Up and down (and up and down) the west coast

Yesterday we drove down the coast and spent the afternoon in Pula, which was absolutely amazing. The Romans had a thriving colony there in the first century A.D. and against all odds their colosseum has survived 2000 years more or less intact. This arena was the fifth largest in the Roman empire and was used for gladiator fights. There were also two large holding pens for wild animals which were fed a regular diet of unarmed Christians and petty criminals.

Pula itself is an attractive city—it’s scattered with Roman ruins and has a lot of lush, shady parks.

Today we went on an epic boat trip down the coast. It was organized for the children on the local campgrounds and featured some sort of vague pirate theme that I never quite figured out.

We traveled to a small island called St. Nichola where we tramped around in the woods in 30+ degree heat. After that we sailed to Poreč where the kids visited the aquarium and came out bubbling over with tales of sharks, eels and lobsters.

B is swimming-- I can’t believe it! It’s partly due to the swimming lessons and partly because of the practice and repetition in the pool every day. All of a sudden it’s clicked for him in a big way!

The last two days have been fun but busy. I think we’re going to take a day off tomorrow, take a hike in the morning and stick around the campsite for the rest of the day. I’m in the middle of Margaret Atwood’s Catseye and am again reminded of why she’s one of my favorite authors…

East coast glory and potential noodle sightings

Yesterday we took a day trip to Istria’s eastern coast. The journey there turned out to be a comedy of errors—several missed exits and a detour around a traffic jam threw a wrench into our initial plans.

It all turned out for the best, however, because we saw a lot of the countryside and got a better feel for the real Istria, far removed from the tourists and the various business set up to accommodate them. (us)

We had a fabulous lunch—in a restaurant tucked away in the mountains in the Učka national park. I finally got to try some real Croatian food, fuži in a really nice mushroom sauce, polenta and some roasted vegetables. It was delicious!

After lunch we finally found our way back to the beaten track and on to Lovran, the Croatian Riviera. Lovran manages to be both bizarre and spectacular. There’s a 14th century center, which is surrounded on the coastal side by a string of gorgeous villas from the Hapsburg era.

The main street, which is still named after Tito, spawns countless small alleyways down to the sea where people sunbathe on concrete platforms nestled between enormous sea-worn boulders. There are many beautiful high-maintenance buildings with dilapidated vacant buildings sandwiched between them. One even had a sign in the window advertising a visit by Pope John Paul the II back in 1998!!!

The boys ate their fill of exotic ice creams and we searched for sea glass and watched a bunch of crabs fight over pieces of stolen meat. As the sun set we successfully scored a bag of ripe peaches using sign language and what is left of my rusty Russian language skills.

Today we hung around the campground and relaxed. Swam a bit, read a lot and just ate a nice relaxing dinner with a bottle of good wine.

I think I mentioned that this campground has one half devoted to nudists. Of course such a titillating fact just can’t go unnoticed—we haven’t actually seen any naked people yet, but they make regular appearances in our dinner conversation. The kids keep mistakenly calling it a “noodle camp”, which is doubly funny since Nudel is apparently German slang for “penis”.

S keeps asking if we can go check it out—I think he had the idea that we could go and drive around fully-dressed in our car as if we were doing a car safari. :-D

This campground has a lot of different activities for children and one of them is a boat trip down the coast to Poreč where they will visit the local aquarium.

We just heard from neighbors that the trip itself first passes along the nudist half of the camping, and that it provides priceless entertainment. We had already planned to take this trip on Wednesday, so it looks like S might get his wish after all! ;-)