More info: Piran travel guide

If you are planning visiting Slovenia this summer, you are probably already aware of all activities that Slovenia offers. From trekking, mountaineering, climbing, cycling to canyoning, rafting and horse riding. But are you still trying to find another reason to visit Slovenia? Ready for some new action? Ready to party?

The best place to do that in Slovenia is on Slovenian seaside and two of the best towns to stay are Portorož and Piran. Portorož and Piran are also two of the most visited tourist towns in Slovenia. They are located near by each other, actually in a walking distance and near to the scenes of party.

Slovenia's tourism is based on a complete casino offer which in addition to gambling includes quality hotels, apartment, shops, recreational facilities, health services, and cultural events.

So if you wish some gambling entertainment, Portorož with well known chain of Hotel Portorož and Casinos, is a good place to be, because of its high quality of services and competitiveness. The visits and interest of guests confirms that this orientation in the development of European gambling is justified.

On the other hand, if you are not so much of a gambler and you are more into quality dance music and clubbing, night club Ambasada Gavioli will offer you all that and more. The best Slovenian club is located in Izola, which is just one step from Portorož and Piran. It has a surface of 1600 square meters and takes 2000 guests at night. The music in the club is based on combination of several modern directions in club music, like clubbing techno, futurism and modern life.

The Ambasada Gavioli is not just a club; it is an institution that promotes important themes from the world of art, culture, nature etc. By organising shows and other kinds of projects it tries to expand people's cultural and artistic horizons in this part of Europe. It unites young people from Slovenia, Italy, Croatia and Austria. This is the connection that unites artists from all over the world and famous residents, already on the top of European hit parades.

So we have given you enough reasons to stay out all night long and dance till morning. Now we just have to tell you the best places to stay and chill after dancing night. Good choice of accommodation in Piran and Portorož offers all the classical assortment of accommodation, whether be it in the high class hotels or in the apartments with pools and gardens, as well as the camping places by the sea. So staying there you can choose between hotels, apartment hotels, apartments, tourist rooms and camping places. In Piran there are well known Apartment Piran and in Portorož chain of hotels called Hotel Portorož, which has long tradition and good reputation.

Experience as much as you can on your visit in Slovenia. Whatever your choice is going to be, casinos, clubbing or just chilling at great resort of apartment Piran on large terrace upon view on sea, you can spoil yourself to blessed state. Slovenian seaside has it all.

Miro Stare is currently working on Slovenia Holidays project. Looking for colorful and relaxing vacations in Slovenia? You can find apartments, hostels and hotels in Slovenija on one of the Slovenian tourist sites.

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Gesehen auf einer Speisekarte in Piran. War aber alles ganz friedlich da ;)

Slovenia Tips: Piran

Piran is a city that will never change even though the time past by. This is because Piran is found in a narrow peninsula where there is no space or place for new expansion. In the view of the fact that Piran does not change; the government of Slovenia has decided to protect its historical and chronological values.

On the other hand, it depends on what time tourists visit Piran to know what activities are going on. Unluckily, there is nothing much to do especially in November even though it is a wonderful experience wandering around Piran's narrow streets, have a lunch by the side of the river and climb the campanile that dictate Piran's town for many remarkable sceneries over to Croatia and Italy.

The town of Piran is mainly focused on Tartini Square, known as Tartinijev trg, named after the most well known Piran's violinist and composer, Guiseppe Tartini. In the warm summer, travelers or tourists can visit the Giuseppe Tartini house. Visitors can observe his statue and wandering around on the marble that is paved in the region of the square which normally became the place to park cars. Tartini Square is a wonderful square especially the two 15th century Venetian houses but it was ruined because it's actually hard to take a photo without bringing the cars in.

Piran has a quite strong Italian atmosphere to feel compared to its neighboring cities. The citizens of Piran most likely to welcome the Venetians instead of fighting against them which totally make Piran is different than other Slovenian cities. For some significant years, the people of Piran have been traded with the peoples of Venice since Piran is on of their well-heeled town. On the other hand, Piran after that was conquered by the Austrian Empire and fell down in the commercial world like its across water neighbor Trieste, Italy. This is the main reason that Piran is remained untouched even the time goes by which amazed historians and visitors. Like most museums in the world which operates on their own hours throughout the year, Segej Masera Maritime Museum goes the same but it does not open during November. Segej Masera Maritime Museum covers the rule of the Venetians which consists of three important features of Piran; the sailing, salt (there are huge amounts of salt on the road nearby Portoroz), and sea.

In any case, Piran not only shares the similarities of Italy in terms of architecture - it also bears the similarities of the food and drink. The restaurants in Piran do have Slovenian dishes but it tends to focus more towards Italian dishes for example risotto, compared to other cities of Slovania. The extremely delicious seafood the risotto and a very fine salad and delightfully marinated sardines with delicious fries together with a half carafe of wine usually bear an asking price less than 20 Euro.

To learn more about Slovenia come join us at http://www.sloveniatips.com where we love to talk about this beautiful country. You can also check the forums at http://www.sloveniatips.com/forums/

Oh, a Tartini suggestion, should anyone ever seek your advice on a recording. I’ve already brought him up, but it’s always worth repeating that the best recording I’ve come across of The Devil’s Sonata by Piran’s favorite son is the Andrew Manze recording for harmonia mundi. Tartini said the mischievously haunting piece came to him in a dream, and Manze takes that dream and makes it his own.

I saw a glass of wine in a dream last night, but since a poll by YouGov revealed that 22 percent of men in the UK apparently lie about wine to impress women (only 11 percent of women fib on this topic according to the poll), I’m not going to bother with wine reviews at the moment, but do want to note the particularly huge amounts of money some people are willing to spend to clearly illustrate their bad taste in wine. Reports the Telegraph:

A rare bottle of Nazi wine with a portrait of Adolf Hitler on the label has been sold at auction for £3,995 ... ... The lot, which attracted worldwide interest, was expected to fetch only £500-800 when it went under the hammer in Plymouth.

That’s EUR 5,953/USD 7,812 for an undrinkable bottle that should have been enjoyed in a Berlin bunker back in May of 1945. The buyer remained anonymous, so unfortunately he can’t be outed as the No. 1 person in the world you should never ask to select the dinner wine. (Maybe those who’ve come across what CNN describes as “Small packets of sugar bearing the likeness of Adolf Hitler and carrying Holocaust jokes [that] have been found in some cafes in Croatia” should save them for their grandkids who can make a killing on eBay.)

I can’t end this with a rant about a grotesquely over-priced bottle of wine bearing the likeness of a one-testicled dictator, so will conclude with mention of another who apparently wasn’t missing much besides brains. If you haven't seen it, check out The Last King of Scotland - Forest Whitaker was absolutely phenomenal as Idi Amin.

My friend Kelly sent me some pics from a recent trip to New Orleans where she helped with the ongoing Katrina recovery efforts. There are plenty more on her flickr page.

During a three+ month trip through Europe last year, she spent a few late spring days here in Ljubljana with her friend CJ, just long enough to fall head over heels in love with Slovenian wine. Yes, I was very encouraging and supportive with her addiction, and last I heard, she's still scouring the NYC area for some bottles.

Some of you may know Kelly from her time as a contributor to Gadling, and her own blogs, Lost in Place and Eurailblog, and a score of other places. I particularly liked this post where she describes Piran as one of her favorite places on the planet. Who can blame her?

Photo from Kelly's flickr Louisiana set

I usually do make an effort to get out and about, but haven't kept particularly adequate notes. [That will change this year, now that I've finally begun keeping real journals.] This past year was nonetheless brimming with little mental post cards that will be filed away for some time. Some of those, in no particular order:

August: Zurich. Continued feeding my Van Gogh habit at the Kunsthaus, home to his Thatched Roofs near Auvers, one of his last paintings, and the well-known Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe. Realizing how much I'm beginning to relate to this guy --besides his religious zeal-- is beginning to scare me. Nice street music in the afternoon and evenings along the Zurichsee just beyond the Bellevue tram stop.

July: Kanegra Beach, Savudrija, Croatia. My first nude beach. Just a long stone’s throw from my old place on the Slovenian coast, but it was a transcendental experience. I will never --ever-- swim clothed again.

February: Donetsk, Ukraine. This southeastern Ukrainian city is hardly a tourist Mecca, but it was my first trip to the former Soviet states, so it’s got to make the list. The timing was good as well, just a few months after recently-elected president Viktor Yushchenko's face started peeling off after he was fed some poisoned soup. The women there are absolutely stunning, adding more ammo to my historic crossroads theory. Surprise! February is cold there. Surprise 2! There's lots of good, and cheap (to westerners) vodka.

August: Tallinn, Estonia. I was only here for about five hours, and those came on the tail end of two solid weeks of ass-busting work. But it was enough to really want to go back and spend some time. Medieval Europe comes alive here, seemingly a world away from other former Soviet Republics.

March: Over the course of a few late winter days, saw my first Stradivarius at the Palacio Real in Madrid and spent an afternoon following in the footsteps of James Joyce in Trieste. The violin was an absolutely gorgeous piece of work; the Joyce walk was beautifully interrupted by Julia, another absolutely gorgeous piece of work.

August: Brussels. Getting there involved sharing a cheap flight with The Village People. Once I got there, I ran into a suspected fruit cocktail bomber on my favorite tram ride ever.

September: Berlin. I visited the German capital three times in the space of a month, and it’s quickly becoming my favorite European city. Precisely why is difficult to pin down. I always feel like a minor character in a Wim Wenders film there, and it’s a good feeling to be able to blend into one of his long, deliberate pans. Most taxi drivers here don't care much for George Bush, making drives around the city a particularly pleasant experience. I was never one for fashion photography, but the exhibit, A Gun For Hire, at the Helmut Newton Museum, helped change my mind. A little bit.

August: Helsinki. First visit to the Finnish capital, a place that appears to be home to more drunks per capita than anywhere else I’ve ever been. Despite the price, it’s mind-boggling how much Finns can drink; one recent conservative estimate puts it at about a bottle of hard booze per week per capita. I added the The Ateneum, the Finnish National Gallery, to my museum list.

July: Paris. Caught Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent at the Centre Pompidou, a phenomenal attempt to describe the soul of a vast indescribable continent. I spent nearly two hours lounging in a chair of a makeshift typical urban “African” bar –part of the exhibit, or course—next to an old-style jukebox gushing with 60 CDs worth of amazing music. [Here's a link to the same exhibit but earlier in London.]

July: First visit to Oslo. Besides being one of the most expensive cities I've ever been to, it was also one of the nicest. Friendly folks, lively street music and night life into the wee hours. The night I arrived coincided with U2's show there. No, didn't fork over a huge pile of cash for a ticket, but did enjoy the street musicians jamming U2 tunes until dawn. Visited the Munch Museet --once home to The Scream before it was stolen in August 2004. It's next to the Toyen Park, a sprawling lush botanical garden.

June, July and August: Piran, Slovenia, home for most of last year. More specifically, concerts in the courtyard of the 700-year-old Franciscan Monastery. I attended two small ensemble classical performances and a solo classical guitar concert, all of which were so soothing, so relaxing, that I definitely felt at home.

So, to continue this catching up from yet another blog to another, here's a small (mainly photo) memoir to warm me up.

There's little disagreement among visitors that this small city of about 5000 is among the shiniest of Slovenia's gems. Located at the very end of the proverbial road, its narrow streets of cobblestone are a carefree maze, its tiny harbor seductive, its rugged coastline invigoratingly serene. I lived there for exactly a year, and now, looking back, am not sure precisely why I chose to do so. I was born there, so that may have had something to do with it, although I was never overwhelmed with a feeling that it was home. It was the city I always insisted on visiting during trips from the states, perhaps seeking to discover something hidden among the Venetian era buildings that was ultimately undiscoverable. Invariably, those explorations were often sidetracked by stops in cafés and bars.

The main square --along with a hotel, a pizzeria and several shops-- is named for Giuseppe Tartini, Piran's favorite son (besides myself, of course), an 18th C. composer and violin virtuoso whose most known work is the hauntingly beautiful Devil's Sonata or Trill. He said the composition came to him in a dream; that may have had something to do with the bounty put on his head after he eloped with a local Cardinal's niece. (Her precise age at the time is apparently a hotly debated topic among those who debate such things; some accounts say she was 17, others insist she was 21.) It's an amazing piece; I would recommend the recording by Andrew Manze on the harmondia mundi label.

While visitors remember the strolls, the churches, and the seaside restaurants, I'll most remember the burja --bora to Italians-- winds that pounded the town each fall and early winter. At this time last year, we were hit by gusts that topped 110 kilometers per hour, strong enough to move small boulders and send stray cats airborne.

I'll also remember one night early last spring, when, just before midnight, a beautiful impromptu a cappella performance from a small café around the corner made its way to my window. It wasn't really a "show"per se, just a few people sitting around with a few bottles of vino, and one woman taking requests. Damn! What a beautiful, bluesy sexy voice! I applauded from my window. Her repertoire consisted mainly of Slovenian, Croatian, and Italian songs, but she also did the finest rendition of Donna Summer's Hot Stuff that I've ever heard. It cracked me up, but, damn, it was good! A gentle wind and calm waves, a few flickering lights from a small fishing boat in the distance, and some neighborhood stray cats lounging around listening helped set the mood. A very nice scene.

Yet despite that "Piran moment," I decided I wouldn't be staying beyond the summer months, and not only because I quickly outgrew my tiny and over-priced one-room apartment. It’s an enchanting little town; indeed many, if not most, Slovenians have no idea how special this tiny Venetian-era Adriatic peninsula truly is. It’s a great stop for backpackers --and there are plenty-- and for grabbing a hearty seafood meal while enjoying the pleasant surroundings. It’s also a quite popular destination for sixtyish Italian men and their twenty-something concubines. But on a year-round day-to-day basis, there really is very little going on. One can try to carry on a conversation with a babbling drunken fisherman or stare at the sea and say "Ahh.." only so many times, before needing something, well, more.

But right now, surrounded by the first snow I've seen since Kiev, I miss the babbling of fishermen and their impossible tales.

P.S. Today is World AIDS day. According to the UN Population Fund, about 540 people contracted HIV during the 30 minutes or so I spent with this post. During that time, more than $11 million was added to the cost of the war in Iraq.