Sunday 15 October 2017. 7:00 am. Miss Franny opens the curtains enough to pop her head through - a wise choice considering her state of undress...
"It's foggy!" she says just as the Captain announces over the tannoy system that it is foggy but should burn off once the sun rises. "I've put the kettle on, make me a coffee whilst I'm in the shower!" comes a cheerful call as I'm still lying, eyes tightly screwed up against the sudden flood of light from the cabin flourescents, thoughts of another hour or two in my comfy nest starting to become more a remote hope than a fondly cherished dream.
By the time we have breakfasted and got off the ship, bright-eyed and bushy tailed (that's Miss Franny - I'm still bleary-eyed and wondering who got me dressed...) the fog has taken a stubborn aspect...
Tito Square. We are in Koper, Slovenia today. Life is a constant joy of rediscovery for Miss Franny, who never remembers a place until we have been at least six times. "I don't remember it yet," she will say, looking at Blackpool Tower... (well that may be an exaggeration but you get my drift!) We'll come back to Tito Square as it looks far better in sunshine than in fog.
The fog was beginning to lift, but the sky was still a forbidding grey. We had come out of the ship wearing hoodies (the hood part is something I ignore. If I raise it, it reaches almost a foot above my head and if I tighten the drawstring it then covers my nose and eyes just leaving a gap for my mouth to look out of). As the mist started to disappear these got warmer and warmer. After half an hour we were carrying them. We came across these two hatches, well heads or access to the drainage system, I'm not sure, but looking like they were built from re-used ancient column capitals.
Each place we were to go on this cruise had its centre of medieval buildings. Which means ancient building techniques, alterations over the centuries and a high maintenance requirement to keep them in tip-top shape. Not all were in such state and quite a few were in the midst of maintenance where cracks had appeared between old and even older (I can't say "old and new" can I?) and which had been cemented over prior to re-coating the walls with plaster and paint or rendering. I also love how the angle of the upper storey starts to protrude over the ground floor until even the wooden buttress beams need a supporting buttress of their own!
A tempting cafe. The lights were on but all was quiet. This was a Sunday morning and many businesses were shut, locals still attending church. Note the large thermometer on the wall to the left of the doorway.
I remembered this fountain mainly because of a young lad, who the last time we were there, kept rushing at it to swing on the chains. He stopped when he hit the revolving gate bars (just to the right of the man in the foreground) and they swung open, depositing him painfully on the ground...
Narrow roads and alleyways meander through the old centre of town. Sometimes a drainpipe has no drain beneath it so bends to shoot its waste water across the street. We walk through the old town via a maze of these narrow streets, each one with something to look at.
We come to the more modern part of town where even the trees have cardigans to keep them warm...
It's getting brighter and warmer but the sun still seems a long way off. The fog has almost lifted though, with just the haze in the distance.
The street brings us to the sea front. There's a hint of the blue sky to come but the horizon has yet to make itself known.
We sit for a while watching things becoming brighter and clearer until the mist has just about gone. We buy a few bits from a stall where a sign informs us that the stall holder is deaf.
As we sit the fog disappears and a bright blue sky and sunshine are our reward for waiting. We head back to Tito Square. This is the Loggia Palace. The lower storey dates back to 1462, but it was 200 years before the upper storey was added.
Opposite the Loggia Palace is the Pretorian Palace. The corner of the Loggia Palace is seen on the left of my sketch, but the Pretorian Palace should be wider and shorter - my scaling went a bit haywire... I must remember to buy a stretchable sketch book next time...
A somewhat clearer view than that of first thing this morning! Thomson Dream at her mooring in Koper, Slovenia.
A dirty great chunk of fungus growing on a tree trunk.
The tree was growing in an elevated viewpoint over the cruise terminal. Just by the port the land level rises in a low cliff behind which is the route to Tito Square. We returned to the dockside and had a look at a few stalls set up at the edge of the port. Fran bought a bit of jewellery at one stall run by a mother and daughter ... who were both deaf. Whether this was just a coincidence or whether deaf people in Slovenia are encouraged to run small retail businesses I'm not sure. I have a very limited knowledge of Makaton sign language from having been a governor at a special college (and having watched Mr Tumble with my granddaughter on kids' TV!) and I recognised some symbols used by them to each other so I signed "thank you" and "goodbye" and was glad I did because the face of the daughter who had served us lit up when I did so. We were back on the ship by early afternoon after which the fog started to make a bit of a comeback.
We took our evening meals in the waiter service restaurant, the Orion Restaurant and sat for the rest of the week with two Welsh couples (a different couple of couples from the Captain's night). Then it was off to the Water's Edge bar to spend the evening listening to Tom and Maris and sharing the stage for a couple of songs.
