Koper on the coast

After the Grand Prix in Maribor, we traveled with the Glee Club for the rest of their time in Slovenia. This meant formally inducting our husbands into the Maleta (Suitcase) Club, a grueling task that they both met head on (wagas na pag-ibig ito!)...

getting to ride the tour bus, sit up front a.k.a. "First Class", and hear daily announcements being read out from an iPad (oh, how times have changed)... 

—and one of the best parts: getting to visit places that we normally would not go ourselves. One such place was the tiny town of Klanec, nestled among gorgeous green hills, where we spent two nights in a Franciscan monastery... 

... and the harbor town of Koper on the Adriatic Sea, wedged between Italy and Croatia. 

While the kids rehearsed for their evening concert...

... we were left free to explore this pretty little town.


Koper is very small and very walkable, with the most picturesque parts being its old medieval center, which could be any piazza in Italy.



If you want Italy on a shoestring and with far fewer tourists, go to Slovenia. Really.



My favorite find that day was a small, stylish shop called Piranske Soline. It sells salt products (gourmet salts, body scrubs, and more) made from the salt pans of Piran, a Slovenian coastal town where salt is still made using traditional methods dating back to the 14th century. I went straight for the dark chocolate with sea salt. It's super yummy and I wish I had bought more!

Translated to English, the line on the box reads: "Salt is the sea that could not return to the sky." Nice.

The other place in Koper that stands out is its seafront marina, with ladders that go straight into the Adriatic Sea, making it look like the biggest swimming pool you ever saw. Cool!

It was Pete's birthday, so we opted out of the Glee Club dinner at a school cafeteria (one of those times it's nice to be an adult!) and got a shopkeeper to recommend the best seafood restaurant in Koper. At Restaurant Skipper, we had a fabulous meal of fresh seafood with great Slovene wine, a Sivi Pinot. 

A note on food in Slovenia: I should say we ate astoundingly well in Slovenia, and at great prices too. We always had three courses with wine or beer, and a digestif for the boys, and only spent about €20-30 per couple, per meal. You'd be hard-pressed get such good value in Amsterdam, Paris or anywhere we went in Italy. Our best value meal was at Stajerc in Maribor, a huge spread that came out to €42 for all four of us. It was so ridiculously cheap that Mimi and I were shocked into silence, then burst out laughing upon being presented with the bill.

Back to Koper. Tummies filled, with the sea stretching out in front of us...

young scullers hauling their boats into the marina beside us... 

... and the sun sinking dramatically into the Adriatic...

... it was pretty damn perfect, and a beautiful way to bid Slovenia farewell.

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Piranske Soline's shop in Koper is at Zupančičeva 39. The New York Times has a nice feature on Piranske Soline, and also lists the address for their shop in Ljubljana.

Restaurant Skipper is at Kopališko nabrežje 3, SI-6000 Koper - Capodistria, Slovenia. Phone number is listed as +386 (05) 6261810.