Located on the Istrian peninsula, on the coast of the Gulf of Piran (Adriatic Sea). The Italian atmosphere is felt everywhere, this is confirmed by the names of the streets, restaurants, cafes, even many residents of Piran communicate in Italian.
If you look at a map of the city, Piran resembles a frog.
The city is located 7 km from the Croatian border, 19 southwest of Koper and 23 km from the Italian border. The city is connected by coastal roads with the cities of the Slovenian coast, Italian Trieste and Croatian Istria. The famous Italian composer and violinist Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) was born in Piran; The central square, on which a monument to the musician is erected, is named after him.
The name of the city of Piran comes from the Greek word pyr - “fire”. At the very edge of the peninsula jutting out into the sea, back in ancient times, lights were lit that served as beacons for ships heading to the Greek colony of Aegis - the current city of Koper. Throughout its history, Piran has seen Illyrians, Celts, Romans and Goths, Byzantines, Slavs and Franks.
Piran County is officially bilingual, Italian has equal rights with Slovenian.
It has long been assigned the status of an open-air museum city, in which magnificent examples of medieval (mainly Venetian) architecture have been preserved.
Thousands of tourists come here every year to wander along the ancient cobbled streets lined with closely-standing houses, admire the numerous historical monuments and visit the famous oval square, in the center of which stands monument to Giuseppe Tartini— in 1992, the 300th anniversary of the birth of this famous composer, violinist, teacher and music theorist was celebrated.
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The town once belonged to the Venetian Republic, and this affected its appearance. The Slovenians themselves call Piran Venice in miniature. Here you will not find modern buildings. The flavor of the Middle Ages still reigns here. Many architectural monuments have been preserved here from antiquity. This is the famous church with a tower with a beautiful panoramic view of the Gulf of Trieste and the entire city.
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Here are the remains of the fortress wall, which offers beautiful views of the city and surrounding area and many other magnificent places. Day and night the city does not sleep. Tourists from Portoroža and from other nearby towns they love to sit in its many restaurants and cafes.
Piran has a humid subtropical climate with warm summers and cool, rainy winters. Piran is located at the latitude of Crimea, so it has moderately hot summers from +22 to +30, and fairly mild winters with little snow from 0 to +12. Snow falls very rarely (no more than 3 times a year); winter is characterized by heavy precipitation in the form of rain. In October, during the high season, the sea is already quite cold for swimming, but there are hotels with swimming pools where sea water is heated.
There is a passenger seaport where they sell one-day tours to Venice, which can be purchased at any local travel agency. Early in the morning, a ferry departs from Piran, moored at the red lighthouse (there is a pair of green lighthouses next to it, these are signs and markers of the city). Four hours of travel - and you are in Venice.
In the evening they return back - although not all of them do. It was precisely because of defector tourists that several years ago the visa-free entry of Russian tourists on the ferry from Slovenia was closed for some time. Now the entry rules change every year - either they require Schengen, then they are satisfied with the Slovenian multiple visa, then they ask for a Russian passport, then they invent something else. All these details must be obtained in advance from the Slovenian consulate. 
The most beautiful medieval town and pearl of the Slovenian coast is Piran. It is located on an elongated cape and is washed on three sides by the waters of the Adriatic Sea.
History of Piran
The history of Piran dates back to the 5th century AD, and the name is derived from the Greek word “pyr”, meaning “fire”, since for a long time lights were lit along the edge of the cape, serving as beacons for ships. In the 10th century, the residents of the city entered into an agreement with the Venetian Republic, which determined its architectural appearance - many buildings in the Venetian style have been preserved in Piran to this day. The Italian atmosphere is felt not only in the architecture, but also in the names of streets, cafes and restaurants and in the Italian language heard everywhere, because Italian is the second official language in the city and throughout Slovenian Istria.
Piran is a miniature city with narrow streets and numerous architectural monuments and a real open-air museum, which attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. Here you can wander through the narrow streets, admire Venetian houses and ancient churches, breathe the sea air and try fresh fish and seafood.
Piran - birthplace of Giuseppe Tartini
The famous Italian violinist and composer Giuseppe Tartini was born in Piran, after whom the main square of the city is named. On the square there is a monument to the composer, as well as the famous Venetian House - an elegant red building, according to urban legend, given by a rich Venetian merchant to his beloved. On the facade of the house there is a sign with the inscription “Lassa pur dir”, which translated means “Let them talk” - this is how the merchant let the gossips know that gossip does not bother him. Once upon a time, Tartini Square was part of the port - a backwater into which ships entered, however, the water could not circulate and stagnated, as a result, the townspeople decided to pave this place with slabs and turned it into a beautiful square.
Sights of Piran
On the top of a hill near Tartini Square is the Cathedral of St. George, the patron saint of the city. On the dome of the cathedral you can see a statue of an angel - another symbol of the city along with the Tartini monument. Be sure to climb the fortress wall with towers, turned into an observation deck, from where you can enjoy a magnificent view of the city and the bay, and in good weather you can see the resort towns on the opposite coast of Croatia.
Piran cuisine
On the city embankment there are many restaurants and cafes, including the famous Pavel restaurant. In Piran, you should definitely try the local seafood - it’s not for nothing that Piran’s fish dishes are considered the best on the entire Slovenian coast, and in addition to them, choose white wine “Malvasia” or, if you are a fan, red “Refosk” produced by Vina Koper. 
After a delicious lunch it is always nice to take a walk along the sea. And in just half an hour along the embankment you can walk to neighboring Portorož, the largest resort on the Slovenian coast. Or you can stay on Tartini Square, where numerous bars and coffee shops open in the evenings, as well as concerts and performances, which tourists and city residents gather to watch.
May 12th, 2012 , 08:31 pm
Piran has the same relationship to Slovenia as, say, Königsberg once had to Russia. And if you don’t know what country it is, looking at the photographs, you might think it’s Italy. I got there in April 2011.
Since the 13th century, the Istrian peninsula has been part of the Venetian Republic. When at the end of the 18th century Napoleon took and abolished the Venetian Republic, Istria, passing first to France, then to Italy, then to Austria and back, ended up after the Second World War in the free territory of Trieste, then part of the territory where Piran is located went to Yugoslavia, and after its collapse she ended up in Slovenia. After the war, in 10 years, 27 thousand Italians moved from Yugoslavia to Italy (has anyone heard of Italian refugee camps?), and although Italian is today the second official language in this part of Slovenia, Italians make up a very small percentage of the city's population. However, the architecture of the city is still Italian. If you don't sign the photos, you might sometimes think they were taken in Venice.
Local residents religiously save parking spaces for themselves. Quite fair, by the way, since Piran is one of the most visited places in Slovenia, in the summer there is an insane number of tourists, and if cars are allowed into the city, you will just have to fly by air. Therefore, parking for city guests is located right on the horns of a nearby hill, from which you walk along the sea. The sea here is not just an ordinary one, but the Adriatic, and the shore in Piran has all the characteristic features of an Italian city on the Adriatic coast: a marina, fish restaurants and an indecently large number of tourists.
The atmosphere in the blocks a little away from the embankment is also typically Italian: narrow streets, shabby facades of houses, laundry hanging under the windows. The town has a population of only 4 thousand people; the number of tourists in the high season probably exceeds the number of local residents in one day. The language is heard as Slovenian, but in some places it’s not even Italian that slips through, but some local dialect in the middle.
The local churches look quite Italian.
Signs of victorious socialism are still visible. You can hardly see this in Italy:
Palazzo Gabrieli, now home to the Maritime Museum. We'll go there a little later. The second photo is the same one, on the other side of the marina.
I don’t even know what’s here, just a nice little house on the corner of Lenin Street.
The city center is Tartini Square. It is named after the native of Piran, composer and violinist Giuseppe Tartini. Until the mid-19th century, the area was an inland water space where part of the marina was located. Then the water was diverted to the side, the place was covered with earth and turned into a square. A bell tower, very reminiscent of the Venetian one, is located in almost every neighboring town on the Istrian peninsula.
The Tartini monument was erected on the square at the end of the 19th century. In general, if not for the fact that he was born and lived in Piran, we would hardly know anything about him, but since other celebrities did not live in the city, he is honored and respected here, and he is considered the most famous and respected resident of the city.
A very characteristic Venetian house was built by a wealthy Venetian merchant for a certain local lover of his. Their romance became a reason for gossip among local gossips, as a result of which the loving horseman ordered to leave the inscription lasa pur dir, that is, “let them talk”, on the coat of arms between the windows (this inscription is unlikely to have anything to do with the show of the same name for stupid housewives of Andrei Malakhov).
City Hall on the square. The Lion of St. Mark is repeatedly found in the city and is also a sign of belonging to the Venetian Republic. The two-color flag is the flag of the city, while the flag of Slovenia also has a white stripe on top.
I don’t even know what to say here. Almost like Lenin Street.
St. George is probably the city's patron saint because, like the Venetian lion, he appears in the most unexpected places. In particular, the cathedral with a bell tower above the square also bears his name.
Church, I think, of St. Peter, in the square:
Church of St. Francis, the holy water bowl (or whatever else they keep there) is made from a sea shell.
Let's rise higher, where the remains of the fortress wall are located. In the Middle Ages, it cut off the cape on which the city is located from sea to sea. From here you can see that the city is located on a tiny piece of land. Today only a small part of this wall remains. St. George's Cathedral with bell tower:
Actually, a town. The cathedral is on the right, the turret in the foreground is the Church of St. Francis, a large three-story building is the municipality, in front of it is Tartini Square. Hussars, keep quiet: it’s not the horizon that’s blocked, it’s the planet that’s crooked!
The wall I stand on. There is a balcony along the wall, which you can walk on without fear of falling, because it is blocked off.
From there, the roofs below, close-up:
We go down to the bell tower of the cathedral. The bell tower of St. Mark's in Venice famously fell, killing a cat. The bell tower of St. George in Piran did not kill cats; it has been standing since the beginning of the 17th century.
Views from above. At the top, on the hill, you can see the wall on which I stood half an hour ago.
There, a little further north. There are several other cities on the peninsula: Koper, Izola, Portorož, some of them can be seen in the distance. Piran is at the very end of the peninsula.
Tartini Square, or as it is called in Slovenian “Tartiniev Trg” (they have words without vowels), has the most spectacular view from the bell tower. In addition, from here you can see how it could have been part of the body of water until the mid-19th century.
Almost Manhattan.
Cathedral, below:
And these are the bells. They beat very loudly right under my ear, I almost went deaf. Made in Lithuania.
Let's say goodbye to the bell tower and go back to the square.
At the maritime museum. The lower floor is dedicated to archaeological finds in the area of the city. Transparent floor with thick glass, on which you need to walk in special size 49 slippers (issued at the entrance to the hall). There are amphorae under the floor. They were probably picked up by Silvio Berlusconi from the bottom of the sea and presented as a gift to the city.
On the top floor there are ship models and paintings of nautical themes. During the Venetian Republic, the main maritime export from the city was salt.
Well, very funny horses. Probably the bows of ships. Part of me in the mirror as a bonus.
We go deeper into the urban jungle. balconies hang directly above the medieval fortress wall. It is also the wall of rooms in apartments.
In those ancient times, when Tartiniev Trg was not yet a trg, but was flooded with water, this square was the main square of the city. Now it bears the fighting name of May Day (after all, Yugoslavia has not yet died).
May Day does not want to be associated with a purely Italian atmosphere.
In the center of the square there is a fresh water tank (seen in the photo above), from where local residents collected water. Wingless cupids with donut holes in their hands were placed against the drainpipes in such a way that through the holes rainwater was drained into the cistern.
"Dolphin Gate" of the 15th century in the depths of the medieval quarter. Nearby there was a tiny, meter by meter in size, Jewish quarter.
We move through the urban jungle to the exit to the fresh Adriatic air.
And we go out to the place where the lighthouse is located. Now there is a church on the site of the ancient lighthouse, the modern lighthouse is a little to the side. Piran, called "Pirano" in Italian, gets its name from the Greek word "pir" (fire), since since the times of the ancient Greeks a lighthouse torch has burned at this place, guiding ships to the neighboring port of Aegis, today's city of Koper.
Mermaid without a tail, right there.
View of the southern coast of the city. Fish restaurants are located along this coast. Fishy smells float unobtrusively in the air. Somewhere there, in the far right upper corner, there is parking for city guests. Local residents can enter using special cards.
This is how they lived...
Tourist breakfast. Fish fillet costs about twenty euros.
Fun bus leaving the city:
This is where the fairy tale ends.
The seaside town of Piran won my nomination for "Best Adriatic City", surpassing even the famous resorts of Croatia. Despite its modest size and lack of famous landmarks, Piran simply amazes with its almost untouched medieval aura, and its steep streets make you want to get lost.
The city is located on a cape in the southern part of the short 20-kilometer Slovenian coast and is surrounded on all sides... no, not only by the sea, but also by a pretentious resort Portorož. The place names Portorož and Bled are known to every chess player: famous tournaments have been held in these places and immortal games have been played. The grandmasters were not fools: they knew the right places even in the socialist camp. True, not everyone knows that both are located in Slovenia, and I myself, being both a chess player and a geographer, had a vague idea where it was until I visited it in person.
And Piran is even more unknown, and does not fit on all maps. Even on the ground it is not so easy to detect, but on May 24 I finally succeeded. Navik took me to the top of the hill, to some private sector, and announced that they had arrived. I didn’t believe it and started searching visually. Having turned around, I found two steep descents (IX Korpus Street to the west and Olczna Put to the south), but at the entrance to each there was a sign “for locals only.” The same sign marked the only parking lot, meaning there was nowhere to leave a car even for a fee. I had to look for a place near the fence of the “burrow”, and from there it was quite a long walk in the heat.
Adriatic cemeteries are always located on the top of a mountain, usually next to a church, and when there is none, it’s just like that. Therefore, they usually offer good panoramas :) and Piran is no exception. The first shot was taken through the fence, barely getting out of the car:
This is a view looking northeast towards the neighboring unnamed peninsula. Walking 500 meters from the cemetery to the west along the coast, you can see the ancient fortress gates and an equally ancient fir tree:
But the best view of the city opens a little further, from the edge of the parking lot:
On the right stands the Cathedral of St. George (or Yuri, 14th century, with later additions), on the left on the square of the composer Tartini stands the town hall (1879, on the site of the ancient Venetian one), and on the cape is the Church of St. Clement (13-19th centuries .), the bell tower of which also serves as a lighthouse.
We go down the pedestrian Rozmanova, which in some places simply turns into stairs:
On both sides of the street there are stunningly authentic houses and outbuildings:
This is a real medieval city, I understand!
Local residents have absolutely no place to store even a tiny car, so they ride motorcycles. Finally we go down to the embankment; there is a cove here - a refuge for yachts, surrounded by stylish buildings from the classical era. In particular, the ocher-colored Barboio Trevisini Palace, built in 1826, stands facing us:
We go past it to the right, and under the shadow of St. George's Cathedral the main square of Giuseppe Tartini opens, with a monument to the composer, a plague column (or an Austrian Christmas tree pole, which is apparently the same thing), and an ensemble of interesting buildings:
On the left, with a semicircular roof, is the city lodge (Loggia), now instead of the Masons, it houses a casino and an exhibition hall. To the right, the red "Venetian", the oldest house on the square (15th century). And Tartini’s own house did not fit into the frame; it is even further to the right. Here is a close-up photo of the square:
The violinist somehow very militantly holds his bow on the monument :) Further along the labyrinth of wonderful streets, along the fortress wall
we make our way to the cape. Here the embankment is already called Prešerenovskaya (let me remind you that the main square of Ljubljana also bears the name of this poet. No less, the local Pushkin - you should familiarize yourself with his work), and there is a lighthouse church already familiar to us from the overview photo:
We go around the cape, and at the end of St. George we find the city beach. There is no sand here (as indeed anywhere on the eastern side of the Adriatic), but you can lie on the pebbles:
Let's go deeper. Here I was truly lost, and now I can’t say which specific streets I walked along, and there was no time for signs, because I couldn’t take my eyes off these beautiful houses. I just noticed that the city still has Lenin and Marx streets. Just a street; almost all the shutters are closed - residents save themselves from the midday heat:
Obviously, in this weather, the laundry dries quickly:
Please note that apartments are not only in houses, but also above the street, in stone ceilings. Here we found a miracle vacuum cleaner, but not Kirby, but Glutton, and not a home one, but an outdoor one:
To get to apartment 12, you need to climb 14 steep stone steps. And the streets are so narrow that even two wheels cannot pass each other (or they are discussing whether to pick up an old monitor, completely out of place on a medieval street. By the way, it is noticeably cooler here than in the scorching sun, and you don’t want to leave the labyrinth anywhere:
and climb up the mountain to the car. I also looked at the burial site, but somehow didn’t dare take pictures there. After such a walk there is no strength, and you need to recover with a liter of cold milk stored in advance before it warms up :)
It was in vain that I visited Piran before the other Adriatic cities: then I involuntarily compared them with this standard, and no matter what they found, even very interesting, I thought “garbage, they saw cooler things in Piran.” And the quality of the inspection suffered as a result :)
Conclusion: Piran is a fairy tale city. You simply can’t drive by, but you can come just for it. Throughout the Adriatic this is an absolute must see, and in Slovenia even more so.
I came to Piran quite by accident while walking around Portoroz. Of course, I had the idea of visiting it specifically, but I didn’t think it was so close and I would find myself there so quickly. From the center of Portorož to Piran it takes 20-30 minutes on foot if you walk really very slowly. It is very easy to understand that you are in another city. A bus stop will appear, colorful houses will appear in large numbers and a map of Piran will appear. The city itself is quite small and has a population of just over 4,000 people, but it is significantly different from its neighbors. First of all, the city itself looks like an open-air museum, very beautiful and bright. Further, it is located in the Gulf of Piran, which in general makes it very different from the simple coast of Slovenia. The city itself has many beautiful views, and in another review I will show the city from above, it may be even better there. In the meantime, I want to introduce the city from the border to Portorož and its center.
The map meets a traveler from a neighboring city. It’s difficult to get lost here, the city is small, but it won’t hurt to get acquainted. In Piran there are two official languages: Slovenian and Italian, everything is usually duplicated, but not on the map...
If in Portorož there are mainly hotels and rare residential buildings, then in Piran there are mainly many small Italian houses. In general, these places once belonged to Italy, Trieste, then to Yugoslavia, there were disputes with Croatia and they continue. In general, Slovenia is very unlucky with the coast, it is already small, and they also want to squeeze this out.
The sea here, of course, is like the sea. No different from Portorož
Here, where the big house with balconies is, this is Portorož, i.e. there is no border at all
I won’t spam you with photos of the suburbs, this is the last one
Piran himself looks like this. Very chic. I really liked this city
I think lovers of Italy will like it here. Of course the atmosphere is not the same, but it is very similar, and the prices are much lower. Italians themselves come here to relax because it’s cheaper. And Slovenians go to Italy to work, for example... Knowing two languages helps them.
Piran has its own small port and the entrance to it is indicated by colored beacons or whatever they are correctly called
Agree, it’s very atmospheric when the boats are in the city, everything is so neat and clean. It’s hard to say whether these are boats of locals or tourists, but there are quite a lot of them.
The water is clear
The houses are all bright, with different shades. beauty
St. George's Cathedral is visible from all sides. I’ll go up to it later and show you the views from it. The location is good for viewing the city from above.
The most central place of the city is Tartini Square, in honor of the Italian composer who was born here. The area is quite large and beautiful. You can hold quite large and interesting events.
There are many restaurants in the city with outdoor tables and umbrellas
Tartini monument and behind it the city administration or city hall
On the shore there is a model of the city made as if from books
The edge of the city is Cape Madonna with a lighthouse.
Church of Mary the Healer, and behind it a lighthouse.
If you come here by car from other cities, then 3-4 hours will be enough to cover the city.
Among the stones near the shore there is a sculpture of a girl
This is what I liked. Why go to the beach when you can sunbathe on the roof of your house? :))) It’s true that you can fall off the roof
The streets themselves are pedestrian. A car simply cannot get through here, they are narrow. All cars are parked at the beginning of the city and there are only a few roads in the city for them.
