Man it’s hot – the day started at about 29 and got up to 36 by mid afternoon. We see on stuff.co.nz that New Zealand is in the grip of ‘another polar blast’, so sorry that everybody is having to suffer through that.
Today we’ve headed off for some sightseeing on the west Coast of the Istrian Peninsular. Road markings in the back roads are a bit of a challenge, so you tend to head in the general direction of where you’re trying to get to go round in circles a few times until you eventually get to where you want to go. We’re obviously not the only people who are suffering from this, because we got used to seeing cars doing u-turns and then passing cars going in opposite directions a few minutes after they pass you. The first town we visited was Porec, which is about 15kms up the road from Rovinj. It must have been the end of the term today, because all the school kids seemed to be running riot in the town and squirting each other with shaving cream and honing around on motor scooters – this at 11:00 o’clock in the morning. We went for a walk around the old town, the port, stopped for a coca cola, ran the gauntlet of the school kids, took a couple of photos and then left.
From there, we headed to the southern end of the peninsular to Pula, which is an ancient Istrian town, with what they claim to be the 6th largest Roman ampitheatre – the 5 larger ones are in Italy (we believe the amphitheatre in Nimes is bigger – and its in France). It is still in a very well preserved condition and they have concerts and operas in there on a regular basis. Its current capacity is 23,000 people, but when the Romans ran it, they could get 35,000 people in plus gladiators, lions, Christians etc. – the works.
Pula is actually a large city port, with around 70,000 people. Again we went for a walk around the old town and visited the castle and moat at the top of the hill, then visited the amphitheatre where we walk round on the inside amongst the ruins and the stone seating in the centre of the ampthitheatre. After that we headed back to Rovinj, with the car temperature showing 35 degreees.
We then had some drinks in the square in Rovinj, did our blog, had some drinks and eventually went for dinner at a German restaurant that we had discovered on our late night walk the night before.
Today, we’ve had a quiet day around Rovnij going for a walk around the Marina, having lunch, just chilling out really. There is a salsa festival on in Rovinj tonight and for the next 3 days – right outside the hotel. There’s been a crew setting up the stage and sound system all day today. Hopefully it won’t go on much beyond (bloody hell, they’ve just cranked up the speakers for the first time and I was just about blown into next week – I’m sitting in a café in the square directly in front of them) midnight as we have about a 6 hour drive tomorrow, so some sleep tonight would be good.
We are staying in Makarska for the next week, which is about 80ks South of Split and 120ks north of Dubrovnik and across a short stretch of water from Hvar. Again I don’t know what internet facilities will be like, but will update the blog as often as I can.
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