We had another fairly short journey to Piran, a coastal town in Slovenia. First, we caught a train to Koper which took about 2 and a half hours. Once again, we had our own compartment which was nice. On the way we saw lots of flooding, which seemed to suggest that maybe the rain we’d experienced so far in Slovenia wasn’t entirely normal. We also saw some amazing views from up high as we made our way through the mountains, but a lot of what we should have seen was obscured by cloud – once again the weather was awful. We had hoped the weather in Piran would be better, but as we got closer and closer it still hadn’t changed. Once in Koper, we hopped on a local bus to take us to Piran. Sara fell over on the bus and got stuck on her back like a tortoise – not very dignified but very funny! Luckily, our bed and breakfast was about a minute’s walk from the bus stop.
There wasn’t a safe in our room, so we needed a new and innovative way to embarrass ourselves on arrival. Within minutes we found one! We searched the whole bathroom for the flush on the toilet but couldn’t find it anywhere, so Oli was nominated to go downstairs and ask. For future reference, it was well above head height on top of the cistern, so we’ll know to look there next time! We dried off and relaxed in the room for the afternoon as the weather was so bad outside. The rain eased a little bit in the evening, so we wrapped up and went out for dinner. Thankfully, we decided on a restaurant quite quickly and were inside when the storm hit once again. We had pretty dramatic rain, thunder and lightning. We were sitting in a marquee-style extension to a restaurant on the seafront, so we could really hear and see (and feel – it leaked on Oli) all that was going on outside. We had a lovely meal of soup, seafood and pancakes (not in the same course) with a really friendly waiter, who came out with a gem when Oli asked for the bill – “if you really insist!” We think his meaning was just lost in translation. Later on, Sara finished reading The Island, and Oli finished Marley and Me while tucked up in bed as the storm continued.
