What, no greeting, Melania?

We were disappointed Melania Trump didn’t have a reception committee waiting for us in her homeland...lol.   We docked in Koper, Slovenia where we opted to just do a walking tour of the town.  Goron, our guide, was a bit spotty; at times, very knowledgeable; other times, he dropped the ball but I don’t really think we missed all that much.  Koper is a town of 50,000, officially bilingual - Slovene and Italian.  They love their wine so much that they do not export their best wines; they keep them for themselves.

Goron took us to the museum which he claimed was his first visit there also...hmmm. Every so often he opened a window of the museum to call to a family member; first his mama and then his brother.   Actually, he was quite comical.
He kept referring to Carpaccio and all I could think of was why was he talking about food????  Later I came to realize he was referring to the Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio, who supposedly lived and worked in Koper in the 16th century.  There is a square named for him which is adjacent to the Taverna aka a former salt warehouse.

Salt was very valuable, as you can imagine, for preservation and seasoning.  The word salary is the derivative of salt...another factoid for you.  There is a lovely store in the town dedicated to all sorts of salts, soaps, bathing salts and seasoning salts.  If they weren’t so heavy I would have brought home a variety.

Tito Square claims to be one of the most beautiful Mediterranean squares on the North Adriatic.  I might agree with that assessment.  Today it houses the Mayor’s office, who, by the way, ran for president and lost...oh well...he’s still mayor; and the City Council meetings.

We stopped at a seaside restaurant where we were served wine and a piece of yogurt cake...interesting combination for a mid morning snack but ‘when in Rome’, as they say....

Returning to the square, we visited the church (of course).    Dom decided he wanted to climb the 204 steps up to the bell tower for the view.  I thought my knee would be angry at me so I opted to stay and pray for Dom instead.  He marveled at the view but today tells me that his quads are speaking to him.

Dinner was at Toscana, one of the specialty restaurants aboard the ship.  Our butler invited us to the evening entertainment as this was the evening when the entire staff is brought out and recognized.  They do put on excellent shows but we have been so tired with early morning call times that we hadn’t gone to any.  We were not disappointed.  We understand one of the young performers is a recent Fordham graduate who had training at the Alvin Alley school.  He did us alums proud.

On to Venezia........