More Stallions, Mares, Colts, And Buggies At The Lipica Stud Farm; Oh My!

More of a beautiful day with the horses and horse-persons...

The grounds are beautifully landscaped, trees labeled, etc.

Stud farm chapel; used mostly for weddings these days;
they said

Highly unusual Mom's night out pic, Baby J with "Dad"

Inner sanctum of Lipica, oldest barn, museum, gift shoppe

Late 18th painting of the place

Now in the hall of champions barn; one can only imagine what they might have
been champions of...

Watching buggy practice en route to the "show" at the hippodrome

The Three Horses: Harriet, Hermione, and Heather

So,disappointingly, no fotos are allowed in the show; probably with good reason,
since the flashing of morons' cameras would conceivably scare the horses

Whatever; the show was more about what they do at Lipica,
apart from the stud thing, that is, training the horses,
dressage and such; so we only got these few shots, plus
whatever I will post on YouTube; some day

So after the show and a modest lunch we drifted over to the buggy competition

The broadcast booth; and in English too

Unbeknownst to us, the buggy competition also includes water sports; not to
mention cruelty to animals

Stud farm size supply of hay

Vets' ambulances for the horses were rather less conspicuous

We tired of this within a few eternally-long minutes, downed some strudel, then
ambled back to the gift shoppe

Interesting display

In the museum: 21st century branding

"Yippie-oh-ky..." I mean, "Ach! Mein Strudels!"

And a fond farewell, from those out to pasture...

Studs, Mares, and Colts, Oh My! At The Lipica Stud Farm

A horse is a horse, of course, of course, unless, of course...it's one of the famous prancing and dancing Lippizaners, graduates of the horsey haute ecole, associated with the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. The Lipica Stud Farm is where it all began, in 1580, and continues, except for occasional World Wars. The Archduke Charles wanted to create a new breed, stronger and smarter, to help his armies fight off the invading Turks. He figured that his Andalusian stallions and the local Karst mares would do the trick, so to speak; and the rest is history. All the Lippizaners come from the same six Spanish stallions, plus hundreds of Karst mares, and their progeny.

It is a very big place, many, many hectares for the horses, well, the stallions,
to roam in 

The maternity barn, where the mares spend virtually their entire lives, getting
impregnated, gestating, giving birth, nursing their foals, rinsing and repeating...

Among the interesting things...all the Lippis are born brown or black; the
light gray to white associated with the breed is actually premature graying;
seriously; only the horse-stylists know for sure

Big place: we did the tour, the show, then the museums and
gift shoppe, and also watched a bit of the buggy competition
going on that afternoon

Street scene

Stallion/stud barn

Extensive identifying info on the green and blue cards

Essential barn implements; not pictured: shovels

Feed

Ditto

Until recently and the use of micro-chips, the horses were lightly branded with an
"L" on their left cheeks

Rider wearing Olympics shirt

Breeding experiment with African zebras

Back at the nursery: bottle-feeding a colt whose mom died; apparently, among
horses, it does not take a village

The clearing on the hill above is the Italian border; Lipica is just 10 miles from
Trieste

Ponies, not Lippis, for the kiddie rides

Super interpretive signage throughout; above, a newborn

They don't do it the old-fashioned way anymore at Lipica;
here's a stud, in bondage and leather, going at it with the
semen collection machine

Thus; "Lipica used to be such a happy place," I heard one
of the stallions say...

Piran: Return To Slovenia

July 5th we decamped and drove from Rovinj to Poroc, where there was an RV/camping store we had seen advertised. Even though camping-cars and wohnmobils and auto-caravanas are as common as carrots in Europe, you have to look pretty hard for stores that sell equipment, accessories, and the like. This one, Meridien, was pretty good, and pretty popular (they also did boating equipment and accessories), and after a few purchases and much nosing around, we proceeded on, passing on into Slovenia (Schengenia) and on to our next stop, Piran, a sort of mini-Rovinj, but with a Slovenian twist. Slovenia has only a few miles of coast, relative to Croatia, but they make the most of it, with a major port, Kopor, and with little seaside villages, now tourist destinations. Not on the tourist scale of Croatia, but still destinations. Compared with Rovinj, Piran seemed almost undiscovered. Almost. Real people populate most of the town and there are few trinket shoppes, but, with the tour buses, that will change. Oh, St. Euphemia was right: the night we stayed in Piran there was a terrific thunderstorm, one of the worst we've seen since that night in Bangkok...

The beach at the campground--mostly statics--at Piran

Mostly pebble beach, and thus mere beach towels will not do

Other things you can do with pebbles and stones

Piran town was a pleasant 15 minute walk along the beach

Another church, another bell tower, another weather-vane

It was a St. George church

View from the walls

Ditto; and another round of Negronis and pina coladas down there

The lighthouse

Alleys even narrower than Rovinj's

Unusual down-spout

Really narrow alleys

Now in the main square, Tartinin square, named after the
violinist

Panning around the square

"Let them talk" it says

On this house built by a Venetian merchant for his Piran
mistress

The square in Piran was originally the marina, later filled in; unlike Rovinj,
Piran also built a bit of a seawall to protect the houses on the water

Today's marina

Ugliness too

Where the paving stones come from

Future supply up the cliff

Italian beach toy (pizza slice)

Encampment at Piran