When Zoran Torbica, the organizer of the Adria Summit, suggested a cycling tour from Savudrija to Piran in Slovenia, I didn't think much of it. Ten of us, the most persistent participants of the conference, set off in the hottest time around 11 o'clock and we covered a good part of the way to Piran on Parenzana, a bicycle path located on the route of the former railroad of the same name that connected Trieste and Poreč.
photo: Robert ChobanALONG THE FORMER RAILWAY: Parenzane Station
Parenzana (Ferrovia Trieste-Parenzo-Canfanaro, abbreviated TPC) was a narrow-gauge railway that connected Trieste through a series of stations with Poreč as the end point. It passed through the territories of three present-day countries: Italy, Slovenia and Croatia. When it was built in 1902, it was all Austria-Hungary, when the last train passed through it in 1935 - it was all Italy. The railway corridor has been preserved today, as well as a large number of accompanying railway buildings, bridges, viaducts and tunnels. A large part of the route of the old railway has been renovated for bicycle and pedestrian paths, and the reconstruction of certain sections of the railway for tourist purposes is also being considered.
The history of this railway begins long before the start of its construction. The Istrian Railway was inaugurated on September 20, 1876. It was supposed to contribute to the efficient connection of the war port of Pula with the interior of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Residents of northwestern Istria, the most densely populated part of the peninsula, were disappointed because the new railway completely bypassed their areas.
After long thinking about the traffic solution for northwestern Istria, Count Pietr Weiderstein received the approval of the ministry to start a study on the economic viability of the Trieste-Buje-Poreč railway. Istrian representatives Bertol and Rizzi before the Parliament in Vienna in 1893 requested the construction of this railway, and the following year the Istrian Provincial Assembly almost unanimously adopted the Law on the construction of the Trieste-Poreč railway, with a possible extension to Kanfanar.
The construction of the 760 mm wide railway began in 1900. Initially, it was planned as a normal gauge railway, but due to lower taxes, a narrow gauge was built in the end with a length of 123,1 km, with 8 tunnels, 11 bridges and 6 viaducts, as well as numerous railway stations , stops, warehouses, water supply stations, embankments and cuttings. The route was greatly changed from the original plan because many cities and towns wanted to be connected by the railway, which the authorities granted.
The christening with the name "Parenzana" happened quite by chance when information about the first section of the railway to Buje was published in the Trieste magazine of the State Railways. As the idea was to emphasize that the railway would also reach Poreč (Parenzo in Italian), the text in German read "Parenzaner", so its name has remained until today in the Italian version "Parenzana".
In the beginning, U-type steam locomotives were used. There were class I, II and III passenger cars with 30 seats each, freight cars and luggage cars. All carriages were lit by kerosene lamps, did not have toilets, but had balconies.
Parenzana survived the First World War, and after the fall of Austria-Hungary, it fell under the Italian State Railways (FS). After only 33 years of traffic - the last train passed through the railway on August 31, 1935 - it could no longer resist the competition of faster and cheaper road forms of transport.
The fate of the rails of this railway is also interesting. In 1939, Mussolini's authorities dismantled them and shipped them to their recently occupied colony of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). The ship never reached its destination because it sank in the Mediterranean Sea.
photo: Robert ChobanView
Somewhere halfway between Savudija and Umag, before entering Slovenia, there is a lookout from which you can see the fields of the Sečovlje salt pans, where there is also a small Museum of Saltworks. There I read on the information board that the train journey from Trieste to Poreč took seven hours. Although the maximum permitted speed of the train was 25 km per hour, the old locomotive overcame the steeper climbs so slowly that some passengers got off the train, walked a little to stretch their legs and calmly returned to the carriage. The slowness of the train caused great problems for the conductors because it was almost impossible to prevent "smuggling", so many young men jumped off the moving train without any problems and returned to it.
There are many other interesting facts and anecdotes related to Parenzana. There were not many citizens at the ceremonial welcome of the first Parenzana train on April 1, 1902 in Trieste, because due to constant problems, delays and postponement of deadlines, many recognized the opening of Parenzana as an unsavory April Fool's joke. Due to the high cost of the railway, the inhabitants humorously translated the already mentioned abbreviation TPC as "Tassa perpetua comunale", which in translation means "perpetual municipal tax".
On the climb from the Mirna valley to Motovun, the railway had to overcome an ascent of more than 100 meters. Naughty children took advantage of this for fun by smearing the rails with ripe figs. As a result, the train slid backwards so much that it was often necessary to stop and clear the track in order to continue the journey. There was a slot for letters in the mail car, so people often came to the station to drop letters directly into the train. Thus, Parenzana made it possible to keep secrets, especially for young girls who found it extremely difficult to hide the names of the recipients of their letters in such small places where everyone knew everything.
Even today, there are two "U" type locomotives that drove Parenzana before the First World War. "U 37" is displayed as a tourist attraction in front of the new Koper Railway Station along with several Bosnian Railways cars, and "U 40" still pulls tourist trains on the Murtalbahn line through the Mur Valley in Austria.
On the occasion of the railway's 100th birthday in 2002, the Parenzana revitalization project was launched, and in 2004 the EU launched the project "Parenzana - path of health and friendship". The goals of the project are the revitalization of Parenzana through the tourist offer and long-term cross-border cooperation in Istria, the protection of the route, the connection of the existing cultural and technological heritage into a unique tourist product. In Livade, on the Croatian part of the route, the Parenzane museum was opened, and in 2008, the part between Livade and Buje was opened as a bicycle path. On the way, you will meet a number of attractions: the Baredine Cave, Zvezdarnica Višnjan, the Euphrasian Basilica in Poreč, the Model Locomotive in Vižinada, the Izola Museum in Izola, and the Sečovlje Solana.
We crossed the Plovania border crossing between Croatia and Slovenia without being checked, although two days earlier, when we were going to a gala dinner at the Hotel Grand Kempinski in Portorož, our car was stopped because a passenger had forgotten his passport at the hotel in Savudrija, so we had to return . When he saw the column of cyclists, the policeman at the border just waved his hand: "Pass!"
I jokingly suggested to Torbica that smuggling migrants from Afghanistan and Eritrea disguised as cyclists might be an interesting business idea.
In Potoroz, we passed by the luxurious Hotel Grand Kempinski, which, like the Kempinski Adriatic in Savudrija, is owned by Serbian businessman Miodrag Kostić, who for this reason also became the majority owner of the Portoroz Airport.
Right next to Portorož, in the fairy-tale seaside town of Piran, we sat down to take a break in a cafe by the shore, right next to the sculpture dedicated to Dragan Sakan.
On the stylized bronze model of Piran, made of books, pencils, rulers, is written "Visionary and man of ideas". The monument erected in 2011, the conceptual design of Slavisa Savić, the work of sculptor Milan Stošić, symbolizes Sakan's motto "Ideas are all around us", as well as the respect and inspiration between Sakan and Piran from Belgrade. In this city, Sakan, thanks to his school of ideas "Ideas Campus", gathered the world's greatest creatives.
After returning to Savudrija, we went for lunch at the nearby Agrotourism Klay, a homestay with excellent food and wine, a table in the courtyard like in the movie Kum, a nice and hard-working landlady, but also the boss and his brother who drank Malvasia like water.
