The Port of Piran

"The sea complains upon a thousand shores."

To make Piran happen, we had to wake up very early, both of us together this time, and get out the door. The bus that takes you there on a Sunday doesn't pick you up at a central station, it picks you up in the middle of the street, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. But it was a nowhere within walking distance, so we gave it a shot. 

Hushed final packing and face-washing. It was the dawnish magic hour. We had done laundry the previous day and a few items were still a little damp, but no time (no time) to see them fully dry. Into the bags they went. Everything charged, everything out the door. 

Out into the street, out into the thick mist of the stone streets of Ljubljana. 

It gave us yet one more opportunity to appreciate the many many secret details and special touches this city has to offer architecturally. It can be subtle (curling flowers around a window frame) or make grand gestures (an explosion of relief figures surrounding a door frame) at any moment and around any corner. A magical place for wandering. 

Eventually our mystical meander took us to a slender strip on the side of the highway. We had to walk single file like Tusken Raiders. Visibility was poor due to what was now seeming more like fog. We pressed on silently, slightly nervous that a misstep would pitch us into the road. 

I have often, while driving, passed people who looked like us and wondered about their circumstances. Tired souls with too too many bags, walking where no one should walk, one ahead of the other, silently moving with purpose.. but to where?

As the hour got later, there was more and more traffic. We paused to rest at a bridge. We paused to marvel at a mural on an abandoned building. It showed a bear commuting to work on the back of a pigeon. A delightful surprise. 

We found our street and turned off the highway. We eventually found a bus shelter, but... was it the the correct one? There was no signage.

It was also supremely unclear which side of the road to be on, which way lay Piran (which Sara taught me is pronounced "Peer On" as opposed to Peerin' (which is how I had been saying it)). We tried one side and then the other. We weren't panicking, but we were... serious. This was probably the only bus going there on a Sunday. 

It was a local bus stop and there was no indication country-crawling buses stopped there. But we had seen a few. But they were irregular and we could get no information from them. Nor discern any pattern. We asked a lady who was waiting for her bus to work. She told us we were totally in the wrong place, so we waited for her to leave, since before we'd spoken to her we'd had hope. 

When she left, hope returned, and we switched sides of the street to change up our luck. Sara felt that the other side was the way we'd taken to Lake Bled the previous day, and I figured why not, so... we did that median dance one more time. 

The appointed hour arose, and... no bus came from either direction. Figured we'd give it five minutes to be late, then find a taxi and figure out how to live our lives as losers. 

Five minutes passed and we voted to give it five more. 

And then...oh, and then (and then and then and then) bursting through the clouds like Iron Man, like Astrea returning to Earth, a massive cross-country bus with "Piran" on the front. Oh, how we hailed it, lustily waving our arms. And then we were aboard, and then we were moving coastward. It seemed and felt like the miracle it was.

A giddy two hours that felt like a bonus pour from a gravy boat. I read more from Suffled How it Gush, she read more Chekhov. We passed through places called Koper and Izola, saw flashes of Adriatic turquoise as we slithered between the borders of Croatia and Italy, staying pure along this strip of Slovenia.

Then... Piran. Such a place. Enchanting little sun-slapped seaside town. Starving, we threw ourselves into the first open restaurant. It was Bosnian cuisine. Hilarious. One wants fish in such an environment, one expects sardines, but one gets hard sausages in bread. One orders Greek yogurt, and one is served drinkable yogurt in a cocktail glass.

And excellent coffee.

Fortified, we found our home. Tetyana let us in. Her husband rose from his kingdom of vinyl recliners to shake our hands, and we were led up, up, up to our little room. She gave us a key with a Nerf-Dolphin key chain, pointed out some extra blankets, and wished us well.

We tossed our stuff in a pile, high-fived, and fell into an old-fashioned early-bus-Bosnian-breakfast coma.

Plenty of light remaining when we denapped. Washed our faces, cameraed up and headed out. A darling slice of Istria meeting all the expectations of a seaside soft-port. It gets it's name from a lighthouse that used to guide ancient sailors (Pir from Pyr from fire). Teasing little breezes and a sturdy church tower standing guard over a delightful oval plaza.

This smooth plaza had the strange effect of seeming to us like an ice-skating rink.

We got gelato, because it's the law.

Down crooked little stone-road alleys, past the naive paintings of local artists, past mannequins dressed in the same blue and white striped navy shirt I wore, past tangerine cats and weathered doors and into the courtyard of the St. George church.

Up the creaking wooded stairs, past the foreign children, flattening yourself to allow the Korean women to pass, and The View is yours. As spectacular a sight as any I've had the opportunity to enjoy. From the bell towers of Split, to the hills of Ha Long Bay. A bracing, restorative gift of laughing light from the Gulf of Trieste.

Sailboats promised another universe. Red-tiled roofs promised another home.

Fortified again, in a different sense, we followed the echo of the bells back down.

Home again to write and read. Home again with coffee. We spent the hottest part of the day tending our separate gardens.

Out again at twilight in search of the perfect pasta. A gang of bikers descended upon the town. We heard and saw hundreds. Sturgis by the sea. How their engines echoed in that marble-walled fishtown. How Neptune's beard shook.

In the plaza an orchestra of twenty accordion players welcomed them with polka-soaked covers of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons' greatest hits.

We found our meal just past the grilled-fish place playing Hotel California and just next to the fried-fish place playing Hotel California. Blessed silence in an outdoor courtyard and the freshest best food we've had this whole journey. A salad straight from the rabbit's jaws. A pizza hot from the rabbit's warren. Angel-hair pasta straight from the rabbit's microwave.

A tall Campari and soda on a moon-stained night. The lapping of waves, the songs of eels, the sighs of accordions breathing out contentment. The warm smell of colitas rising up through the air.