We had the opportunity today to sleep in to an 11am checkout time. But there we were, wide awake at 6.30am and ready to say goodbye to our friends – again.

Doug and Annabel are heading to Lake Como for a few days before leaving for home and of course we are heading to Croatia. Bye guys! Again. 

Time to pack up and head to our next hotel, Hotel Piran, in the centre of the little town.

What a gorgeous little place this is.

Piran is located at the end of the peninsula of the Slovenian coast.  It’s been built under Venetian influence and tends to have a lot of Venice like qualities. Without the canals. It’s a maze of cobblestone streets, narrow little alleys and compact houses. Population about 4,000. 

Temperature was a very nice 25, although quite hot in the sun. 

People were out in droves, sunning on rocks like seals, lying on the concrete paths and splashing about in the water.

The beaches are really interesting. There really aren’t any. It’s just a jump over the edge of the rocks or cement path. 

And the whole place is quite enlightening. There is no body shaming.

Topless Nanna’s along with topless not-Nannas. Large women in bikinis. Large men. Fortunately I did not spy any speedos although at one point I stopped to wait for MoD and a youngish guy sitting on a bench seat in front of me stood up and put his pants on. Apparently he had been getting some Vitamin D to his nether regions.

Our first stop was a walk to the Piran Light House located at the very tip of the peninsula. Built in 1872 it is being progressively renovated. The view at the top was pretty nice.

And of course MoD just had to ring the bell. I am sure he is not the first.

But not as nice as the view from the medieval Town Walls – dating back to the 10th century. 

On the way we found the original town wall and gate. 

Complete with an interesting art piece in one of the holes in the wall…. 😜 or maybe someone just left their dish drainer.

It’s a pretty steep climb to a lot of places which made me realise the bike tour finishing yesterday was quite opportune. 

My little legs are tired.

Caffeine was required, whereby I am continuing my trend of a standard cappuccino. Only because there is no Starbucks…a reliable coffee for a single shot soy latte drinker such as myself.

The evidence if you will……

We headed back down to the town, and then back up to the St. George’s Parish Church. Poor tired legs….

Once again the view was worth it.

Continuing our tradition of eating a hell of a lot of food, we stopped for lunch before checking into our hotel.

Our first room with a double bed, as opposed to two singles.

Apparently our travel agent had forgotten to specify a double bed for the cycle tour. 

Our hotel steps out onto the Adriatic Sea which makes it quite easy to go for a dip.

Which we did.

Then being hungry, again, because it’s hard work floating in the sea, it was time for dinner and hopefully a relatively early night.

Not to be, there was a wedding downstairs and a fancy one at that. We do have our fancy wedding clothes of course but unfortunately we couldn’t find two spare seats together. We headed up to the roof top bar, where the ceremony had just taken place. It was closed but they let us in to see the sunset.

Totally glorious.

Then off for a meal. I asked for vodka and zero cola. I received two glasses, the wine glass empty, the drinking glass completely full to the brim with vodka. Drinking vodka straight was not an option, best distribute the zero coke and vodka evenly into both glasses just to be sure the night didn’t get too messy. Cheap drinking…..I also ordered scampi (prawns) without realising I had to work for my meal. Won’t be doing that again. I’m far too lazy to have to crack them open; the small but delicious meat was probably worth it though.

To walk off all that food we headed into the city centre. At the end of the esplanade there was a street disco which had drawn in a bucks night. We noticed that three of the bridesmaids from the wedding had ditched that to come up to where the action was (it was about 200 metres away). Clearly that wedding was going well. I am sure they wouldn’t have missed them, there were eight bridesmaids in exactly the same pink dresses. All gorgeous and model like. We couldn’t really find the same number of groomsmen so maybe those three girls were checking out the guys up there at the disco. Do we even call it a disco now? ‘Twas a DJ anyway.

We kept wandering.

It was a nice night to be out. In front of the Town Hall in the town square there was some sort of Arts Awards happening. We couldn’t understand a word but we clapped along and congratulated the winners as they left the stage.

Finally to bed, tomorrow we don’t leave until 9am to head to Umag to pick up the rental car.

Best start thinking about driving on the wrong side of the road.