The oldest fountain in Koper is situated on the Garibaldi street, just next to the famous Titov trg. From Titov trg, you only have to strool down the Garibaldi street, and the fountain will be on your right. I admit that the fountain does not look very special at the first sight, but when you figure out how old it is, and how important it was for the history of Koper, you start viewing it from a different perspective.
Back at the time, when the city of Koper was established (around the year 500), this fountain was build with a reason to provide the residents of the city clean, drinkable water. In fact, the water that they were getting from this fountain, was one of the cleanest drinkable waters in the region.
A lot of people still believe that this fountain grants wishes, and therefore, people in the past were throwing various goods inside the fountain, which caused it to become clogged. It happened about ten years ago, and they found it out when the water overflowed the edges of the fountain. When they cleaned it out, they found several interesting things inside. There wes a lot of coins that tourists threw in for luck, and some plastic bottles, but also some important historical objects, which are now kept in the museum in Trieste. For example, they found some ancient coins that are dating back to the time when Koper was established, golden bracelets with amulets and a sword.
Nowadays, the fountain is owned by a local family, because the house that they live in, consists of a small garden, where the fountain is standing. Most of the people that walk by, do not even notice the fountain. I am sure that they have no idea they are walking by one of the oldest sights in the whole city of Koper.
