Friday 31st May
Pula
Our lovely host dropped us at the bus station bright and early this morning for our 7 hour journey to Pula!
The scenery was beautiful, we saw so much of Croatia's countryside in that time. We followed the coast round and saw tiny little fishing villages, and then went through the country and saw farm houses and stone cottages. It is such a beautiful country, I love it here!
We arrived into Pula mid afternoon and hiked it up to our accommodation in the first pretty hot day we've had! The apartment is really nice and in a great central location between the bus stop and the old town.
And they'd left a lovely little selection of treats for us!
We were both wrecked and ended up falling asleep for a couple of hours!
After our impromptu nap, we headed out to the massive Kaufland we'd seen on the way in and picked up a few groceries for today and tomorrow and then had a chill evening.
Saturday 1st June
Pula
It's officially the first day of summer!! Woohoo!! And it certainly feels like it, it is scorching! Ok, well, maybe we're just severely unaccustomed to the heat now because it's only 24 but it feels like 30+!!
We headed out for the day to explore this fascinating city. Like I’ve said before, Croatia has had such an interesting past full of different rules, and the town of Pula is no different. We are now in the North of Croatia, this region is also known as Istria, and not too far from Italy. Although a Croatian city, it was once an important port for Italy, and has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. One of these times it was rebuilt by the romans, and much of this architecture is still standing today, some as ruins, and some as full structures giving a very roman influence to the place, while still maintaining a unique Croatian feel.
Our first stop was the Kaufland bakery, or ‘Pekara’ as they are called here, to pick up a couple of local bureks for lunch (filled spiral savoury pastry). We took our picnic lunch and enjoyed it beneath the old roman arena, that looks very much like the Colosseum in Rome!
It was fascinating, it was huge and the architecture was amazing, we almost forgot we were in Croatia. It’s a very beautiful structure.
From here we wound our way up and through the streets and came to a the huge church we could see up on the hill from lunch. We saw that the doors were open, so popped our heads inside to have a look and saw that it was all decked out for a wedding!
We continued to wander the gorgeous Croatian streets (slowly because it was so incredibly hot!), and eventually ended up in the main square, which we’ve found almost every European town has (I love it!). It was so fascinating walking between such a mix of the Croatian architecture we’ve become used to and love, and the very roman style all scattered amongst each other!
From here we followed a street up and out of the city through the old city gate!
We continued up a hill with a fortress on it, that was a struggle in the heat! We’re not too sure what the fortress was about, but we just wandered around the outside and along some ruins and had a cool view back over part of the city and the arena.
We followed a little path in the grass round the back side of the hill and over some ruins and found the ruins of a roman amphitheatre! It was really cool, and huge!
The amphitheatre was the last stop on our tour of Pula, so we started to head back. We knew there was a Spar supermarket here somewhere and they have our delish veggie lasagne, so we routed ourselves to go past on the way home. Well, google maps fooled us for the first time! We’d walked out of the city to where it was meant to be but there was nothing there, just housing! Ah well, there was a sign saying that there was a kaufland a few km away we'll just head there, we thought that it might even be our kaufland and the road would loop back round to our place. We followed the kaufland signs, and we're now not in the city anymore, it was a cross between housing and a major road, and then when we rounded a corner we saw a giant Spar! Yay! We found one! Google maps had no idea about it! We popped in, found our lasagne and had a reprieve from the heat!!
We continued to follow the road and it did in fact loop round to our accommodation!
We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening cooling down, chilling out, and planning the next couple of places.
Sunday 2nd June
Pula - Rovinj
We said goodbye to Pula today and made the short 45 minute bus journey to Rovinj!
It is definitely feeling like summer now! It's so hot again today, and you know what the biggest tell is? For months when we're carrying cold food between places, we make ice and it never melts, it's always still frozen when we arrive. Well, today it had melted by the time we got off the bus and it was dripping water everywhere!
We walked from the bus station up a little hill just behind the old town to our accommodation, which is a local family run guest house. The owner was really lovely and the place is super nice! It even has a balcony with a sea view!
We were talking to our Airbnb host and he was telling us that he spoke both Italian and Croatian. Apparently, because of the proximity of this part of Croatia to Italy and the fact that it was once under Italian rule, most people in these parts speak three languages; Croatian, Italian, and English. He was telling us that the school we can see from our balcony is half Italian, half Croatian and they complete half their schooling in each side of it. How interesting is that?!
Once we were all settled in and cooled down, we headed out to find the supermarket. We found a whole collection of massive grocery stores a fair walk through the suburbs behind the old town, but it was all still lovely and clean, and felt really safe.
It wasn't a Kaufland, but we managed to find all the ingredients (or substitutes) to make burgers again!
The evening was spent chilling in the apartment and watching the beautiful sunset from the balcony!
Monday 3rd June
Rovinj
Wow! We love Rovinj!! It is such a beautiful town! It’s a super cute, old town, with narrow cobbled streets, built on a coastal hill. You can see quite an Italian influence here, the houses along the waters edge look very much like Venice!
It almost feels like a Croatian Venice cross Mont Saint-Michel!
We wandered down to the water and there was a really funky concrete art piece!
Just round the corner from here we came to the edge of the town on the water that looks like Venice!
It was here that there were some cute markets, selling all sorts of fresh fruit and veg, oils, pastes and spreads, almost anything you could think of!
We then walked around the town to the other side where the harbour is, and it is so gorgeous!
All the colours, and the boats, and the beautiful old architecture!
From here we walked round the coast side of the town and it was stunning! We had such incredible weather today as well! The water was so clear and blue, particularly in contrast to the beautiful white rocks! It was amazing! It felt very much like a summer holiday!
We wound our way up the large hill in town that has the large church on top of it. We were so sweaty by the time we reached the top! We’re so not used to hot weather anymore! It looked huge from the outside, but was actually quite small from the inside. It was a beautiful structure though with the tower next to it as well!
From here we made our way back down into the town and meandered through the streets and back out through the old city gate.
We headed back to the apartment to chill during the midday heat, and finished the last of our mini eggs over a round of Mario party!
A couple of days ago, we had seen that one of the YouTubers that we watch was coming on a holiday to Croatia, and we were like oh how funny, then we saw that they were staying on an island off Rovinj! What are the chances?!
We headed out for the afternoon to find a beach just south of the town to chill and cool off. We were leaving the town towards the beach and then Sam says "wait is that him?", Low and behold, it was! Walking straight past us to the pier was Mark Ferris! We stopped to say hi, and had a little chat about Croatia, and he gave us a hug! How cool is that! What are the chances of being in a small Croatian town at the same time and then running into a UK YouTuber! It was crazy! It was very very cool! He seemed lovely, as did his friends!
We continued to walk along the coast after our little brush with fame in search of a beach. It was gorgeous round this side of the coast, with a really new flashy harbour in the works. We found the beaches, but the first one we passed had jellies all in the water, so no thank you, so we continued further round to another beach. We got all undressed and ready to go in, but it was super rocky and there were oysters and TBH the water freezing, sooo we decided after all that to give it a miss!
It was still a beautiful walk around the coast! We made our way back round and had a chill evening in our apartment.
Tuesday 4th June
Rovinj
We had a chill day today relaxing in the apartment and enjoying the balcony. The hottest part of the day was spent in the aircon looking at accommodation options for Greece!
We had an early dinner of yep, once again burgers, while sitting out on our balcony. It had cooled off a lot and was a beautiful temperature. The view is gorgeous!
We then went for a walk north of the town to see what was that way and to see the beautiful town from a different angle. It was stunning, especially in this light.
We slowly made our way back towards the town and to the harbour, it was so so gorgeous at this time of the day.
We treated ourselves to a little ice-cream and went out on the pier to watch one of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve ever seen. The sun was an intense red orb and we watched in move down the sky and through the clouds. It was incredible, so stunning! The cameras couldn’t pick up the intensity of the red colour, but it was magnificent and the way the clouds scattered the colour as well was spectacular!
What a way to end our time in Rovinj!
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