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Croatia - Day 5 - 6

Everything structural in the places we visit is made of stone.  It lasts and lasts and lasts.  I believe it to be beautiful and environmentally smart.  Granted a few places need modernization, but it can happen...

 

Motovun

When I first read that our tour would include a 2-night stay in a castle, I was excited, but a bit apprehensive.  Never in a castle before; the vision was cold and drafty for sleeping.  Fascinating to view.  Uncomfortable to stay.

 

Imagine my surprise when I realize this small hill-top castle in the little place called Motovun included inviting warm rooms with very comfortable beds each with a full en-suite bath (with marble no less).  Our shuttered windows opened outwards (so Romeo and Juliet) to a large courtyard filled with trees and a small restaurant.  In the morning, a thick mist would hang in the valleys making the villages float above the clouds

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One extremely steep, narrow road leads to our hotel (one road for the whole village, actually!) and the way is lined with little homes and small stores containing truffles, Adriatic Sea salt, and local hand crafts.  All tidy, but with the inevitable eroding of the stone fronts and cobblestone over so much time. 

Pula

The Pula Amphitheatre located on the coast of Croatia is remarkably intact.  It was crowded with tourists the day we visited; but I suspect it is less crowded than the more well-known structures like Rome’s Colosseum .  Visit to the “basement” of the amphitheater where once lions and other exotic animals and gladiators waited before their turn for a battle to the end.  All for the enjoyment of the elite and ordinary civilians--around 20,000 could fill this arena--although I find it hard to understand the watching pleasure as the beasts tear a human apart.


​Throughout the old town (Pula is a big city; the tourist portion is small and very easy to walk) you find more remnants of the Ancient Romans.  Seems every time an “empty” lot is readied for a new building more ruins are found.  Very much a working city, Pula has a grittier and busier feel to it than the places we have visited so far.  Still a beautiful place by the Adriatic. 

Rovinj

All of this tour was trip of a lifetime, but there are a few places that will stay in my heart.  One of them was Rovinj, Croatia and we were only there a few hours.  I so wanted to spend more time in this special little town.  Spilling out into the Adriatic and surrounded by fishing boats, the old town is filled with small cobbled alleys sometimes leading you to some new interesting location and sometimes ending abruptly.  Little sobes (apartments for rent and oh, so, cute!—Wanda has her eye on the one in the photo), art galleries, and restaurants line the streets and alleys.  And like a tiered wedding cake, the top (hill-top) is adorned—in this instance with a bell-towered church.

 

A pleasant cultural and architectural mash-up between Italian and Austrian.  Austrians enjoyed the location as a vacation destination during the Hapsburg rule (pre-World War I) and Italians during their ownership between World Wars. 

 

Sigh.  Just a few more days, please!

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