The fall of the Iron Curtain should have united two towns, but Italian Gorizia and Slovenia's Nova Gorica continue to snub one another with great distinction. While Nova enjoys an economic boom, old Gorizia tearily remembers the rare old times. The enormous car park is almost completely deserted. It has enough space for hundreds of cars, but only a few stray vehicles are parked under the pale light of the street lamps. And save a handful of guests at the nearby pizzeria, there isn't a soul in sight. A cab? The waiter frowns as though he'd been asked an utterly absurd question. "After eight you can't get a taxi anywhere in Gorizia." Gorizia has called it a day. "Give it a try over on the Slovenian side, they work round the clock in Nova Gorica," he adds as an afterthought, and points to the sheltered border crossing, which everyone here calls Casa Rossa. "Look: that's where the first shots of the Balkan Wars were fired in June 1991."
The fall of the Iron Curtain should have united two towns, but Italian Gorizia and Slovenia's Nova Gorica continue to snub one another with great distinction. While Nova enjoys an economic boom, old Gorizia tearily remembers the rare old times.
The enormous car park is almost completely deserted. It has enough space for hundreds of cars, but only a few stray vehicles are parked under the pale light of the street lamps. And save a handful of guests at the nearby pizzeria, there isn't a soul in sight.
A cab? The waiter frowns as though he'd been asked an utterly absurd question. "After eight you can't get a taxi anywhere in Gorizia." Gorizia has called it a day.
"Give it a try over on the Slovenian side, they work round the clock in Nova Gorica," he adds as an afterthought, and points to the sheltered border crossing, which everyone here calls Casa Rossa. "Look: that's where the first shots of the Balkan Wars were fired in June 1991."
