Koper

The fifth-largest city in Slovenia and the main urban centre of its short coast, built around the country’s only container port, which is a substantial part of the municipal economy and a call for several Mediterranean cruise lines. It is also one of the main road entries from Italy, with the motorway crossing at Spodnje Škofije running on to Trieste, and a rail link to Ljubljana. The sights are Venetian: the fifteenth-century Praetorian Palace and Loggia in Venetian Gothic, the twelfth-century Carmine Rotunda, and St Nazarius’ Cathedral with its fourteenth-century tower.