Day three began with getting some cappuccino and a pastry at the bakery next to the hotel. I had to wait a little bit because the order for everyone around me was taken before me… This added a little bit of saltiness to being asked if I belonged in the resort the night before (I’m embellishing a little… but the sentiment was there). We then began the “two kilometer” walk from the hotel/resort to Castle Duino. What we didn’t know was that it was a 2.2 kilometer walk to the 2 kilometer trail up to the castle. So I didn’t prepare accordingly and wasn’t the most hydrated person two days in a row. The 2 km trail to the castle (the Rilke trail?) had some pretty spectacular views over the karst cliffs and the ocean bays. I think it has been a little hazy the days we’ve been in Italy but that didn’t make the view too much less spectacular
The castle itself was rebuilt in 1920 after it was destroyed in WWI. It has a pretty cool looking interior including a rather impressive violin/musical instrument collection. The castle ale so boasts a WWII bunker which created the crushed rock/stone for the pebble beach near the castle. Afterwards we (extremely luckily) caught a bus back to Sistiana and then after much restaurant shopping found a good pizzeria that was open. Allie has become a pizza snob though and only deigned to eat the pizza because she was hungry. According to her it “wasn’t Italian” – despite being made… in Italy… by an Italian.
Next we fulfilled the actual purpose of the day by drinking some prosecco on the beach. The beach here isn’t a typical beach that we’d think of. Instead it’s a pebble beach, so sandals were rather helpful. Connor had bought a short European bathing suit so he’d fit in with the locals, but I couldn’t quite pull off the 4″ inseam so I opted to buy a 7/8″ inseam pair to be extra stylish when I returned home. The bathing suit shop saleswoman had this look on her face that said “please no” when I tried on the 4″ ones so I opted to trust her. Dinner for the third night included a rather voluminous meat/cheese tray and some vino blanco. After dinner we went to bed to be able to wake up for our tour the next day!
Day four started pretty similar to day three except instead of a grueling hike we began with a nice air conditioned car ride into Slovenia. Our guide for this trip was Daniela (I might be spelling that wrong) and the driver was her husband of 6 months Luca. Slovenia is a relatively small country of about 2 million people in land about the size of Kentucky. They used to have an island but the Austrians connected it to the mainland. They have a very limited amount of coastline but a lot of mountains and nature! Our guide actually grew up in Slovenia when it was part of the federation of countries that made up Yugoslavia. This was really cool because she was able to provide a lot of insight into what life was like then vs what life was like now.
Our first stop of the trip was Piran – a small coastal town. There is only one road into/out of Piran and if you want to visit you have to park in a garage and schlep your stuff into the town. Here we walked through the town and learned a little bit about it while enjoying the amazing views it provides of the country/ocean. The church at the top of the mountain is dedicated to St. George because he rescued the old Slovenians from paganism. Whew. Piran also has a “beach” but it was more of a large boulder/street beach than a sandy beach that we think about. But still families and people were all gathered there for a good time!
Next we drove from Piran to the salt flats of Slovenia. Something important about the salt flats though is that they’re located in between the Croatian and Slovenian border. This meant that we needed to show our documents to the border guards on the Slovenian side but we’rent able to get them stamped going out or coming back in! Also, Croatia is a big tourist destination so we took a questionable shortcut to skip half the line in order to get to the saltpans a little bit earlier. The shortcut was also incredibly scenic and gorgeous though! I think it should be the regular cut instead of the shortcut. The salt pans themselves were really cool. Basically they formed the backbone of the wealth of Venice from what I could tell. Reportedly one family harvested about 400 tons of salt in one summer! Salt was super critical to all things then and it’s the second time in Europe that I’ve seen a city be incredibly wealthy on something we take so much for granted. Also, making salt looks like really hard work :/
After the salt pans were went to a winery that actually had a view down onto the salt pans, the countryside and the sea. They also had a miniature pinscher there so Connor and Allie felt right at home. The winery tour was given by the wife of the owner/mom of the minpin (who felt the need to go hunting for small rodents). They had some hams curing within the entrance to their cellar and their inside tasting room was built around an old olive oil press. To accompany our wine we had the now omnipresent selection of cured meats and cheeses. The wine was overall pretty good! And the location was spectacular. We then began the journey back to the hotel where Connor and Allie had to head to their “rideshare” to the airport. I put that in quotes because they only had to share the ride with each other. I hung out at the beach with my new European bathing suit for a little bit then we went out to an okay dinner at the fancy restaurant. We thought about playing Settlers but couldn’t quite get the cushions to line up to allow a game table/thought sleeping was maybe a better idea.
