The last time I visited Croatia was 16 years ago, in 1997 (jeez, I'm really getting old!), just a couple of years after the civil war. I suppose the place has changed a bit since then... A rather scenic drive took us across the boarder into Slovenia, and then across into Croatia, down the Istrian coast, until we finally arrived in Rovinj, where we were staying for the next week.
Firs thing was to find & check in at our appartment, and which proved to be somewhat tricky, considering our landlord's language skills were limited to rather rudimentary German and an even more rudimentary Italian. But he was a very friendly chap (I especially liked his habit of coming over with a bottle of schnapps every evening).
Having settled into our appartment, we eagerly made our way into town. Rovinj came with glowing recommendations - it's supposed to be one of the cutest medieval towns of the Istrian peninsula, benefiting from the Venetian influence over the centuries (Istria was part of Italy until the end of World War II - which is very visible in the architecture). And it is a very cute town indeed, sitting perched on its rocky peninsula, jutting into the sea. Unfortunately, the hoards of tourists (mostly Italians and Germans) was rather off-putting, hard to enjoy the Venetian architecture when you have to elbow your way through the crowds. We decided it might be a better idea to visit the town a bit earlier on the next time, to avoid the crowds...
The next day, we decided to head off and check out one of the main attractions of Istria, the Roman amphitheatre at Pula. On the way to Pula, we stopped over to check out a couple of the villages that Istria is also famous for. Our first stop was at Bale - a very picteresque little village that wouldn't look amiss in Italy or Provence. After a pleasant walk around, and a quick visit of the church, we carried on to Vodnjan. The main reason to visit Vodnjan is somewhat macabre - the local church has a rather impressive collection of mummified saints. There is also a thorn that apparently came from Jesus' crown on display... Macabre fun!
Our next stop was finally Pula - the main commercial town in Istria (most of the money comes from ship building, apparently). It's a pretty lively town (felt more "real" than uber-touristy Rovinj), and a pleasant place to stroll around. But the main reason to visit is the Roman amphitheatre. This impressive construction is one of the six largest surviving Roman amphitheatres in the world apparently - and is still in very good shape (good enough to host concerts and other spectacles). After our dose of culture, we headed off to town, were we finished a most interesting day with a nice meal...
The next day, we decided it was time to explore some of those beaches Croatia is so famous for - and took the boat from Rovinj harbour to one of the nearby islands - Otok Sv. Andrije and the nearby Maškin Island (accessible by bridge). We crossed over to Maskin island, which is more savage (the main island is dominated by a resort hotel). We spent a pretty relaxing day swimming around in the nice little cove between the two islands, enjoying the sun, warm water and the underwater scenery. In the evening, we had dinner in a nice sea food restaurant by the Limska Fjord - a scenic little river near Rovinj.
On Wednesday, we decided to head out to Porec, another "must visit" town in Istria. Our first impression was one of a slightly less cute version of Rovinj - with less tourists as well (possibly due to the cloudy weather?). The main attraction in Porec is the 6th century Euphrasian Basilica - and with good reason. It's one of the finest Byzantine churches I've visited, just an amazing place! After a short walk around town, we hit the road, heading inlands into the mountains of Istria...
Our next stop was at Motovun - which is what one could call a perfect example of a medieval town. The site is absolutely stunning, perched as Motovun is on its hilltop, overlooking the surrounding hilly scenery. The town itself is absolutely delightful, with its medieval houses and cobble-stone streets. Just perfect for an afternoon stroll - if it wasn't for the rain that hit us! Thankfully, we found a cozy little restaurant, so decided to wait out the rain while having lunch. I decided to try a truffle omelet (truffles is a local speciality in Istria) - a rather excellent choice. Thankfully, once we were finished with the meal, the rain was over and done with as well, so we decided to spend a bit more time enjoying the medieval charms of Motovun... Before heading back to Rovinj, we also stopped by at Groznjan, another charming little medieval village (which has been restored to its former glory by a bunch of artists who've moved into town, apparently).
On Thursday, it was time for a bit of communist nostalgia, as we headed for the Brijuni islands. This group of 14 islands, a natural park these days, are rather famous due to the fact that Josif Tito made these islands his summer residence. So after a short walk around the charming seaside town of Fazana, we jumped on the ferry to the biggest of the islands - the Veliki Brijun island. It's quite an odd little place, with a rather diverse set of attractions, which reflect the islands colourful history.
There are, of course, plenty of nice beaches to visit, but also plenty of monuments: a church built by the Knights Templar, the ruins of two Roman villas, the remains of a bronze age settlement as well as the ruins of a Byzantine palace.... But perhaps the weirdest thing is the zoo (which is populated by exotic animals that official guests of Tito brought to him as gifts) as well as the natural history museum, which contains stuffed exotic animals (those that passed away in the zoo, naturally...) - or would it be Tito's old Cadillac (now what kind of a car is that for a communist leader to be driving?) ? There was a pretty interesting exhibition of Tito as well - quite an interesting character he was. All in all, a most interesting visit - in spite of the "mass tourism" aspects of the experience (we even did the little tourist train - that doesn't happen very often!).
For the evening, we decided to have dinner at Tugurio, which is a bit of a local institution of a restaurant, apparently. I like the concept - long, wooden tables with plenty of people seated up next to each others, hearty meat food (a lot of it with truffles - yummie) and big tankards of beer. Unsurprisingly, there were more Germans than Italians here ;) Not exactly what I would call fine dining, but I certainly enjoyed the experience!
Friday was sadly our last day in Croatia, so we decided to dedicate it to visiting Rovinj properly. I actually took the opportunity to do a dive in the morning - Croatia is after all one of the prime diving destinations in Europe. I did an easy dive just off Rovinj - and I must say it was quite a disappointing dive. Pretty much all the dives I've done here on the Cote d'Azur were better than this. Average viz, not much to see. Oh well, nice to get underwater anyway! Next time I'll do one of those famous wreck dives!
In the afternoon we finally headed out to Rovinj then. And I'm glad we did - the place certainly deserves a visit, it really is a lovely town. More Italian than a lot of Italian towns, just ridiculously picturesque. It is extremely touristy, it's true, but turns out most people are around the port area, it's pretty easy to find peace and quiet once you delve deeper into the old town. There isn't much to see as such, it's one of those places were you just need to soak up the atmosphere.
We finished off a lovely day with a dinner at a lovely little restaurant we found by chance. A very cultivated and multi-lingual lady (she spoke at least Italian, French, German and English apart from Croatian) was running this tiny place with just a few tables, serving up absolutely lovely little tapas-type platters. We absolutely loved the food - so much that I had to take a 2nd desert platter (which I didn't have money to pay - so I had to go and change some Euros into local currency)! Pretty much the perfect way to end our stay then!
All in all, we really enjoyed our stay. I guess it would've been nice to go ten years ago, before it became the playground of hordes of Italians and Germans, but better late than never, I suppose!
On Friday, we headed off to Le Cannet - the plan was to try out a Japanese restaurant we'd heard good things about from Julie and Aurelien, Le Cannet locals. We started off with an aperitif at their place - making the most of their newly done up terrace - impressive work! We were also joined by Rodolph and Daniela. The restaurant, Kashiwa, is definitely a place worth trying out. Excellent Japanese cuisine for quite reasonable prices. Traditionally Japanese, but with a few French touches here and there. I had eel for the first time in my life, excellent choice as it turned out!
On Saturday we decided to go all cultural and visit the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Nice. We've never actually made it there before, just never had the occasion to visit, really. The fact that it's located a bit in the periphery explains it, I guess. There was an exhibition about Gustave Moreau on, who was a teacher of Matisse's. I have to say I was a bit disappointed by the museum - I mean the building (an old typical Nicois villa) is very nice, but I expected more of the permanent exhibition, considering the size of Nice (and considering the fact that plenty of painters worked on the Cote d'Azur over the years...)...
The exhibition on Moreau was nice enough, but we found the entry fee of 10 Euros a bit steep. Oh well, one museum ticked off the list at least ;-)
On Friday, we headed off to Le Cannet - the plan was to try out a Japanese restaurant we'd heard good things about from Julie and Aurelien, Le Cannet locals. We started off with an aperitif at their place - making the most of their newly done up terrace - impressive work! We were also joined by Rodolph and Daniela. The restaurant, Kashiwa, is definitely a place worth trying out. Excellent Japanese cuisine for quite reasonable prices. Traditionally Japanese, but with a few French touches here and there. I had eel for the first time in my life, excellent choice as it turned out!
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