Izola, Slovenia

Just a few kilometres off the picturesque town of Piran which is, however, pretty badly overcrowded, is located a small, equally beautiful, town of Izola.

You’ll see pretty big part of their architecture while looking for a parking lot, because 95% of the parking space is for the locals. But on those few spots left you’ll find it easily, because most of the people you’ll spot are from Slovenia so they can park anywhere. You see? The first reason to come there; it’s never full. It’s calm and quiet, sometimes you feel like you can even hear the mild wind blowing.

But that doesn’t naturally mean it’s deserted! Although there are not many souvenir-orientated shops, many great restaurants serving mostly traditional coastal dishes can be found. Also some great patisseries can be found! One even offers sugar-, gluten-, egg- and dairy-free ice creams and cakes! And believe me or not, they taste really good! The fruity ones taste like frozen jams (a bit soury though) and the chocolate one…well, it was supposed to be absolutely without sugar so I was expecting that weird cocoa taste, but it was actually really good! Yes, it was a bit bitter, totally reminding the original Dutch cocoa, but at the same time very tasty…interesting.

But I DID NOT HEAD to this town to dedicate the whole article to ice creams now! I read about the “mythical Simon’s Bay” so I wanted to check it out. When I saw words ‘white sand’ in one guide, I was expecting…well, white sand. Something like Vada in Italy probably. It had nothing to do with white sand honestly, but it was super clean, both beach and the sea, and also the access to the water was great. Surface was a mix of sand, dust, gravel and small rocks. The beach bars were present, I also loved the fact that it’s basically a green peninsula so you can stay anywhere you want without getting sunburned. The only thing I would warn you about is shortagw of toilets and changing rooms. There is only one booth with this service and you need to pay for it with tokens. Changing room with WC costs 1 token (0.1€) and shower 2 tokens, but that’s thoroughly okay, because the shower spits the water for so long, that two to three persons can take a proper shower there.

This town is meant for beaching. Local beaching, to be exact. I found only one shop with souvenirs and those, you know…thingy-majiggies you don’t ever need but they make you believe that you need it so you buy rhem and never use them again, in the whole town. There are a few spots worth looking for nevertheless.

First thing you’d definitely notice also without me remarking it. And that’s the large marina with all kinds of boats, from small vessels and fish picnic ships to luxury yachts. At the tip of the peninsula is always lit up the lighthouse and right in the area of Simon’s Bay is an archaeological park. I can’t tell you more about it, because I didn’t visit him 🙂 And somewhere in the town (yes, yet again I have no idea where in the centre of the town it was located, just look for the Ulica Alme Vivoda 3) you’ll come up to Muzej Parenzana – museum about history of trains on Istra and the mobile toy models of trains. It’s actually more interesting than it sounds like, I’ve visited this kind of museum in Austria and I ended up staying there for more than am hour, fascinated by the amount of hard work put into creating something like this.

And if you just don’t feel like going around the town anymore because you’ve already visited some of the historical towns located nearby before…well, than just hop on the towel and enjoy your day by the sea 🙂

Have a great day!