Piran/Portoroz

After the excellent breakfasts in Ljubljana, today’s was a bit of a let down. There was limited selection and the quality was not the same. Although they had various loose tea options and tea pots, which was nice. It is odd that the breakfasts weren’t really good, as the hotel owner also owns the restaurant next door, a Michelin restaurant, called COB, cooking outside the box.

Next stop was Piran. Piran is an old town on a peninsula out onto the sea. No cars are allowed in the old town, so we parked in a garage nearby and walked into town. The garage was difficult to manoeuvre, made for very small European cars I guess. The spots and ramps were very tight to navigate, even with our compact car. I had to exit the car before Ed pulled into the spot. Still it was hard for him to get out.

Piran is similar to Venice, with piazzas (squares) small alleys, churches and statues. In fact it was once part of Italy, therefore the Venetian influence. Now it is filled with restaurants, shops, cafes and once again ice cream shops. Ice cream and gelato shops are everywhere in Slovenia. We walked around for quite a while, taking pictures and enjoying the scenery. From Piran you can see the Croatian and Italian coasts. One new thing we saw is a fish spa. The tiny fish, that have no teeth, rub up against the foot and brush off the dead and hardened skin.

We had hoped to have fish for supper in Piran but it wasn’t appealing in a number of ways. Here Shrimp is usually served with the shell, head and feet on. The daily catch is priced by the kg and expensive. The seafood choices are typically squid, octopus, mussels, sardines, and sea bass. The sea bass comes mostly as a full fish as well, with head, tail and skin.

So for supper we headed back to our Slovenian restaurant from yesterday. We almost never go to the same restaurant twice. Today we made an exception. We only had soup and bread as we were too tired to eat much. It was enough.Read more