17 – 23 August

On Saturday 17 August, Lucia came down from Trieste. Rob and I had planned to visit Galizana for the Festa Od Puzi (Snail festival), so we invited Lucia to go with us.

Lucia accepted but as it turned out is not a fan of snails for eating…

The snails were served with polenta and cooked in a tomato/beef broth. Large and chewy they were very different to the snails you would receive in a good French restaurant. Not exactly to my taste, a little to earthy perhaps but they were ok. Lucia to her credit had a taste but declined her portion which Rob and I then shared so lots of Puzi!.

The rest of the evening was very enjoyable with two bands and the three of us enjoyed the music and the dancing.

Walking back to the car through beautiful Galizana.

On the weekend of 18/19 August Bale under the stars occurred, including an annual night time bike race – The giro de Bale and assorted music events too.

The bike race was enjoyed by about 50 contestants and the racecourse included some of the main streets through town and the small valley (Valle) that the town is built around and gets its name from.

I found out recently that these valleys; some as small as 5 metres wide some as large as 500 metres, occur all over Istria due to the mix of cast and limestone that make up the landscape and also lots of underground rivers. Apparently over time soil drops away and these unique valleys are formed.

The next night there was a lovely classical concert in the Piazza with two excellent female vocalists accompanied by very good strings and keyboard too.

During the week we had more beach days…

Not sure if I have mentioned these little trains before? Most towns we visit have them and they are really cute and so much fun. In Bale, this one does regular trips through the centre of town, out to Il Mare (the sea) and back, about 6km’s there and back..

This week I also gained access to a small oven so I whipped up a lasagne. I think the pan is as old as I am but it still works wonderfully well!

On 22nd August we drive (as Italians would say) to the Eastern side of Istria, about 30kms as the crow flies and about 55 to drive. Our destination today is Labin and then Rabac.

Driving is slower due to most roads being quite windy and there are many small villages dotted the countryside. We are both enjoying this slower pace, I must say.

The landscape in Croatia is rugged with mostly dense medium height foliage and some trees in the interior. On the coast and in the mountains you see taller trees and sometimes forests of taller trees but mostly it has this very lush compact foliage which is everywhere. I imagine settlement in days gone by would have been very tough in this landscape.

We visit Labin first up, a gorgeous town high in the mountains overlooking Rabac.

This is a stunning part of Croatia and well worth a visit.

After a walk around Labin we hope back in the car to go find a sculpture park on an Estate nearby that I have read about.

The sculpture park turns out to be huge and we have to drive through it as it’s so big!

The sculptures are all large and very “contemporary”. Not quite what we were expecting but interesting nevertheless.

Back in the car and on to Rabac. The drive down to the bay is steep and winding and the valley at the bottom is lush. There is a cute little town; Rasa I think, tucked into the the last pass just above Rabac that looks like it has a mining site.

Rabac, also known as the “Pearl of Kravner Bay” is stunningly beautiful and very busy. Apparently the town, formerly a fishing village, now hosts up to 11,000 visitors a day during summer and this is quite evident as it takes us quite a while to find a car park. Leaving the car we stroll towards town and then find a shortcut, about 200 steps down to the seaside, then find a cute little Konoba (Restaurant) Lino for lunch.

If you zoom on this photo you can just see the Labin church tower on the left side, on top of the mountain.

After lunch we roam the mariner for a while before heading back to Bale. What a great day out exploring we had.

Friday 23 August we have another productive day at the beach and by now we have tans worthy of my childhood summer days 🙂 before we head to Sv Petar u Sumi (St Peters in the forest) for a Sausage festival.

The sausage festival had a sausage stuffing competition and Rob and I considered registering for a moment. I’m glad we didn’t in the end as this region is very reknowned for its sausages (think Salamis). I think we would have been laughed at!

We had a great night though enjoying local dishes and salami, traditional music and a very good rose!

Another great week in Istria Croatia.

Thinking of my lovely mum today. Gone from this world but forever in my heart.

Love to all xx

6 Aug – 16 Aug

Lots of beach days and we both have quite a tan even though we spend most of the time at the beach under the shade. The beach at Cologne has clear water and is lovely to swim in, so each visit I swim across the bay and back for exercise and with goggles explore the seabed for large Adriatic clams and sea cucumbers that live about 6 metres down and often follow amazingly large schools of iridescent fish as they swim above the rocks.

Out of the water I have taken to to the art of constructing piles of balancing rocks. It takes patience and I see lots of little crabs too as I hunt for the next perfect rock. The other day as I lay on some of the big rocks drying I felt something tickling my belly, when I sat up a crab quickly scuttled away and out of sight! I’m not sure who got more of a start!

Amongst our many beaches days Rob and I continue to explore Istria. It feels like a big beach holiday but when I look through our photo journey we are still packing in quite a bit of exploring.

On 8 August we visited Medulin near Pula and specifically the remains of a Roman villa. The archeogical park was fascinating with the ruins of quite an expansive Roman villa on the waters edge of two thirds of the park. With fantastic views across the bay and back towards Pula it is obvious the the original owner was someone of wealth and influence in the area.

On 11 August we visited Fazana again for another Sardine festival. This one turned out to be a competition for the best filleting!

No gourmet sardines as part of the fiesta so we went and found dinner at a restaurant that looked good and Rob found Grilled Sardine heaven!

14 August – Umag

Rob’s cousin Sylvia and her husband Andre and daughter Ilaria were holidaying in Umag so we travelled up to spend the day with them. We had lovely time with them enjoying the delights of Umag which included a train ride from Stella Maris; an amazing, sprawling holiday water park on the coast, into Umag and back, a swim and energetic game of Frisbee with Ilaria and a very relaxing dinner before returning to Bale.

Ilaria is learning English at school and as I am learning Italian we had interesting conversations about grammar, Italian articles and gender in language. A very smart, well mannered and lovely young lady, it was a delight to spend time with her.

July 23 – Aug 5

Croatia is an amazing country with a turbulent history. It has a population of approx. 4.5 million and receives around 4 million visitors a year. Tourism is obviously a big part of the economy, contributing around 15% to the GDP.

In summer, it is easy to see why it is so popular with both UK and European visitors with it’s beautiful Coast and safe waters to swim in

It has been very hot the last two weeks so we alternate days at La Mare (the Sea), relaxing in the shade of the trees on the waters edge at Cologne about 6km from Bale, and swimming in the turquoise water, with days exploring local surrounds.

I’m reminded of those long hot summer holidays when I was a child doing nothing much more than reading and swimming and relaxing. We are both sleeping more and napping also, probably due to the extra sun.

Just in case your wondering, to combat all this laziness, Rob and I have started an early morning run session and we also walk around Bale village most days doing daily messages or just for the sake of it.

Summer in Istria is also festival time. On Saturday 27 July we went to the cow festival at Kanfanar, about 6km from Bale. The festival has an annual pretty cow parade of 20 odd beasts of burden and it was amazing! The cows were huge, most taller than me at the shoulder with big horns but also quite docile and yes very pretty and happy to be petted to.

My favourite was number 8, so we named him Otto (Italian for 8) and I gave him a few comforting scratches to keep him calm before and during the judging! Not sure I can take any actual credit but he won!!!

After the cow judging we enjoyed the delights of the festival with local dishes of Chevacipci and Bratwurst Sausage and Kapuzi (Sauerkraut) before bolting for the car as a storm came across.

Last week we drove back to Trieste in Italy for a few days.

While we were there we took the opportunity to catch up with Rob’s other Aunt, Maria and cousins Oriella and Sylvia and their families.

Lucia, Rob’s Aunt Irene’s daughter is lovely and was very kind and took us on a drive to see the sights of Trieste by night. A beautiful city with the largest piazza in Europe and the only one with a seafront, we had a lovely time and as Lucia said, the city looks very different at night. Thanks Lucia!

One of the many official. Buildings in the piazza.

While in Trieste Rob and I visited Miramare on July 30, an area of the coast about 20km from Trieste City that has been preserved with a Castle and parklands built by Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian and his wife in the 19th Century.

The next day we drove to Sistiana Bay a popular swimming destination about 25km from Trieste passing through Prosecco on the way.

Last Saturday we visited Fazana for the sardine festival. Bale was having a festival the same day but in the evening so we thought we would attend both!

Fazana is about 15km from Bale and the pretty village is right on the shore and opposite Brijun (Briony) island which was a favourite of Tito’s in his day!

We hung around as long as we could but this was as close to the Sardines as we got! Rob was very disappointed to miss out on a freshly grilled one!

Back in Bale we checked out the Jazz and then the local concert.

These guys, Klapa Rispet are Croatia’s version of our backstreet boys. Hugely popular and everyone was singing along. The second act was a another popular band Jasmin that came on at 12:30am! We walked home around then. The lead singer reminded me of Sir Cliff Richard, another ageing rocker.

On Monday we visited Pula which was a popular holiday destination of Caesar! So much so that he built his own Colosseum and Roman Theatre there. Pula has quite a few historical sites including a Roman arch and mosaics all dated BC! The colosseum is well preserved and in better condition than the one in Rome! The history of Croatia continues to amaze me.