Rovinj and Pula

We have stayed the last two days in Rovinj on the Isteria peninsula. Yesterday we drove about an hour south to the city of Pula known for it's ancient Roman ruins and known for being the navel Port for the Austrian Hungarian empire until they lost the Balkans after WW1. That means Captain Von Trapp in the sound of Music would have been based out of here. The most impressive site in Pula was the Roman amphitheater. It is probably one of the best preserved amphitheaters that I have seen and although not as big as the Colosseum in Rome, it is still very large. We walked around the coliseum in the rain thinking about all of the incredible gladiator fights that had taken place here over the years. It could seat 23000 fans in it's day which I think is more than can be seated in the Roger's Place hockey stadium. Afterwards we wandered around town finding the cathedral, an ancient Roman Temple right on the main square, a Roman triumphal arch and a beautiful Roman mosaic. After we were all Romaned out we headed up to the citadel that commanded great views of the port and explored the tunnels build beneath the citadel by The Austrian Hungarians in WW1. We headed back to Rovinj for a home made supper before heading out to the nearby beach so Andrew could take an evening swim. It's only about 20 degrees Celsius here and the water is on the cool side so I just watched Andrew and read my book.

This morning we dedicated to Rovinj. Rovinj seems like a high end tourist town. There are lots of high end hotels, restaurants and gift shops. There is a harbour here with lots of very large boats and lots. Fortunately for us it is very quiet here as we are a little early for  the season but I get the impression that it is just packed with people in the summer. We did the Rick Steve's walk which starting where we are staying outside of the Old Town was about a 9 km walk. We walked around both the yacht harbour and the fishing boat harbour admiring the beautiful views of the town crowned by the Church of St. Euphemia. St. Eupemia was martyred in Turkey in the 4 century AD but somehow her sarcophagus floated here in 1200 AD and the citizens of Rovinj weren't going to let a good patron saint float by so they grabbed the sarcophagus and installed her in their church. The town was quite pretty with lots of tourist shops and restaurants which were all pretty quiet. After a lunch break back at our apartment we headed out on some of the bikes that the owner of Air Bnb let guests use and we biked along the coast. Pretty quiet but one could tell that they were preparing for the onslaught of  tourists. Andrew ventured into the cold waters of the Adriatic and I finished reading my book on the beach.Read more