Europe 2014: Under the Istrian Sun (Croatia)

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.)