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| - With controls not yet put in place, Italians used the open border to Slovenia to do their usual shopping on Tuesday. Italy -- hardest hit by the new coronavirus epidemic after China -- announced travel restrictions late Monday. Following this both Austria and Slovenia said Tuesday that they would severely limit travel from their neighbour. Italians from the area around the city of Trieste in northeast Italy often cross the border to Slovenia to fill their cars with cheaper fuel and do their shopping. According to an Italian government decree, travel is only meant to be for "urgent, verifiable work situations and emergencies or health reasons". But at a shopping complex on the outskirts of Sezana in Slovenia, located less than 20 kilometres (13 miles) from Trieste, half of the cars in the parking lot on Tuesday had Italian registration plates. At the border no controls had been introduced and cars could freely drive between Italy and Slovenia. "I expect from tomorrow they will close the smaller, local border crossings and leave open the main ones, on the highway," Neio Martellani, a pensioner from Trieste, told AFP as he walked to his old pick-up truck with some bags after shopping for his son who was at work. Slovenia on Monday already announced it would introduce border health checks, as well as close some border crossings from Thursday. On Tuesday, like several other countries, it also temporarily banned flights from Italy and other coronavirus-affected regions. The Alpine nation of two million people has reported 32 coronavirus cases so far -- more than half of them with direct links to neighbouring Italy. In Trieste, "the situation is normal, shops and bars remain open," said Martellani. However "there are less people on the streets, people keep a bit more distant from each other," he added. Another pensioner from Trieste, who did not want to disclose his name, said he crossed the border to Slovenia almost every day and has "for the moment no fear" concerning the virus. "The situation is rather chaotic right now. People are not sure what exactly they should be doing. There are some orders in place but there is a general chaos concerning what can and what can't be done," he said. A Slovenian woman who resides Italy said the measures announced by Rome made sense since "health is crucial, we all want to stay alive". The woman, who only gave her name as Milena, said stopped to do some shopping during a trip to visit friends in Slovenia. Many Italians also visit casinos on the Slovenian side of the border, but the main Slovenian casino chain, Hit, announced on Tuesday it was preventively closing its casinos until March 20. bk/jza/dl
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