Piran, Slovenia: A cheaper, uncrowded, and smaller version of Venice

The Venetians built a central square and a striking bell tower over their town of stone buildings and snaking, maze-like alleyways there on the Adriatic Sea. They just didn’t always do it in there in Venice.  If you’re within striking distance of Venice and you’re on the water, you might run across an old Venetian-built town that looks remarkably like the original.  Places like Piran, a tiny town in Slovenia, offer the chance for a Venice experience without much of the downsides.

The small country of Slovenia has a minute coastline, just 47 kilometers (29 miles), but it includes some brilliant scenery.  Its undisputed star is the tiny, tiny, small town called Piran, population 4,000.  Piran is an example of a perfect location for a town to make it dramatic, romantic, and picturesque, while also making it a pain to maintain and utterly constraining its growth.  Clearly, no one thought of hotel parking garages back when this place was designed.  It’s built on a long, narrow peninsula before the land rises steeply just inland, where the inhabitants built a stone wall for protection.  The layout makes transportation a bit of a pain, but the town is gorgeous and utterly worth it.

Five centuries of Venetian rule here started in the late 13th century and was good for the town, updating everything and giving it that Venice look.  If you’ve been to Venice, Piran will give you instant déjà vu, a “whoa!” moment.  It might be the near-identical bell tower that does it, or the look and feel of the town.

Piran doesn’t have many sights.  No art museums, no old palace.  The town itself is the attraction–it’s a place to wander around and enjoy being there.  The main sights are a maritime museum, some small churchs, and climbing that bell tower.  I only climbed the bell tower.  It costs one euro, and I had the place to myself while I did it.  Piran doesn’t have canals, and thus, no gondolas.  Most streets here are alleys, not streets, and thus no traffic, again like Venice.

The one-euro view from the bell tower

Piran is not an A-list place like Venice and thus most people don’t know about it, yet it’s hardly undiscovered.  It’s so small that it wouldn’t take many visitors to overrun it.  That short coastline of Slovenia means Piran sits only 30 kilometers from the Italian border to the north and about 12 kilometers from Croatia to the south, in an area called the Istria peninsula that is still largely Italic, though it’s been tossed around throughout history by the surrounding larger powers.  The visitors who come here are usually doing trips around Slovenia or Croatia or are Italians from next door.

Piran is a bargain.  The prices for just about anything here (eating, drinking, sleeping) are about half of what they would be in Venice, indeed yes, and also lower in general than the rest of Europe.  Piran is also cheaper than next-door, and more popular, Croatia.

The main square in the town is an oval, a space called Tartini Square that used to be the inner harbor until it was filled in, and I bet it works better as a square.  Like St. Mark’s Square over in Venice, it’s seemingly the heart of the town and a nice place to hang out.  Cafés line the square, a little pricier than others.  In the early evenings, local kids come here to play, to skateboard, or to kick a ball around.  By default, this will be one of your hang-out spots.

Just off the square, through the archway by the town hall and just before the market square, is a small dive bar called Pri Starcu Dal Vecio, where you could find me many times during the week I spent around Piran.  It’s the type of place you find only because you urgently needed a bathroom one day and ducked in, then bought a drink because you felt guilty.  A glass of local wine there is one euro, cheapest in town, and a decent pour even.  They have small tables outside in the alley so you can avoid the interior.

Continue walking in that direction, you’ll come upon a smaller square holding the outdoor market.  It’s petite of course, but it’s cute.  A man selling olive oil beckoned me over for a taste.  Olive oil in this part of the world is brilliant.  This was his own oil, he made it himself, and he had 100% confidence I would love it.  It tasted like sunshine.  I bought four small bottles for gifts.

Café in the back streets of Piran

Keep walking and you’ll come to May 1 Square, which I feel is more the heart of the town rather than the showy Tartini Square.  You feel more local here, and you should park it for a while.  Several cafés are around, as is proper, one whose patio is monitored by a small webcam type of camera.  You just wave into the camera when you want to order something, and hopefully the people inside will see you.  The restaurant, nearly always empty, sits to the south and the even emptier restaurant sits to the north.  In between them is the always-jumping Cantina Klet, and here is where you should eat.

You must know the system here.  Grab a menu already sitting on the tables and browse, then go to the window and order and pay.  Don’t sit there at a table wondering why no one is taking your order, as I did, jumping to the conclusion that life never works out for me.  At the window, they’ll give you a number and you have to watch from your table for your number to come up.  For drinks, the system is different.  Some guy is wandering around who will provide them.  Identify this person and flag him down and force him to bring you some wine.

I sat alone at my table for two.  Restaurants never have tables for one.  Half an hour later, still foodless, I gently inquired at the window if my order is coming.  As always in these situations, I’m confidently assured that it’s coming soon, perhaps next!  And so I continue sipping my half-liter of wine, wondering why I bother to ask.  Great invention, the half-liter.  Every time I ordered generic house wine in this area I feared for the price, but it was always, always reasonable.  Sitting next to the order window, I see everyone else’s food come out.  Giant salads, lots of fried things.  Everyone orders french fries with their food, very appealing to me who hasn’t eaten anything yet.  Maybe all I need is a big plate of fries and a half-liter and a seat on the square.

At 41 minutes, my mussels gratin (8.50) is here.  It was worth the wait.  The mussels are in a rectangular dish, covered with oily tomato sauce and melted cheese and oh my, they’re amazing.  They look brilliant, so much that several people, including three Germans across from me, ask what it is so they can order it as well.

Row of tourist restaurants along the waterfront

On the south side of the Piran peninsula, facing the water, is a long row of restaurants seemingly all geared towards tourists.  The view is stellar and the food probably more than fine, but I always hesitate to eat at places like this.  I moved one block inland and found a corner restaurant utterly ignored by the masses.  Its sign read “Cantina dal Pescatore” though that may be a description, not its name.  I walked inside the tiny place and the cook grabbed me and dragged me to his station, insisting I check out the plastic tub full of the fresh fish that he had on offer today.  Great start.

He cut up a blackfish into a salad for me, then made risotto with another filet and some octopus.  I gave him free reign and it was one of the best meals of my trip, helped along by my waitress who was such as beauty as to be distracting, the kind that you’ll alter your travel plans for.

Blackfish salade

The food here in the Istria peninsula is wonderful and I love everything, but it’s somewhat plain.  It’s not refined.  My trips into next-door Croatia brought that home, and looking around Piran’s restaurants reinforced it.  Most have grilled or fried plain seafood.  Pasta or risotto with fish.  Grilled meat.  Lots of pizza.  Barely any soups.  The quality is superb, but I found myself wishing for more sauces and variety.

If you can choose your dinner place in advance, by all means make a reservation, because the popular places fill up.  Without reservations, just arrive earlier, which around here means just after 7:00.  I found myself seated at the popular Pri Mari restaurant at 7:15 watching lines of people without reservations being turned away.  Many tables were empty, three of the six in my little section, with “Reservirano” signs on them.  Okay, but they’re still empty, such as the four-top table next to me that stayed empty all through my meal and only filled up as I left.

This place is seriously cute, though the speakers are playing the greatest hits of adult contemporary English songs, as happens in so many European places.  The hostess acts like she’s not in love with me but simply can’t help being a polite hostess anyway.  I order a stupid amount of food: sea bass carpaccio, €9.  Italian fish cream soup, €4.  Black ink risotto, €9.  Side of potatoes and spinach just because it looked so good on another table, €2,5.  Splurging on a good bottle of Rebula white wine, €14.  One couple had a seafood dish clearly meant for two or perhaps more, a monster tub, almost like a full steam tray, of shellfish.  Everyone gets a small dish of cherries at the end, a nice lagniappe.

Besides the bell tower, the best views of the town come from the town walls, best reached by walking inland and uphill (not just a little) after you visit the bell tower.  The wall, surely an old defensive thing, is in ruins of course, two sections, but the parts that remain are rather stable.  At the top of the hill we visitors, a few people in front and behind me, are confronted with a pedestrian tollbooth.  Seemingly, one pays a euro or two to enter by inserting coins in a slot.  The couple in front of me just pushes their way in without paying, no problems, and so I follow them, gratis.

We the visitors walk along the different levels, about three of them, with the ladders between each level being so steep as to be lawsuit material.  The ceilings in a few of the spaces are helmet-inducing.  For photographers, you’ll want a bit of zoom on your lens, as you’re far enough away from the town that anything wide-angle may be a bit much.

View from the town walls

Another good photography spot comes from the Hotel Tartini, right in (of course) Tartini Square.  The hotel has a terrace overlooking the square at about a third-story level.  Walk into the hotel and stride confidently to the back, to the wild circular stairs, nodding to the nice people as you pass by.  Go up two levels and pass through a nearby door leading outside, then look to the right for another staircase leading to the terrace.  You can also buy a drink at the hotel bar at ground level and take it up to the terrace for legitimacy.  I had the terrace to myself one evening.  I was setting up my tripod for a night shot (below), when I was interrupted by the hotel staff, who were merely asking if I wanted the lights on.  Nice people.

View of Tartini Square

If you want nightlife in Piran, eh, that’s hard.  Your best bet is the Café Teater, on the south waterfront near the harbor, very close to Tartini Square.  The place was taken over by a private party the night I visited, but I talked my way into it anyway.  Your second choice is to hang out at an al fresco café on Tartini Square.  If you want real nightlife, head to the neighboring town of Portoroz, which is a modern coastal resort town, where serious vacationers park it and where there are many bars, cafés, and a few clubs.

I’m partial to the 80s Café in Piran, an out-of-place place which seems randomly set in a back alley next to nothing and plays, of course, 80s music.  I stopped in for a Radler beer, mixed with grapefruit.  The Rick-rolled “Never Going To Give You Up” song was playing.  How cool.  But then it switched to Air Supply, then the Alan Parsons Project, and finally to the Little River Band, and I remembered why the 80s ended.

If you want to take advantage of being on the sea, Piran has a few areas somewhat like beaches.  Two are on the north side of the peninsula–one a bit of a pebble beach, the other just an open area with stairs to the sea, though several cafés sit nearby and it’s all pleasant enough.  Walking a kilometer or two east along the north shore will bring you to Fiesta beach, better.  Again, the neighboring town of Portoroz is where serious waterside lovers should head, a place with real beaches.  Portoroz is 4k from Piran, walking distance, I’ve done it many times, but not a short walk at all.  A bus runs down there from Piran’s tiny bus station (which doubles as a local bus stop) for €1,30.

How to get to Piran:  Trieste, Italy is not far away, but public transportation is not good.  It can take 1.5 hours, where it should take half an hour.  Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana, is a 2.5 to 3 hour bus ride, because of other stops.  Other buses go south to coastal towns in Croatia.  Supposedly, a ferry runs to Trieste in the summer, and nearby ones even go to Venice (2 hours).

Driving is best, because you’ll want to explore the area.  Piran is a nice base, but by itself it’s only worth a day.  If you’re staying there, check with your hotel about parking.  Otherwise, the big parking lot on the south-west side charges about €17 a day, and a shuttle (every 15 minutes in peak months) will take you from there to Tartini Square, or you can walk the 15 minutes.  Another parking garage sits up on the hill and has the same attributes.

No matter what you do, walking will be involved.  If you’re in Piran for a while, consider a bicycle for exploring the immediate area.  The town rents them for a great price, €5 a day, across from the bus station.

More

Piran sits next to many delightful sites, including the small towns of the Istria peninsula, across the border in Croatia.  You can read about them here.

If you’re into wine, and you should be, read about wine tasting opportunities in Istria here.

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