Adriatic: New Ports, Countries to Explore Beneath Super Moon

Days 130-132, 2025 European Odyssey

Wednesday to Friday, Nov. 5-7, 2025; Split, Croatia; Trieste, Italy; and Koper, Slovenia.

I’m finding my nephew Colton to be an excellent traveling companion. He seldom complains and is happy to go with the flow. And he doesn’t snore!

He isn’t particularly interested in tours or excursions, preferring to explore ports on foot, and he’s okay with setting off alone. This means that once I’ve found a place to sit and sketch, he’s heading up a hill or climbing a tower, returning just as I’m ready to move on.

All but one of our five ports on the Adriatic are new to me, so I’m happy to just explore, especially because we generally dock right at the old towns. Someday I want to repeat the itinerary and travel inland to see more of these Balkan countries, which look mountainous and beautiful from our ports.

In Split, Croatia, we docked at the main pier, but on the farthest finger from shore. After walking 10 minutes, we reached the promenade along shore and the palace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, built as his retirement residence. It covers a good amount of the old city, with shops, restaurants and courtyards scattered within the fortification.

I’m glad we took the time and paid the small fee to visit its underground complex, with cavernous halls once used for storage and winemaking. Colton recognized parts of it as filming sites for Game of Thrones.

We exited into a square in front of the Cathedral of Saint Domnius, considered the oldest Catholic cathedral still holding services in its original structure (circa 7^th century). Across the square, a coffee shop provided seat cushions and wooden boards for use on large block steps. I settled in to sketch a portion of the cathedral while Colton climbed the bell tower.

I’m learning to tighten my focus rather than sketch an entire building or complex, and this time I choose some of the archway. By the time my nephew returned, I had finished the ink sketch after many pencil erasures while trying to get the arches and proportions right. I would paint it back on the ship.

We stopped for lunch in another square (at €60 something we won’t do every day).

In Trieste, Italy, I was glad I canceled my original plan to go to Venice, two hours away. Large cruise ships no longer can dock in Venice, hence the tours from as far away as Trieste, which sits on a small strip of Italy on the edge of Slovenia.

We walked right off the ship into the Piazza Unità d’Italia, considered the largest European square to face the sea. The ruins of a Roman theater are a few blocks away, at the foot of hill that rises to Castello di San Guisto.

I stopped to sketch the nearby Serbian Orthodox church, Saint Spyridon, while Colton headed uphill. I painted it a few days later.

Trieste is home to the Italian coffee company Illy, so of course we enjoyed espressos at one of its shops along a canal.

Koper is only about 15 miles from Trieste. It’s my first visit to Slovenia, which as locals will tell you is the only country with “love” in the name. Again, we docked right at the old town and walked up the pedestrian walkway to Tito Square, named after Josip Tito, who headed the Soviet Republic of Yugoslavia until his death in 1980. (Yugoslavia was composed of Bosnia/Herzegovina, Serbia and Macedonia, as well as our ports of Slovenia, Montenegro and Croatia.)

I sketched at an outdoor café in front of a 15^th-century palace where a street musician entertained with his accordion and mandolin while Colton climbed the nearby clock tower. (Notice a theme here?) It didn’t take too long later to wander the winding narrow streets lined mostly with shops catering to local residents.

After five port days, we will welcome Saturday’s sea day. We’ve stayed busy with specialty dinners in Morimoto and Tamarind, which Colton makes up for by going to the fitness center.