Thur 26 - Fri 27 June 2014 - Rovinj, Croatia
Late afternoon ferry crossing from Venice
to Rovinj in Croatia
was four hours and while smooth seas got a bit of a roll up. It was pretty
packed and we were lucky to get seats together thanks to an American girl who offered to move.
 |
| Rovinj - so many great waterfront restaurants |
Our Airbnb apartment host Ivonna kindly offered to meet the
9:30pm ferry and walk us to the apartment. She was so friendly and pointed out
along the short walk the best places to eat and change currency. It was just
getting dark and the town was buzzing with activity. All the shops still open
and trading, children playing on the streets (there is very little traffic with
the old town and surrounds being mostly pedestrianised).
The place had a wonderful feel to it. After taking our bags up
some rickety steps to our newly refurbed apartment we went for a walk around
town. Tons of restaurants and little shops this is clearly a holiday
destination but instead of feeling 'touristy' it just felt welcoming. Everyone
is so friendly and perhaps its the start of the great weather for them after a
long winter but they all seem so happy!
There is a Salsa festival on and there is dancing and music
everywhere. And calm water and boats and great weather. Our introduction to Croatia
couldn't be better. It is much cleaner than Italy and even some of their TV is
in English with Croatian subtitles rather than dubbed and when you are away a
long time a little bit of English speaking tele can be a welcome break. It
seems they like The Mentalist.
Saturday 28th June 2014 Bale
We picked up our hire car, a brand new VW Polo diesel, and
drove the short distance to Bale where we have a night booked at a jazz club/four
room hotel. Dropped our bags and drove half hour down to Pula
on the southern most tip of Istria. 2,000
years ago it was the Roman administrative base and it has some great Roman
Relics. The Arena, or amphitheatre, is three storey and was designed to seat
23,000 spectators cheering gladiator events and lion fights. The exterior is still remarkably intact and
today it is still used in summer to host festivals and rock concerts!
 |
| Rovinj Salsa Festival |
A few other little stops and we were back at the jazz club
in the tiny town of Bale.
It has 4 rooms with magic outlook over their amazing art and restaurant in the
courtyard. We had a great chat to the two girls who have just moved 8 hours
drive to work there over summer. They speak so many languages between them and
it was a lot of fun with them getting our humour and then testing ours right
back.
Had a great dinner and we all sat at one large table.
Towards the end of the night an older British couple were relating a story how
the husband had been to New Zealand
but not Australia
as it was on business. It was 25 years ago. The wife was clearly still upset
that his 5 day trip to NZ had turned unexpectedly into a 10 day trip as she was
left to organise and count the money from the school fete! She was really
reliving the horror of having to count all the coins from their ten tills by
herself instead of with his promised help and it was a bit excessive and
quietly amusing to us. We were trying to lighten her mood as the husband tried
without success to get her to 'move on' from the till counting horror... We'd
had a few wines and Sandy leaned to the husband and quietly said "You know
I think there are support groups for that" and AR nearly cracked up but
the woman lost in time didn't miss a beat.
Sunday 29th June 2014 Groznjan
We packed up regretful we didn't have another day or two to
enjoy the little jazz club and more chats with the two lovely girls running the
place. Drove to Lim Channel for a great seafood lunch at 'Viking' and then on
to Porec, a Unesco Heritage town with more big old town walls and a lovely
coastal promenade.
 |
| Rovinj fishing village and holiday hotspot |
Headed into the hills to Groznjan to see if we could find
somewhere to stay. It is the only town in the trip where we had no idea where
we would stay or what to really expect as its one of those little towns that
even the world wide web hasn't yet fully documented. It turned out to be an amazing little medieval
fortified town that is mostly only visited by a few daytrippers.
It was late in the afternoon, during those few hours when
residents mostly rest before re-emerging for the night time activities and the
cobblestone streets were quiet. Every corner we turned we found ourselves
saying 'oh, we have to take a photo of this little street'. You could make a
calendar just of this towns cobbled streets, it was gorgeous.
Back in 1965, to try and save the dying and neglected town,
the local council proclaimed it to be a 'Town of Artists'. Painters, sculptors and potters
were invited to set up their workshops on the condition that they carried out
restoration work on the dilapidated stone buildings. It is now home to more
than 30 small galleries and studios.
 |
| Rovinj cathedral spire in the background |
From June to Sept each year the international Federation of
Musical youth run a summer school there. When afternoon siesta was over, we
were to hear them playing and practicing with the music wafting down to the
streets from the little wooden shuttered windows of the stone buildings. It was
a lovely place to spend the night. The little town square hosted the outdoor
tables for the towns two restaurants and we chose our table due to its
proximity to the windows of practicing, but accomplished violinists.
We stayed above a bar/restaurant (that had four hotel rooms)
for 360 kuna which is about $A68 including breakfast. These Istrian hilltop
towns will start to feature more and more on tourists Croatian itineraries but
it was fun almost having the town to ourselves.
Monday 30th June 2014 Opatija
Last night just after we retired to our room there was an
incredible thunderstorm, the sky opened and the little cobblestone streets
became streaming torrents of rainwater. It looked amazing but we couldn't open
our window to capture a photo, it will have to live in our memory. Just as we
were finishing breakfast the sky started to rumble with thunder again so we
quickly settled our bill and hightailed it back to the car just missing getting
soaked.
 |
| Pula Roman Relics are well preserved |
A short drive and we were in Motovun, very similar to
Groznjan with 13th century town walls, great views over the valley of the River
Mirna (the heart of truffle country) and from its Venetian heritage, lots of
reliefs of lions in the stone walls with varying facial expressions.
Our destination today is Opatija and on the way we took
little detours through lots of little hillside towns, the most memorable being
Hum where we stopped and had lunch.
Hum claims to be the smallest town in the world. It has a
population of 17 and every June a mayor is elected. Due to that cute claim, it
is a destination drop-in stop for tourists and the waitresses running the cafe
were run off their feet albeit with only 15 or so tourists.
We were about to drive off from Hum when someone knocked on the
window and told us we have a flat tyre. It was super lucky as we wouldn't have
realised on the rough and winding roads. Swapped over for the spare and spied
the offending screw in the flat one and headed off for Opatija.
Paid our first toll in Croatia, 29 kuna ($A5.50) for 5km cut straight through a mountain. We arrived at our hotel where we have a booking for 3 nights in
a 4 star place with great views over the sparkling Adriatic
and scenic coastline. As it happens, the 52nd European Bridge Championships are
on here right now so we sought out the venue and watched some hands in the
viewgraph room where they had some excellent British commentators.
We have read that Opatija has an agreeable year round
climate, and that climate, combined with it's truly scenic setting (which we
can vouch for!) once made it the most fashionable seaside resort for the
Viennese elite during the Austro-Hungrian Empire. Between the world wars and
during the Yugoslav period however, Opatija lost its lustre and went into
decline. Since then however, the grand residences of the wealthy have been
revamped into upmarket hotels and the tourists, albeit less aristocratic ones
;) have returned.
 |
| Jazz club in Bale |
One of the many lovely things about Opatiji is the 12km
coastal promenade that stretches from the nearby towns of Volosko and Lovran,
via Opatiji and the villages of Icici and Ika. Monday evening we enjoyed the
walk in the Volosko direction. Volosko is a little fishing village but its link
in the coastal promenade and its gorgeous setting has also made it a popular
spot for bars and restaurants. We stopped in at a small place that seemed to
cater for locals where playing cards and watching the World Cup seemed the order
of the day.
Tue 1st - Wed 2nd July 2014
Quiet couple of days doing up the blog and walking the 12km seaside path. Very relaxing place. Lots of German tourists who like a quiet holiday and no nightclubs etc. Sandy went to the hairdresser for 1/3 the Aussie price. Still haven't got the tyre
fixed but not keen to vacate the free park right outside the hotel so will have to wait until tomorrow when we checkout and drive to Plitvice Lakes National Park.
 |
| Rovinj pic from google |
 |
| Pula Roman amphitheater |
 |
| 23,000 spectators for the Gladiators, still used for concerts. The Venetians had a plan to dismantle and rebuild it in Venice when they were in power. |
 |
Entrepreneurial kids selling shells etc. in Pula. One tourist couple stopped and inspected the shells and each pretended to be talking to each other on their shell-phone which was very funny and to the great amusement of the kids. They and three others made purchases while we were watching during lunch. It reminded me of when my brother Craig and I used to sell vegetables in Scottsdale, TAS. When we had some left from our roadside stall we would go door to door on the way home. I soon worked out Craig had a better strike rate due to him being younger and much cuter so he went in and I pushed the wheelbarrow. (Another story from our vegetable stall days was one day we had had a poor day on the roadside stall and our grandfather Merv came to see how we were going. Not long after to our amazement Jimmy Gofton turned up and nearly bought everything we had and taught us to never give up.)
|
 |
| Jazz club dining |
 |
| Seafood lunch at Lim Channel |
 |
| 4th - 6th century Basilica of St Euphrasius, Porec |
 |
| The Basilica and its Byzantium influence, Porec |
 |
| Istrian hilltop walled towns are just magic |
 |
| Lavender, olive groves and grapevines will be lasting memories of Istrian countryside |
 |
| All the towns in Istria have two names (Croatian and Italian) from when the area was under Venetian rule |
 |
| Kiwi Fruit awning |
 |
| Grozjnan artist studio |
 |
| Grozjnan - pretty as a picture |
 |
| Grozjnan artist studio |
 |
| Could make a great calendar just of Grozjnan cobblestone streets |
 |
| Truffle tasting |
 |
| Grozjnan - restaurant/bar with a view for 5pm beer |
 |
| The lion in this carving is being cheeky |
 |
Motovun shop - truffles, cheese, olive oil & wine tasting/sales
|
 |
| Motovun cemetery |
 |
| Hum smallest town in the world - 1 mayor plus 16 other inhabitants |
 |
| At the main entrance gate to this walled town (Hum), you can literally close the door on the world. |
 |
| Hum's only bar/cafe/restaurant was busy busy with 15 diners |
 |
| Luckily someone passing noticed our flat tyre so no damage |
 |
| Next motel/refurb we should install these must be a winner |
 |
| Opatija lots of little sheltered moorings all along the 12km of seaside path |
 |
| Viewgraph room at the 52nd European Bridge Championships |
 |
| Opatija's beaches nice smooth pebbles - no sand in undies here |
 |
| This tree just wanted to be by the seaside |
 |
| Volosko fishing village |
 |
| Volosko cafe-restaurants viewing the bay |
 |
| Make your own pool - no need for a filter system |
 |
| Part of the 12km seaside promenade walk |
 |
| Swimming pools everywhere |
 |
| Scampi is sensational here in Croatia (Ruzmarin Restaurant in Opatija) |
 |
| Little sunbathing and swimming spots dotted along the 12km seaside path |
 |
| Time for some maintenance (at one third the AUD price!) |
 |
| 70.5 meters superyacht just turned up and anchored (google says worth about AUD75 million..) |
 |
| Superyacht has improved the view from our room |
