Simonov zaliv (Simon's bay) - Villa Maritima

Izola is a small fishing town and municipality in southwestern Slovenia. It is situated on the Adriatic coast of the Istrian peninsula. The name originates from the Italian word Isola, which means island. Izola is now a popular tourist town with many hotels, summer concerts and other.

On a peninsula of approximately 120 x 150 m, south of the marina of Izola, lie the remains of a beautiful Roman seaside villa (villa maritima). Similar villas were built around the beginning of the common era every few kilometres along the whole Istrian coast. Such a villa complex was usually made up of a representative residential part, outbuildings and a harbour with storage facilities. Namely, these residences were not only luxury living buildings, but also important economic focus points, where shells and fish were bred and probably also salt ponds were managed, olive and wine trees cultivated and wine and oil produced, amphorae and brick manufactured, sheep bred and wool processed, while the warehouses were used to store and reload the goods imported through the sea.

In the Roman period trading by sea was considerably cheaper than by land. The goods were transported to the main waterfront harbours with large ships. Once there, they were reloaded onto smaller ships to transport them to the rest of the ports and through river and land routes to the hinterland.