We sleep reasonably well considering is was a chilly night. We rustle up some breakfast and eventually get going. There’s really no urgency as it’s a grey damp day and its not exactly inspiring us to get out and about. We load up the car with waterproofs and extra layers and head into the nearby city of Nova Gorica which has a unique often turbulent past linked for to its older Italian sister city, Goriza just over the border.
Born from a pen stroke in 1947, Nova Gorica (“New Gorizia”) owes its existence to the post-WWII division of Europe. An Allied committee, tasked with drawing the border between Yugoslavia and Italy across this fertile region, created a line, with a ruler and a pencil. This arbitrary demarcation had immediate, dramatic consequences. It split farms from fields, children from schools, and even bisected a cemetery, forcing families to make agonizing, life-altering choices about their nationality and political allegiance.
We commence our exploration at the railway station and are immediately struck by the Art Nouveau architecture. The station is steeped in profound historical significance; it’s a symbolic heart of the former border between Yugoslavia and Italy. The station itself straddles the former border, with the tracks extending directly into what was once another country, and is a powerful reminder of how geography dictated destiny here.
Just outside the station we stand with a foot in each country a strangely unique experience. We spend the next couple of hours criss-crossing the border and are about to learn just how starkly different life was for the population living on either side.
The new border left Gorizia’s urban core in Italy, while its agricultural heartland and suburbs fell to Yugoslavia. This created stark imbalances in product availability and market access, inadvertently sparking a widespread culture of smuggling. Rich or poor, young or old, Italian or Yugoslav – almost everyone participated in this clandestine trade.
We visit the Border Smuggling Museum on the Slovenian side. It’s a fascinating look at the ingenious, sometimes desperate, ways people find to bypass regulations. From hidden compartments in vehicles, shoes and clothing to cleverly disguised goods (compartments in washing powder), the displays showcase the sheer human creativity born from necessity. It sheds light on a less glamorous, but undeniably vital, aspect of border life – a testament to resilience and resourcefulness in the face of border division. Cigarettes, Levis, Walkmans (ask your parents!), vinyl records, porn magazines, the list of smuggled items is endless and is a stark reminder of just how difficult life was for those in Eastern Europe whilst those in the West enjoyed the freedom of choice.
If you wanted to avoid paying customs duty, you could only carry a permitted amount of goods across the border. If you wanted to carry more, you had to find another way. In the early post-war years, people only smuggled necessities for personal use, but from the mid-60s, shopping in Italy became a mass activity, heralding shopping tourism and the lucrative business of smuggling. This illicit smuggling trade gave rise to a fascinating barter system, with coffee at its heart. Imagine exchanging 60 kgs of coffee for a VW Golf in the former Yugoslavia! Across the border in Italy, the value of coffee was equally fluid: you could acquire 220 grams for a dozen eggs, or trade 3 litres of spirits for 550 grams. For a full kg of coffee, six kgs of butter would seal the trade. The museum is an absorbing snapshot of the extraordinary reality that shaped daily life for over four decades across Yugoslavia.
Our next stop is the Solkan Bridge, the world’s longest stone arch railway bridge with an arch span of 85 meters. Built between 1900 and 1905 as part of the Bohinj Railway, it’s a stunning example of early 20th-century engineering and design, constructed from over 4,500 stone blocks. It’s located over the beautiful emerald-green Soča River and has seen its share of history, including being partly destroyed during World War I and later meticulously rebuilt. We swing by the supermarket on the way home to stock up for supplies.
We again choose to eat at the campsite restaurant and have the most delicious locally caught salt baked trout – all 1.5kgs of it with potatoes. Its a fabulous meal and we retreat to our tent absolutely stuffed assuming that we will sleep like logs!!
Camping as we all know is about connecting with nature and embracing the elements. However, sometimes, those elements decide to put on quite a show! As the clock ticks past midnight and into the early hours of May 23rd, the mood shifts dramatically. Around 3am, what starts as a gentle breeze quickly escalates into a full-blown tempest. The wind howls through the valley at speeds of between 50-70mph and rain begins to lash down with an intensity that makes us wonder whether we’d accidentally pitched our tent on the set of a disaster movie. I’m telling you it was a bloody scary experience.
Excuse the rather high pitched hysterical tone of the following video!!
Our tent, which had felt so sturdy just hours before, bucks and strains against its guy lines. Brownie goes outside to put the tent pegs back in and has to do this repeatedly over the next 3 hours as the sodden ground means they just won’t stay in. We take it in turns to pack and sit in the one corner of the tent as a “sheet anchor” in order to keep it on the ground. If we make any attempt to pack the car, the tent will be marked destination Kansas!! Grrrrr, bloody weather, I’m never camping again. We look at the weather forecast for the next couple of days, and although the wind will be calmer, rain will continue on and off. We decide to leave the campsite today once the storm has passed and forego the final 2 nights under canvas, but where will we go? We um and ah about destinations and switch between studying the map and the Booking.com app to check availability and prices. We settle on Koper, which is on the Slovenian coast, and I duly book us into a hotel. As it starts to get light we decide to tie the tent to the car as an additional anchor, the wind is still howling, and the rain is still coming down.
Around 7am, the storm finally starts to subside, leaving behind a drenched but otherwise intact campsite. We bed down on the floor of the tent using paddleboard bags as a pillow and cover ourselves in a sleeping bag in order to get some well needed rest after the storm. Remarkable our tent stays up and everything stays dry. Thank you Coleman Tents.
We sleep for a couple of hours, take a shower – every pitch is waterlogged – and make some tea before loading up the car and taking the extremely soggy tent down. We’ve had enough of camping and can’t wait to leave, hit the coast and stay in a hotel.
It’s an easy drive to Koper for our unexpected 48-hour sojourn to Slovenia’s Adriatic coastline. We check in our bags and the concierge parks our car, oh, and the sun is shining and the hotel is fab. Koper, as we are about to discover, is a charming Venetian-influenced old town and bustling port, offers a delightful blend of history and modern life on Slovenia’s short coastline. The town’s roots stretch back to Roman times, when it was known as Capris, and later as Justinopolis under Byzantine rule. However, it was the nearly five centuries under the Venetian Republic (1279-1797) that truly shaped Koper’s distinctive character and prosperity. During this period, it flourished as Caput Histriae (Head of Istria), becoming a vital trading hub renowned for its salt production.
We leave our harbour front hotel and head for a very very late lunch and a well-deserved beer. The clouds are coming over, but we don’t care as we have a warm and dry hotel room to retreat to if the weather goes bad.
We take a walk across to the old town and up the hill to the main square which immediately transports us back to Venetian times. The majestic Praetorian Palace, a 15th-century gothic masterpiece, dominates one side, its elegant facade whispering tales of bygone eras.
The Bell Tower of the Koper Cathedral is a climb of 204 steps, but we really don’t have the energy to climb them, so instead, admire the tower from ground level. We continue our exploration of the old town and wander down the narrow streets, and return to our hotel. It’s been a hell of a day, and we’re desperately in need of an early night.
Rested and well breakfasted we’re ready to take to our bikes and go for a cycle and set off on the scenic coastal path to Izola. This ride is an absolute joy – a mostly flat, well-maintained cycleway that hugs the coastline, offering constant, refreshing sea breezes and stunning views across the Gulf of Trieste. Arriving in Izola, we were greeted by another delightful Slovenian coastal gem. Once an island, Izola retains its strong fishing heritage, evident in its bustling harbour and the local seagulls hanging around for any fish scaps.aroma of fresh seafood wafting from the many excellent restaurants. We wheel our bikes through the charming old town, with its winding cobblestone streets and pastel-colored houses, and visit the Parish Church of St. Maurus, perched on a hill.
We take a gentle cycle back stopping on the way for some refreshments and a snack. We return to the hotel to watch the conclusion of today’s Giro Italia which ironically is finishing in Nova Gorica. The weather there still looks grey and miserable, boy are we glad we made the switch from canvas to hotel.
As the sun begins its descent, we have dinner up the hill in a small local restaurant that has very few tourists. The wine is inexpensive and chilled, and our pizzas are fab. We take a walk around the main square and descend for an ice cream before returning to our hotel to pack, cos guess what, we’re on the move again tomorrow.
It’s been a fab couple of nights in Koper and Izola and has been the perfect place to recover from the tribulations of the storm.. From the historical grandeur of Koper to the laid-back, authentic feel of Izola, this small stretch of Slovenian coastline comes highly recommended!
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