Koper (Koper)

Member Name: maikli

Product:	Koper
Date:	29/11/04 (2702 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well preserved old town, not a touristy place, good base for the rest of Slovenia's coast

Disadvantages: Parts of the town are industrial and ugly, aside from the youth hostel, cheap accommodation is non-existant, not a destination for a beach holiday

Poor Koper. Move this port to another location, and you wouldn’t see the cobbles for daytrippers. There would be busloads of all nationalities herded round the Praetorian Palazzo, elbowing and shoving each other as they climb the steps up the cathedral tower, jostling for a waterside table in overpriced fish restaurants, and spending tolars galore on coffee and cakes in cosy cafes.

And why aren’t the narrow lanes of Koper’s old town thronging with scantily-clad camera-toters? Well, Koper suffers from what I call the “Trieste Syndrome”. If you’ve read my review of Trieste, you might remember that the reason that city is neglected by the tourist trade is because of its much more spectacular neighbour Venice. Koper has the same problem. Slovenia’s short Istrian Riviera is maybe not as dramatic as its Croatian counterpart, the waters less clean, the beaches too stony or too small. So beach-lovers head elsewhere. Those into picturesque fishing villages will bypass Koper for nearby Piran, one of the most beautiful towns on the Adriatic. And then big majestic Venice is only an hour or so across the water. It doesn’t help that the guidebooks tend to sum up the place along the lines of, “Koper is a useful transport hub”, implying that the only reason you’d want to come here is to change buses.

Koper is unloved. I happen to quite like unloved cities…look at Diyarbakir, Trieste, Alexandria. All of them under-rated, neglected, written off as somewhere to miss out, somewhere to change trains. But with all three, I’ve ignored questions like “what do you want to go there for?” and found intriguing cities with a lot to offer if you make the effort and scratch the surface. Koper was exactly the same. Everyone in the Trieste Youth Hostel was either heading for, or had just come from Piran, and nobody could quite get their heads round the notion that I was going to Koper. By the end of that evening, even I began to have doubts.

But I’m glad I did board that bus with the four elderly women at Trieste bus station. I’m glad I didn’t join the sheep with their backpacks on the bus to Piran. If I had done that, I would never have experienced Koper’s youth hostel, the Dijaski Dom Koper.

Arriving in a city by bus is usually a disappointing event, and Koper didn’t buck the trend. All five of us passengers piled off in a vast concrete bus station surrounded by dual carriageways and a building site. All around me were factories, apartment blocks, shopping malls. Asking for directions to the hostel saw me tramping the length of one very dull, straight road heading into what seemed like more of the same. A little light rain did nothing to lighten my mood. Narrowly evading being mown down by a bus on a pelican crossing, a few obscenities might have passed my lips, not aimed at the bus driver in particular, but at the drab suburbs, at the busy lanes of traffic, at the factories, at all those smug travellers who got on the right bus and who would by now be strolling along the waterfron in Piran, which would no doubt be bathed in sunlight. That thought was worth an extra obscenity.

It was then that the old town just loomed out of nowhere. I turned a corner, passed under an archway, and suddenly the traffic noise disappeared. I was in a steep cobbled street which twisted and turned its way past mediaeval stone houses before depositing me in Titov trg, the heart of the old town. With a palazzo on one side, a loggia on the other, it was quite some sight, but with the rain not giving up easily, I took a right turn and quite by accident arrived at a modern structure claiming to be a youth hostel.

Things did look positive, what with the Hostelling International sign on the door. Inside the cavernous reception area, I hunted around for someone to help me. There were lots of young people around, so I guessed it was open, but where did I check in? A gloomy office seemed the most likely bet.

“Prosim?” Can I help?, came a voice from within. My well-rehearsed Slovene phrase for “hello, do you have a room?” was greeted with much mirth, before the body behind the voice emerged to ask why I had come. Or at least, that’s what I think she said, as she spoke no English, French or Italian. We garbled and stumbled our way through the check-in process, the receptionist seemingly confused that a tourist had not only found his way there but had the cheek to ask for a bed. I was given a key and a student was bellowed at to take me to my room.

As youth hostels go, this wasn’t bad at all…a largeish room with three beds, and a window overlooking the street. Then there was a knock at the door. A young man came in, and was very perplexed to find me there. He introduced himself as Miha, said he was a student in Koper, and then ran off again, returning with bagloads of books. It was my turn to look confused. He must have sensed my confusion, as he explained that this was a student dormitory for secondary school pupils, but that tourists can stay if there are beds free. He then promptly went to sleep.

“Maykal, Maykal! Passport! Passport!” I’ve had that screeched at me on many occasions in the past, but over an intercom in a youth hostel was a first. The receptionist was in fits of giggles when I passed her my documents, giggles that only increased when a student mistook me for a Slovene and asked me for the keys to the piano room. It was all a bit bizarre, so I made my escape back to the pretty square I’d passed through earlier.

The 15th century Praetorian Palace was under renovation on my visit, so I can’t tell you much about that. I can however wax lyrical about the equally old Loggia on the opposite side of the square, or rather, the enticing kavarna (coffee house) located on the balcony. After sipping a badly-needed kava (coffee…served like the Italian espresso, strong and black), I decided to indulge on a cokolad. I’d heard the woman opposite me order a cokolad, and she was duly served with a hot chocolate. Not just any hot chocolate…this was dark, thick and eaten with a spoon, and for a chocoholic like me, this was something I couldn’t just ignore. The waitress did try to fob me off with a paltry kakao, but I was insistent, cokolad it would be. A tip for any other chocolate fans out there…ask for “chokolad, prosim”, and if she asks, “topli?” give her a hearty “ja!”.

With chocolate no doubt smeared all over my face, I wandered down Kidriceva ulica with its many quaint shops and cafes. I tried to ignore the smells of freshly baked burek, but having skipped breakfast, I ended up buying two of the greasy but delicious cheese pastries from an Albanian vendor hiding down a backstreet. Happily nibbling on my burek, I blundered through the alleys in my usual fashion. I’ve said it a thousand times in other reviews, but really, to explore a town, go and get lost in it. My parents always like to know where they are going, my brothers always have to pinpoint their exact location on a map, but I don’t care if the road I choose takes me right out of my way. Exploring a town this way, you might discover buildings, monuments, shops that other tourists won’t ever set eyes on.

That evening, I dined at a pizzeria called Atrij. It was somewhere in the old city and I found it by chance, coming out of a quiet backstreet to be confronted with an unexpected garden with tables and chairs. To come to Slovenia and eat pizza is a bit of a disappointment, but all the other restaurants in town were seemed to be upmarket fish restaurants, not an option for fish-hater me. Still, Koper has very close links with Italy, being just over the border from Trieste, and a thriving Italian community still exist, so the pizza was as good as any in Italy.

Returning to my hostel, I walked past several bars packed with what looked like students. I would have liked to have had a pivo at one of them, but nature was calling and the only place I could think of to go was the hostel. I could always come out later, or so I thought. The stairs up to my room were in darkness, not a sound to be heard in the corridors. My watch told me it was just after 9pm, so I thought it a little strange. In my room, Miha was already dressed for bed.

“Did the porter shout at you?” he asked.
“No. Why?”
“Oh, we have a curfew in here. You must be in bed by 9, and the lights go out at half past.”

He then confessed that it was great to have a tourist in his room, because it meant he might be able to persuade the night porter to let him read magazines late into the night. I asked how old the students in the dormitory were.

“This is for 16 to 19 year olds. Those over 20 have another dormitory over the road. They are allowed to stay up until 11!”

Miha was 19. 19 year old students in England don’t go to bed at 9pm…they go out!

Sure enough, just after half past, someone knocked loudly on the door, before barging in. A heated discussion went on between Miha and the nightporter, with several hand gestures towards me…I busied myself with re-arranging my bag, and kept well out of it. Suddenly the porter bounded towards me and took my hand, crying “Benvenuti!” Miha was ecstatic…he’d been given permission to keep the light on for as long as I wanted!

The following night, I was assured, a slightly deaf porter might be on duty, and Miha began to conjure up ways to escape outside without being detected, so he could show me some of Koper’s nightlife. It wasn’t to be, as the same porter was prowling the corridors when I crept in just before lights out.

On my last day in Koper, I took a walk along the seafront. Koper’s coastline was made for inline skaters, with a wide tarmac path snaking its way from the old town along the bay and round the headland to Izola and Piran beyond. Everyone was on skates. Little children being towed by their mums, groups of teenagers doing jumps and spins, couples gliding past arm in arm, even two oldish women gave it a go, raucously laughing as they clung on to each other. I walked as far as the headland, and turned back to look at the view.

Koper’s old town used to be on an island, my tourist map informed me, but I couldn’t work out how. But from this angle, it all became clear. The towers and steeples of the old town rise up slightly, and I guess there has been a lot of land reclamation since the island was joined by a causeway a couple of centuries ago. Now, where there used to be sea, you have a concrete beach and a shopping centre.

Back in town, I walked round the town walls, and arrived at the port. Koper is Slovenia’s major port. Actually, it is the only port in Slovenia, as well as being the port of choice for Austria. If ships are your thing, then a walk around the port area will be interesting, as boats from all over the Adriatic dock here and you can hear all sorts of languages being spoken.

If only Koper had somewhere cheap to stay, other than the hostel. I don’t like the whole curfew idea anyway, but 9pm was just ridiculous. Maybe the situation in the summer is different, once the students have gone home and it wholly becomes a youth hostel, but during term time, you are treated like a naughty schoolkid if you’re running late. It was amusing at the time, and I enjoyed chatting to Miha and a couple of the other students, but it would have been so much nicer to have a bit more freedom.

Getting to Koper is easy. One thing to remember if you are coming from Italy is that Koper goes by the Italian name of Capodistria on bus timetables. From Trieste, frequent buses hop over the border, and the journey took just under an hour with a very brief passport check at the border. With Slovenia’s entry into the exclusive European club, they might not even stop at the border any longer. Buses for Izola and Piran leave from behind the big supermarket near the seafront. Piran deserves all the fuss. It is a stunning red-roofed town jutting out to sea on a finger-shaped promontory, and well worth a day trip, especially out of season. For Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana, you need to tramp up the dual carriageway to Koper’s bus terminal, from where buses also leave for Croatian Istria and Trieste (Trst in Slovene).

Koper isn’t the sort of place to veer madly out of your way to visit. Like I described Alexandria a few weeks ago, Koper is a living, working city, where tourism is just a hobby. You can spend a day or two enjoying the place, but by then it is time to move on. Visiting Koper as a day trip from Piran might leave you questioning why on earth you’ve come…Koper cannot compare with Piran’s beauty. But the other way round works well…stay in Koper and make a day trip to Piran. Koper is a good introduction to Slovenia, convenient for those cheap Ryanair flights to Trieste and a pleasant town to rest up in for a couple of days. Use it as a springboard for the rest of Slovenia’s many attractions.

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