Heading west from Koper the road veers right soon after Izola onto a long, tapering peninsula that projects like a lizard's tail north into the Adriatic. PORTOROZ ("Port of Roses") appears almost without warning, a sprawling resort that by the end of the nineteenth century was already known for its mild climate and the health-inducing properties of its salty mud baths. Maladied middle-aged Austrians flocked here by the thousand to be smothered with murky balm dredged... [More]