 (I notice on this map that the borders of Slovenia are wrong and make its coastline seem much longer than it actually is. This may be a sign that I need to change jobs because I am far too familiar with the geography of the former Yugoslavia.) 28 April 2007Koper, Slovenia And so we arrive at the port of Koper, Slovenia and step off of the ship into the unknown. I always feel that I should qualify the name "Koper" by adding the "Slovenia" to the end of it since people might otherwise not know where I am talking about. (Not that adding the "Slovenia" helps most people either.)  There is hardly room for the Veendam to dock on Slovenia's tiny stretch of coastline. It's only something like 30 km long.  Koper isn't exactly a place that is well-known so stepping into the town we have no idea what to expect. (Of course, we could have looked more closely at the information sheets they gave us on board the ship last night, but surprises are good too.) This is a statue of some guy looking very pensive. When they make statues of me I hope this is what they make me look like - like I have a lot on my mind.  So far the town seems rather sleepy. This could because it is barely 8 in the morning, or perhaps it actually IS a sleepy little town. We're not sure yet.  Is this a really narrow house? Or just a narrow bit of the house on the left side?  And so we arrive at the main town square. In front of us is the Praetorian Palace, which I don't really know what it's about.  Also on the main central square of the town is an imposing clock tower. This will make a useful point of reference as we wander aimlessly around the town (which is the plan).  I notice that the main square is called Tito Square. Memories of Brotherhood and Unity. Remember those days Yugoslavia?  Down another side-street takes us past some shops. All of them are closed, however, since it is so early in the morning.  An interesting looking fountain. I have no idea what this is about. (I think we'll hear that a lot today.)  This I DO know what it's about and I am surprised somehow to see this symbol spray-painted on the walls of Koper. This is the Serbian Chetnik symbol, which I am sure has a name but I don't know what it is. At any rate, I don't want to make any sweeping generalisations but this is sort of the swastika of the Serbs (in the sense that it is a provocative symbol). The Croatians have their own "swastika" as well which looks a lot like the Purina Puppy Chow flag and they proudly put it on their national flag. I am not sure if the Slovenes have a "swastika" type of symbol.  A bronze plate in the pavement shows a relief map of the walled old town of Koper. Not that that helps us know where to go that will be interesting, so we'll have to continue wandering.  At the Southern end of town we pass outside the city walls, which as you can see are not particularly imposing.  Some kind of carved thing over the gate passing through the city walls.  Another carved thing hanging off a wall on one of the houses.  Wandering through the side-streets takes us past some interesting looking buildings, but nothing really stand-out impressive thus far.  Hmmmm. The Chetnik thing again. I didn't think there were that many Serbs living here in Slovenia, particularly Western Slovenia. But apparently there is at least one and he has a can of blue spray paint.  This kind of looks like a baptismal font, but why is it out in the middle of a square?  Look at that... the big clock tower at Tito Square. I told you that would make a good reference point.  Some more carved things adorn the walls of an old building. This reminds me of what I commented on in Dubrovnik - the habit of putting things in places where no one can see them or read them.  My map tells me that this is the Church of St Jakob, for whatever that is worth.  I am not sure what I was trying to capture with this photograph. Sorry.  The Chetnik Graffiti Artist of Koper strikes again. This time with a very square looking rendition, complete with "Serbia" written beneath (if my ability to read cyrillic lettering is accurate).  And again the Chetnik Graffiti Artist of Koper leaves his mark. This time he makes a nice rounded version and adds the inflammatory word "Kosovo" to the top of it. I doubt his sincerity, however. If he was so dedicated to the cause he'd be living IN Kosovo and not spray-painting about it from the safety of Slovenia.  There is a lot of graffiti in Koper, if you hit these side-streets and back-streets. Here we see a symbol that our more Western eyes are used to - the swastika. Except that unlike the Chetnik symbol thing, the swastika is crossed out and "Nazis Raus" (Nazis Get Out) is written next to it.  The Chetnik symbol carved into the door of an abandoned church. This whole thing seems to be turning into a photo essay of the graffiti of Koper.  I am not sure if I have ever actually seen an abandoned church before. I mean, why would you abandon a church? But this one has the front doors chained closed (which is not very effective, as you can see).  Inside the church are some impressive ceiling paintings. What a waste of a building.  These letters are blue and spell out "Serbian Criminal Gang". Is this the work of the Chetnik Graffiti Artist of Koper?  Hmmmm. This time the Chetnik symbol is crossed out, but with blue spray-paint. Was the Chetnik Graffiti Artist of Koper not happy with this one? Or is there another force at work? The Anti-Serbian Graffiti Artist of Koper?  Graffiti ruins what might otherwise be a charming side-street. I feel like we're in the "bad part of town", or at least the crappy part of the old walled city.  Angling my shot to exclude the graffiti we get a sense of what the houses are like along here. Do people live here? If so, where are they?  And so we reach an open space at the Eastern end of the walled city. Time to head back to the middle again. There's not much going on down here.  Some cats in a window. Cute huh?  This carving seems familiar. We saw something like it in Dubrovnik with the saintly figure holding a replica of the walled city of Dubrovnik in his hand. I wonder if this is the same thing, except with the walled city of Koper in his hand.  We step out of the sun and into the stark white interior of a church. I believe that this is the Cathedral of Mary's Assumption but I could be wrong. There are churches all over the place.  Continuing through the old town in a Westerly direction takes us past a brilliant reddish wall... and is that another Chetnik symbol in the window?!?!??  At the end of the narrow street, far in the distance, we can see the ocean.  I am not sure why I liked this particular scene. The colours maybe?  Reaching the far Western part of town we reach Carpacciev Square and the Column of Justin... whatever that means. (I warned you that a lot of the stuff today wouldn't make sense.)  And so we step outside of the old city walls at the Western end of town.  The little map that Holland America Line gave us of Koper says that there's a Bathing Beach up here somewhere. We decide to check that out and see if it's worth coming back to with bathing suits.  Once again you can see that the weather is perfectly clear.  Sitting for a while at the rather small (so small that you can't even see it in this photo) Bathing Beach we notice a trend... there seems to be an endless stream of small sailing boats going out of the harbour past us. You can see a couple dozen of them in this photo but if you sat here for a while you would have literally seen one go past every minute or so without end.  Apparently the source of the endless stream of sailing boats is some kind of sailing school.  Every little boat follows the same path as it comes out. It sails out of the harbour and then makes a right turn. In this photo the one at left has done its turn already, and the one at the right is about to do so.  Making a right turn requires re-setting the sail and ducking under the boom, as you can see.  The name of the sailing school (which you can see here) is Fatamorgana, which doesn't actually make any sense if you think about it.  This is the Bathing Beach. As you can see the water is nice and clear, but I can't say that I am a fan of rocky beaches.  Some algae/seaweed-covered steps lead down into the water from the end of a pier.  The little sailing boats continue to stream out of the harbour.  Fast-forward a bit - back on the ship (which, as you can see, is probably the tallest building in Koper). In the distance you can see all the little sailing boats way out in the water.  The arrival of the Veendam here in Koper seems to have attracted a lot of attention from the locals. We're told that this is one of the first cruise ships to visit here and the first time for the Veendam.  The view over Koper as seen from the Sky Deck of the Veendam. You can see the clock tower on Tito Square, of course.  After lunch on the Veendam we head back out into the town and stop in the Church of Mary's Assumption once again.  Jesus had some nice threads, man. When I wear my cape around town people laugh at me.  Lighting candles with a prayer is always a popular pastime. Almost all the candles are lit.  Less popular than lighting a real candle in prayer is the more modern Push-a-Button-and-Switch-On-a-Candle-Lightbulb method. (Oh those crazy Slovenians... they miss the point, don't they?)  I have no idea what this thing is, but there you go.  The light streaming in the windows had a nice quality to it, which doesn't really come across on film. Oh well.  Back on the streets again I stop to take a picture of a post that has what seems to be the local symbol carved on it. This flaming sun symbol can been seen everywhere in town (almost as much as the Chetnik symbol).  Here's this red wall again. And a carved lion thing that I don't know what it is.  Something about all the colours in this scene appealed to me.  Back at Carpacciev Square again some pigeons stop to have a drink at the fountain.  Stopping in a little market we decide to get some local Olive Oil. There are several to choose from and sample. The best one seems to be this one, made by a local fellow named Jureševi?, a name that to my ears sounds like a potential witness in a war crimes trial. (Hopefully the diacritics worked?)  I am fond of taking pictures of sewer plates, as you can see. Often they tell you something. This one seems to tell us that the people of Koper are historically known for either shovelling something or other, or that this thing the dude is holding is something that I should know what it's supposed to be (a blacksmith's thing or something?). What do I know?  And so we return to the ship once again. We can't stay all day in Koper because the Veendam leaves early to reach Venice by this evening.  On board the ship it seems that we've picked up a bird passenger, hiding in the pipes on the Promenade Deck.  As the Veendam prepares to set off a crowd of locals gather to see us off.  On the ship as well some people gather to watch the Veendam sail out of Koper.  And we're off. They untie us from the dock and we start to push away.  This is the only time on this trip that a crowd of people has gathered to watch us sail away. Like I said, apparently cruise ships visiting Koper is a relatively new/rare thing. They cheer and wave as we start to pull away.  The crowd back on the dock are still waving goodbye to us. Goodbye Slovenes!  All this coastline that you see is just about all that Slovenia has.  And so we leave Koper behind us and head out to the open water for the short sail back to Venice.  Way out on the water we pass by the little sailing boats we saw earlier.  According to the daily schedule we should arrive in Venice for 19h00. It's about two right now, so that makes for a short sailing of 4 or 5 hours ahead of us.  For the last time on this trip we see them take the Dutch flag down on the flagpole on the bow of the ship.  During the short sail to Venice we take advantage of our last chance to enjoy the sun and swimming on board the Veendam.  Somewhere over on the mainland must be the port of Trieste. Maybe this is it?  My last chance to wander around the ship and take pictures of things.  Up ahead of us Venice comes into view, far in the distance.  The flat landscape here is not particularly exciting, as you can see.  Somewhere below us the Venice pilot has just climbed onboard from this boat next to us.  The Dutch flag goes up one last time as we approach the port of Venice.  Up ahead the towers of Venice come into view. This is really the end of the trip. Sad isn't it? We still spend tonight on board the ship, of course, but tomorrow we must disembark.  Passing into the harbour of Venice we pass by the beaches of Lido and other islands once again.  As we head in a high-speed ferry makes its way out to sea. I wonder where this goes to?   Some passengers gather to watch us sail into Venice - a reverse of what we did ten days ago when we left.   Sometimes it seems as though the Veendam is standing still and it's the buildings that are moving past us.  See the moon in the sky? That's about all the commentary that I can muster at this point.      Up ahead the tower at San Marco comes into view.      It's funny how we're on the ship gawking at everything that's going past us, while people on shore are gawking at us as well.  We sail past Piazza San Marco.   Ugh. All those people. Tomorrow when we leave the ship we'll have to deal with all of that.    Once again, see the moon up in the sky? (I think I am so clever for taking pictures with the moon in them.)   Having passed San Marco some people start to go back inside. Nothing left to see.      These pictures seem oddly familiar, don't you think? It seems like so long ago that we sailed out of Venice.  Look! The moon again! This picture is actually cool though.  And so we make the final turn into the harbour and look back across Venice.   Our sailing days come to and end as we arrive in the harbour.  And with that the Veendam ties up at the dock and our trip (almost) comes to an end. Tomorrow we visit Venice and will spend the night in the city, but tonight we must pack our bags and get ready to disembark. Some passengers decide to go out and see the city this evening, as you can see. But, as always, before we go to bed let's check the Daily Logbook: Fact of the day: The white Lipizzaner horse breed originated in the Slovenian town of Lipica near the Italian border. Distance travelled (Katakolon to Koper to Venice) = 638 + 69 = 707 Nautical Miles (1180 + 128 = 1308 km) Total distance travelled = 6089 km |
