For Slovenia, the city of Koper is the gateway to the world, the place where merchants and their ships bound for the whole world arrived and departed. As an outlet to the sea of Austria and Central European countries, Koper had a troubled history of which many traces remain in the architecture of the palaces. The historic centre resembles a small Venice, with its narrow cobbled streets, the solemn Palazzo Pretorio in Gothic-Renaissance style, the city Loggia, the Baptistery of Carmine and the Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary.