.

There weren’t many people here today, mostly low-key locals and the occasional lazy-looking dog or dozing cat. I was mesmerized by the smooth, worn faces of the buildings and the feeling that we were lost in some amazing ancient world that nobody else knew. Piran may be well-known among Slovenians and even Italians and Croatians who visit on holiday, but I’d never heard of it and I felt like I just discovered it myself.

Traveling is so much better than sitting around at home. Make the road your home and you’ll be amazed all the time!

Looking at the prices on some restaurants we passed, Masayo and were getting a little nervous: they seemed expensive. It may be out of season for Piran but it’s still a touristy town. Fortunately we found a great place right on the shore called Tri Vdove advertising a lunch course for €11.

We sat down inside beside a large window, each ordered the lunch, and looked at the vast, flat Adriatic Sea. Funny to think that just a couple weeks ago we were high in the Slovakian mountains and last week were touring the deep caves of northern Hungary. Even on a stretched-out months-long trip like this one, things will move fast.

I checked my BG at the table and was disappointed that the breakfast doughnut had evidently conspired against me: I was 203. At least, I assume the doughnut was the culprit.

The lunch was fantastic, a great deal: it began with fish soup and then salad, and the main course was three pieces of fried cod and a spinach cream sauce, with a basket of bread (as always in Slovenia). Dessert was a good-sized apple strudel. We ate the world’s most delicious meal and communed with the sea just outside the window.

I was already in love with Piran.

After lunch we saw more of Piran on this slightly cool and overcast day. The town square (actually oval-shaped) was flanked by a harbor on one side and some almost Scandinavian-colored buildings on the other side – red, pink, turquoise, yellow squares sat beside the usual light-stone shades of the other structures. A large Christmas tree stood in the center of the plaza. On a large hill next to this downtown area was the tallest thing in sight – the enormous bell tower of St. George’s Parish Church.

We hiked through some back streets and up random smooth-stone staircases and found St. George’s, which offers a view of the Piran town square to rival all others. This scene didn’t look like what we ‘d gotten used to on this trip but it was beautiful. Avoiding airplanes and only using buses and trains – strictly overland – really gives you a sense of the slowly developing changes in the landscape.

Later for dinner we kept it simple, still full form lunch. We found a little market that was open in a small back-alley square called 1 May Square; we got cheese and crackers plus cookies as a snack/dinner.

My BG unfortunately was 249. I blamed the lunch at bread. But even with a small dinner like this one, the real test was about to begin: my readings are rarely good after dinner these days, though they aren’t in the 300s all the time like they were at the beginning of this trip.

We sat in the bed (the only real furniture in the room with any size to it) and ate our cheese and crackers and watched the Martin Scorsese movie Wolf Of Wall Street on my laptop. Neither of us had seen it, and it was a lot of fun, but the weird thing was that a few times Slovenia was mentioned tangentially in the script. And here we were in Slovenia ourselves, watching it. It was rather weird. Martin must have known we’d come here.

Before bed my blood sugar was its worst level of the day, 266. Bad, but better than a few weeks ago. I took some corrective Humalog and we went to sleep. Tomorrow is Sunday in Piran, and we want to walk around and see some more of it and just soak up its vibe in general while we still have the chance.

I hope it won’t be overcast like today – but I’ll have to accept whatever the travel gods throw at us. I don’t think it’d be possible for Piran to disappoint us though.

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