Piran

On Friday, the Smith College Alumnae Chorus and our travelling companions visited Piran, a beautiful, historic town on the Adriatic coast of Slovenia. Slovenia, before its independence in 1991, had spent centuries under the dominance of other entities. Piran shows the influence of its time as part of the Venetian republic.

The main square has a statue of Italian composer and violinist Giuseppe Tartini, whose birthplace, now a historic landmark, is on the piazza.

As you would expect, some of the streets, now used as footpaths, are very narrow.

Consequently, the cars are very small by US standards. (For scale, I am 5’1.5″ or 156 cm.)

We walked up to the Church of St. George, shown here from Tartini Square.

The baptistry is the small, octagonal building whose roof you see to the right of the belltower, which is itself a smaller replica of the tower of St. Mark’s in Venice.

The restoration of the church is amazing! The wall on the left has a sculpture of St. George slaying the dragon.

The ceilings were especially eye-catching.

Because I was an organist, B took a special photo of the organ.

A path leads down from the church to the point and lighthouse.

Piran affords views of the coast of Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia.

We loved our visit to Piran and definitely recommend including it in your itinerary if you visit Slovenia.