Gorizia-Nova Gorica: Italian-Slovenian odd couple sharing European Capital of Culture 2025

GORIZIA, Italy – I’m walking toward a border that 34 years ago represented the line between the free, democratic West and the evil, communist East. It’s different now, of course. Europe is free and open. All the countries that don’t have balding dictators have joined hands for the greater good.

I am reminded of this by feeling a pitchfork up my arse.

I turn around and a tall gent dressed in a black devil’s costume and carrying a long, curved pitchfork is staring at me. On my other side comes a man in a long white robe and a wig of cascading blonde locks. His wings on his back sag like a dead eagle’s.

Nevertheless, the makeshift angel puts a chain around me and tries dragging me from the towering devil, whom I saw earlier chase the angel during a parade through these streets on the Italian frontier.

These are Zloudij, the devil, and Anjulac, the archangel Michael, two traditional Slovenian carnival figures who represent good and evil and beautiful and ugly. What appropriate reps for a year in which two border towns become the first dual cities in the 40 years of the European Capital of Culture designation.

 

The problem is, which town represents the devil and which is the angel? Nova Gorica is definitely ugly but was never all that evil; Gorizia won’t make the cover of Conde Nast Traveler, either, but was definitely on the good side of history.

Standing alone, Gorizia, Italy, and Nova Gorica, Slovenia, barely raise a blip on the European destination radar. But together they hope a year’s worth of festivities, exhibitions and shows will make them known for more than one definitely evil episode in World War II.

“There is a misunderstanding of culture in the city,” says Stefano Bizzi, a reporter for Gorizia’s newspaper, Il Piccolo. “Some people think it means heart. But it’s something bigger, larger. In the case of Gorizia and Nova Goriza, it’s a culture of border cooperation. The border is the main goal. In 2026, maybe they will stop with the exhibitions, concerts, whatever. 

“But the borderless will stay. I hope.”

 

 

 

Where are they?

Gorizia and Nova Gorica (Gore-ITS-a) share a border where the far northeast of Italy meets the western end of Slovenia. There is no river to cross or office to show your papers. There is just a steel overhang left over from 1991 when Slovenia became the first of the six communist Yugoslav republics to break away.

Some bored policemen hang out, only asking for official papers on rare occasions.

I take a 6 ½-hour train ride from my home in Rome to Gorizia with changes in Bologna and Mentre. A bus drops me off at Piazza della Vittoria, Gorizia’s town center, where a giant stage is being set up for the opening celebration the next day. The two turquoise onion domes of St. Ignatius Church give Gorizia an Eastern European feel although it was built by the Jesuits in the 18th century.

I walk past a long string of outdoor cafes, empty on a chilly, gray day in the 40s and down a narrow cobblestone street to my rented apartment. It’s spacious with a big living room and bedroom. A flat screen carries Italia 1, the cable station on which I’ll watch the Super Bowl.

Turns out, the apartment was the best thing I liked about Gorizia.

Press conference

I’m running late and my kind host finds a rare taxi to take me over the border for the opening press conference. As we cross into Slovenia I see the first cement block left over from Yugoslavia’s communist days. The businesses look tired and charmless.

Oddly, I see a casino, looking as out of place as a tuxedo in a Salvation Army. But the Park Casino & Hotel’s plain, blockish sign makes the casino look ordinary as well. The Casino de Monte Carlo this is not. 

I enter a concrete building with a GO! 2025 sign where Neda Bric Rusjan, the Slovenian director of GO! 2025 opening ceremony, talks in English about the years of civic cooperation to make this happen. The two mayors speak in a mix of Italian, Slovenian and English about the importance of border cooperation. I’ve seen references to the border conflict between Russia and Ukraine, a reach too far for me to bring up when later I introduce myself to Nova Gorica mayor Samo Turel.

I ask him what he can tell me about his city which I’d never heard of until it received the cultural designation four years ago.

“Nova Gorica is the center with the most casinos in Europe,” he says proudly. “It’s a gambling city with great big casinos so tourism was big before Covid and now it’s returning with the same numbers.”

I’d covered European Capitals of Culture before. Last year I went to Bodo, Norway, for a story for BBC.com and saw the massive coordination needed for one city to pull off a year of festivities with a common theme. For two to do it? From different countries? With histories that couldn’t be more different? 

Unlike the cities’ architecture, I was impressed. And both could use the help. Turel estimates each city will get about 2 million visitors this year. In the pre-Covid 2019, Nova Gorica had 193,824 overnight stays. 

“The first advantage is just to learn along the way with the warts and troubles, of how can you realize cooperation, real cooperation,” said Peter Szabo, the opening celebration’s Hungarian-born translator who has lived in Nova Gorica most of his life. “Because years ago, cross-border cooperation was just for the money. We pretended to be friends, but we get European funds. Now it goes a little bit beyond that.

“It becomes a little more genuine.”

Gorizia (pop. 138,000) and Nova Gorica (13,000) are Europe’s odd couple. Gorizia dates back 1,000 years; Nova Gorica is younger than some of its residents, a city built from scratch out of the ashes of a brutal world war. 

Gorizia-Nova Gorica history

Essentially, Nova Gorica grew out of Gorizia (In Slovenian, Nova Gorica means “New Gorizia.”), as if the Italian town gave birth to it. Gorizia has been around since the 11th century when it was part of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Habsburg Empire ruled it starting in the 16th century and made it into a summer retreat for Austrian nobility, comparing it to the French Riviera by labeling it “The Austrian Nice.” In the 1800s, Gorizia became one of Europe’s biggest melting pots. Italian, Slovenian, German and the regional dialect of Friulian were spoken in the town center.

In the area now occupied by Nova Gorica? Countryside. That’s all.

After the Habsburg Empire lost World War I, Slovenians wanted an independent state and a kingdom of what would later be Yugoslavia was established. Gorizia, heavily damaged during the war, became a contested town occupied by Italian troops.

The Nazis controlled Gorizia toward the end of World War II and when the war ended, Gorizia’s problems became worse, if that’s possible. In May 1945, Hitler’s body hadn’t grown cold yet when Yugoslav partisans entered Gorizia and more than 1,000 civilians and soldiers disappeared, most of whom were slaughtered in Yugoslavia. More than 350,000 from the region were forced from their homes.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the massacre. City officials have commemorated it with a “Memory Train” similar to the one that shipped citizens out of town. Complete with memorabilia and chilling facts of the period, it has visited numerous cities in Italy since last year.

When the Allies finally won control, most of Gorizia was assigned to Italy with 20 percent of the population annexed to Yugoslavia. 

What was on the Yugoslavia side of the border? The area had a cemetery and a brick factory. With the backing of president Josip Tito, the bricks made Nova Gorica’s first apartment blocks in 1947. Brick by brick, Nova Gorica  became an official Yugoslav town in 1952.

A capitalist city and communist city bumping borders for the next four decades. Now look at them: Star-crossed lovers like West and East Germans once separated by a wall.

The cities today 

Keep in mind the Gorizia-Nova Gorica border crossing wasn’t the Berlin Wall. During the Cold War, Yugoslavians could travel to the West. Tito made it a human right in his effort to distance himself from hated Moscow while still sticking to his communist ideals. That freedom rewarded him with a pseudo sainthood that remains to this day.

Slavs loved those Italian-made bluejeans.

However, the difference between the two cities became evident the more Nova Gorica grew. While Gorizia was built by Austria and rebuilt after World War I by Italy, Nova Gorica was built from scratch by that famed center of architectural grandeur.

Yugoslavia.

Edvard Ravnikar, a Slovenian trained by Le Corbusier, the famed Swiss-Frenchman who was a pioneer of modern architecture, built a city only Karl Marx could love. Gray and faded yellow apartment blocks. A dull downtown.

The Kromberk Castle on the town’s eastern outskirts and the Kostanjevica Monastery on a hill south of the train station, both from the 17th century, remain the city’s prettiest landmarks.

The first of four casinos was built in 1984 and today the Casino Perla is one of the biggest in Europe. Its blue-green lights on its walls won’t remind anyone of the Las Vegas Strip.

“The two towns are very different,” Szabo says. “One is a traditional Habsburgship city, Gorizia. The other one wanted to be inspired by Le Corbusier, or the modernist architecture of the ‘60s, but actually turned out differently. So it’s a monstrosity. Nova Gorica is not beautiful, really.”

Gorizia (pop. 138,000), too, has a castle. It’s a 15-minute uphill walk from the center and is indeed the town’s architectural highlight.  Built in the 11th century, it served as a defensive fortification for the House of Spanheim, a family of German nobles, as well the Habsburgs and Venetians before being heavily damaged in World War I and reconstructed.

Inside are huge drawing rooms, outdoor courtyards complete with stray cannonballs next to windows and a weapons room. Outside the castle I see an underwhelming panoramic view of the city. Flat and mostly gray, the red tile roofs and surrounding forested hills are the lone color on the landscape. The cloudy, steady rain doesn’t help.

I keep thinking that a year’s festivities could be just what this town needs. Bizzi, 51, agrees. He grew up in Milan and moved to Gorizia when he was 10.

“At the beginning I couldn’t stand it,” he says. “I was young. I was coming from the big city. I was used to the noise. The silence, it was crazy for me. To wake up and no sounds except birds. 

“But I enjoy to stay here. It’s really quiet. The quality of life is high. In 20 minutes you are at the seaside. In 20 minutes you are in the mountains. You have good wine. Good food. Maybe it’s a little bit lazy. But when you’re 50 it’s not important.”

Parade

The next morning, I set up camp at Bar Bondi, a cozy cafe on Piazza della Vittoria. I sit outside in cloudy 50 degrees waiting for a massive parade to pour in from Gorizia’s train station. It will be a long day. It launches a year with more than 800 events, including a March of Friendship in May when citizens walk from one city to the other and a Taste Without Borders in September when food stands will be set up in both towns. 

As I sip my cappuccino, dance groups in colorful native costumes wait for their cues. Police sit on horses which put up with countless women and children nuzzling their noses.

More speeches by the mayors. Music and dancing. I cringe hearing Abba pour from the loudspeakers. 

The “cross-border parade” featuring 2,000 performers continues north toward Nova Gorica a mile and a half away. I seek temporary refuge in St. Ignatius where soft piano music is a nice backdrop for exploring the huge naves and sprawling balcony.

Back outside I am surrounded by a band of adults wearing long tattered gowns made up of different colored ribbons and tassels. With pointy hats and masks, they look like witches at a Gypsy Halloween party. They are the Pustje, Slovene villagers who dress in pagan costumes and, per tradition, dance the winter away.

Parkours jump around the street and narrow sidewalk like squirrels on X. Drummers pound away. Young women in blue bodysuits climb and twist on matching elastic bands hanging from a beam 20 feet high. 

It’s a mishmash of cultures and traditions in an atmosphere of happy chaos. I see a Slovenian woman with a video camera interviewing people, some of whom are crying. I ask what it all means to locals.

“People experienced the emotional unity which was never like that after Gorizia was separated into two countries,” says Erika Skrler of Video Pro Vrtojba. “So this is really emotional and a very historical moment for people who live here. We are very happy. We will always remember this moment.”

We cross the border and stop at Europe Square behind Nova Gorica’s charming train station which was one of Gorizia’s. We hear more speeches from the figurehead presidents of the two countries and the national anthems.

As the sun sets, a cold front pours down from the Alps. We all fill massive Edvard Kardelj Square, so big I could imagine Tito once paraded Yugoslavia’s latest fighter jets and tanks. I stand in the jampacked grandstands to see a light show and videos with borderless themes.  

A Slovenian basketball player shoots a basketball from one screen to another where an Italian player rebounds it. A pianist plays some classical rock. People in animal costumes jump around. 

It’s late. I’m cold. I’m starving. These two towns are way too small to handle the 50,000 spectators who are attending. Gorizia is definitely lacking in the number of restaurants and the few I see are filled for the entire weekend. I also notice many businesses are closed this afternoon, an odd strategy with its biggest crowd in history pouring through the streets all day.

On the walk back to Gorizia, I mutter something about prehistoric Italian marketing and enter a crude Slovene fast-food joint. I order a hamburger made from meat that must’ve been first frozen when this was Yugoslavia.

I nevertheless gobble it down and waddle back to Piazza della Vittoria, the sounds of “Mamma Mia!” getting louder with every step.

A nightcap

The late Anthony Bourdain, the chef who made travel writing delicious, agrees with me on one piece of travel advice: Find a bar packed with locals who are enjoying themselves. Walk in. I discover that on the way back to the flat. A small, crude bar sans decorations is open just for the weekend celebration. They’re selling excellent Friuli Merlot wine for €3.50 a glass.

A join a group of laughing middle-aged Friulians gathered over a wine barrel. We toast the European Capital of Culture, Italy, Slovenia, Friuli wine and, if I recall, something about pecorino cheese. I ask Andrea Ianesch, 51, what he likes about Gorizia.

“Our land is beautiful,” he says in Italian. “Beautiful sea. We have everything. We are so unique. We have to forget World War I.”

A goateed drunk complains that Gorizia “has no disco in town, only drink” then contributes something about women too crude for a travel blog. Andrea says this year will help.

“We need to have unity with Slovenia,” he says. “It’s not easy. We’ve always been a border city.”

For a schedule of the year’s events, click here. 

If you’re thinking of going …

How to get there: The airport in Trieste, Italy, is 17 miles south of Gorizia. Buses leave frequently. The 1-hour, 15-minute trip, with a change in Gradisca d’Isonzo, is €3-€4. Gorizia is a 4 ½-6-hour train ride from Milan with two changes.

Where to stay: Apartmento BonBon, Via delle Monache 10, 39-338-494-1832, Big apartment on a quiet street a few minutes walk from Piazza della Vittoria. Host speaks fluent English and is excellent with checkin communication and tips around town. I paid €283.98 for three nights.

Where to eat: Difficult to recommend a restaurant when I never found an open table. This doesn’t include an Asian place on the piazza which forgot my sushi order. My host recommended Trattoria alla Luna, Via Oberdan 13, 39-04-81-530-374, https://trattoriaallaluna.com, 6:30-11 p.m. Wednesday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., 6:30-11 p.m. Thursday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday. Open since 1876, dark, homey restaurant specializes in Northern Italian cuisine. It looked good.

When to go: Close to the Adriatic, it still gets hot in summer with highs averaging 86. Spring and fall are pleasant in mid-70s but also getting the most rain. My weather in mid-February was in 40s and 50s with occasional rain.

For more information: Agenzia Turismo Friuli Venezia Giulia, Corso Italia 9, 39-04-81-535-764, https://www.turismofvg.it/en/gorizia, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., 2-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Sunday.

Tourist Information Center Nova Gorica, Kidriceva Street 11, 386-5-330-4600, 

https://www.slovenia360.si/en/tourist-spots/turisticno-informacijski-center-nova-gorica.