Subject: Another Croatian town, another Sobe with a view...will we ever leave Rovinj?
Date: Sat, Apr 14, 2012

15th day of vacation is coming to an end . Our third evening in Rovinj on the Croatian Istria Peninsula. We loved this town in April 2008 and fell more in love with it this time. So much so that we postponed heading to Italy from today, Saturday April 14 until Monday April 16. We arrived Thursday from Cres Island, got off the bus and walked to a little shop I remembered from our arrival in 2008which at that time a lady who worked there helped us find a Sobe. It was a different store now so I asked the lady who spoke malo Engliski (little English) if she knew of a Sobe. We were in luck, her mama had one. We thought how could we be this lucky, two in a row from Cres Town to Rovinj and finding a room on the first try. We waited for her to be able to take us for a walk to her mama's and we stopped in to see her mama before even seeing the Sobe. We were to call her Baka Pena (Grandma Josepin Pelcic') and before we knew it she had poured us her treasured home made Rakija and we were drinking shots. Yes, even 80 year old women love this stuff. She spoke NO English but lots of smiles, hand motions, us doing the best we could and we got a Sobe for two nights for our "seems to be the going rate or what we know to ask for" 200 kuna's . ($35) The Sobe is more then we could ever imagine. Again has a view of the water, a private bathroom and a small kitchen. We love having the windows with shutters that we can open and see the water and boats. By Friday morning we knew we wanted another two nights here (4 total) and now plan to leave on Monday. Well, actually we couldn't leave on Sunday even if we wanted too as no buses were leaving that day so I wrote a note to Baka, yes ALL in Croatian, explaining we loved the Sobe and would stay until Monday 16/4/2012! I was so proud of myself that I took a photo of the note and EVEN more proud when we delivered it to Baka with the additional kuna's for the extra nights and she read it outloud (it sounded way cool) and she understood it. It happened to be lunch time so the next thing we know she is dishing up an entire meal for Mike and I and hugging us some more and sending us off to our upstairs Sobe with a hot lunch in hand on a plate! We love our new Baka!!!! We had some rain on Friday but not too bad . Weather was warm, just a bit wet as you will see by the photos below taken on Friday morning. We spent the day just walking around this amazing old town. Today, Saturday, was really nice and we decided to go explore some hiking trails we read about. We ended up with a great 11 mile hike - and a bit of jogging too - all along the sea, a bit of hill climbing, watched some actual rock climbers on a very tough climbing mountain and visited with some locals at an out of the way little bar along the trail. So fun! Good thing we are getting lots of miles in as not only are the restaurants wonderful here (and cheap) as is the ice cream...as always, but also Baka has invited us for Sunday (Nedjelja) supper tomorrow (sutro). Took us a bit to understand what she was saying though we are getting pretty good at Croatian but she talks soooooooo fast so we came back to our Sobe to confirm in our Croatian dictionary just to be sure. Along with her chattering away, she opened the refrigerator and showed us the fixings for something with cheese and pointed to the oven and kept saying "Kristina pojesti" (eat). Baka figured out during yesterday's lunch that I do not eat meat. I know, they all shake their heads at this crazy Vegetarijanac! Our fourth visit (about 10 weeks total) to Croatia has been beyond anything we can ever explain to you. We just simply love this country, it's people and the culture. We sure can not wait until those retirement years so we can come back and stay just a bit longer......well maybe a LOT longer! Especially if we can find a Baka to take care of us and feed us like Baka Pena :)