Saturday 29 June – Venice to Rovinj

I looked at all ways of getting to Rovinj in Croatia:  fast ferry across the Adriatic (timings weren’t suitable)?  Train to Trieste/ a bit of a wait then bus to Lubjiana/local bus to Rovinj (too long and too messy)?    I then found out about a car service called GoOpti where you book a car and driver to pick you up at one address (private, hotel, port, airport etc) and deliver you to wherever; you can get a private transfer (expensive), specify a definite time (quite cheap), or give a 2 – 3-hour window (cheapest).   Pay in advance, they give you the pickup location details if it’s not a hotel or private address, and you just have to wait until the day before travel for your exact pickup time.

So we booked for direct transfer, window of 9 – noon, and on Friday got emailed the Saturday start time of 0900. So off we went in the vaporetto from Rialto to ‘behind the bus station at Piazzale Roma’, waited at the spot in the photo, and our GoOpti driver Marko turned up smack on time.   He was driving a new 8-passenger vehicle, good aircon, nice and comfortable so we were happy.   It was a shared ride so we picked up an American family of five at an airport hotel (they were going to Pula), Mr American was a bit unusual to say the least, but I read most of the way and we all sat relatively quietly for the whole trip – which took longer than expected because of an accident on the highway slowing things down by at least half an hour.

The border crossing Italy/Slovenia was a non-event, just a notice saying you were crossing the border, but then as we got closer to the Slovenia/Croatia border Marko told us there would be at least an hour’s delay in line to go across.   What a pain.  But then he said ‘never mind, I know the back roads’ so off we went all over the place and ended up right at a border crossing in a road that came out level with the third car from the front in the looonnnnngggg waiting queue.   They let Marko in and we were off, so easy, and the border guards in both countries just stamped the passports and didn’t even look at us.    The border check is because Croatia isn’t one of the Schengen countries so doesn’t have unlimited border access.

Rovinj (pronounced Roh-veen in Croatia, Ro-veen-ya in Italian – most signs in the town have both languages, it is officially bilingual, and a popular tourist spot for Italians - Italian border at Trieste is about 90 minutes away on a good day though of course you have to go through Slovenia first) has 14,000 residents and a large number of tourists, and on looking round it seemed every second house had the special blue signs indicating apartments to rent.   It’s hard to say if most of these places were purpose built for rentals, or if they are adapted from private apartments; I suspect purpose built as you can’t easily tell newish from older buildings in the suburbs, very much cookie-cutter architecture, some up to four storeys.   Our apartment is about 15 minutes walk from the old town in a quiet street, the owner Tanja was waiting for us and was very helpful, spoke excellent English.   We have a long living room with a full width triple sliding door opening to a Juliet balcony, big sofa, dining table then the kitchen with an open lobby which has a big bathroom opening off one side and a spiral staircase leading up to three bedrooms, bathroom and small terrace.   We decided on the spot to take over the bed settee in the living room and leave the family to traipse up the spiral staircase.

There’s a supermarket round the corner so we wandered round to get a few things for a late lunch, then around 5pm decided to walk to the beach and in this heat the ‘5 – 10’ minutes was more like a solid 20; not bad walking downhill there but even the gentle slope back home in the heat just about defeated me.   However, the swim at the end was very welcome and Pete enjoyed it.  Neither of us is a mad keen swimmer but in this heat it was lovely.  You can see in the photos that the beach is rocky (think of the rock pools at Tahuna beach) but there’s a fairly narrow walking path through the water and plenty of big boulders to sit on.  The beaches seem to have a floating string of buoys about 50 meters out from shore, I think as a warning to boats but also a good spot to stop and hold on if you’ve swum out there.      There are lots of small bays all along the coast, this one had a small sandy area (which we didn’t bother with) as well as a small café/bar.  There were plastic loungers in big stacks which seemed to be available for anyone to use, and small round shelters in a sort of spiral-shape, divided down the centre, that are used as changing sheds and were scattered around.   The photo shows all the trees, and there’s a stone wall all the way along with a few meters of grass at the top.   There’s a pathway all the way along from these beaches right into Rovinj harbour which is quite a distance – about 2m wide, fine gravel, very impressive EXCEPT that it’s a ‘shared pathway’ and the crazy cyclists using it were too fast, too careless and downright dangerous considering there were kids and dogs and pushchairs and families all using it too.   

We went to a nearby restaurant for dinner and walking home was nice in our peaceful street.   All the houses have well-tended gardens with plenty of trees and flowers, you could hear birds and kids playing.   Rovinj must have a great climate as in our garden alone there’s a huge fig tree, a frame covered in kiwifruit vines with lots of small fruit coming on, a cherry tree, grape vine and……a turtle which we saw the next evening just wandering around the lawn.   Oleanders abound all around the streets as do geraniums, hibiscus, olive trees by the dozen………so much lush growth.   There wasn’t much traffic but plenty of cyclists out with no helmets and no lights in the dark.     The next door apartments have a swimming pool which is open to the street if the gate is left open – no pool fencing here.  And there are heaps of seagulls, big ones, and I think some are nesting by our apartment and when you go into the bathroom at night it disturbs them and they start ‘kkkrraaaaakkkk’ sounding like a cross between an angry donkey and a screaming baby!  

Sunday 30 June – Monday 1 July

Monday we had a morning swim with Patryk while Andy and Justyna took Ellie to the dentist as she’d developed an abscessed tooth poor kid, but we hardly heard a peep about it from her.  Something to be said for antibiotics and panadol I guess.     Patryk had been having swimming lessons and once he got the hang of it he loved the sea, just wished there were some waves.    He was really good about recognising his limits too and was happy to swim from me to Pete and back again.   

We ambled along, bought a few things including a dress for me and a top for Justyna, then got sidetracked from our church search by the view down a lane and through an arch.  It was the marina, a half-circle with a breakwater and very pretty, and right in front of us was a sign advertising dolphin and harbour cruises with the next one due to cast off in three minutes.   We didn’t hesitate, paid up and hopped aboard for an hour’s very well worthwhile cruise.  We didn’t go all that far, just round the small islands near the harbour entrance, went to look for dolphins but they didn’t appear, however it was well worth going just to get a different perspective and the view of the old town coming back into port really is beautiful.   The houses seem to rise straight up out of the sea with little stairways going down almost to the water between the houses, people were swimming right beneath the houses, would love to have done that.   The water was very clean too, and calm.  We had to smile about one man on a tied-up boat:  he was taking 'clothes' out of a front-loader washing machine on the deck, then suddenly realised it was a mesh bag full of sponges that I suppose he'd put in the machine to spin all the excess water out.   Not something you see every day.

We had another look around the streets then finished the evening with dinner on the waterfront.

Tuesday 2 July

Swimming time again late morning, this time Patryk had flippers granddad had bought him, and Ellie had a new pink Barbie swim ring so both were happy.  Justyna stayed longer at the beach than the rest of us, she wanted to work on her tan, but I think we must have been in the water close to an hour.         It was a hotter day so we were happy to blob after that and late in the afternoon, not having found the church yesterday, we headed back to the old town again.   This time we got as far as the market at the end of the street, quite small, playground between it and the sea, no hard sell from the stallholders.    There was an abundance of truffle-related produce though I’d have been a bit doubtful buying the truffle-infused olive oil, no telling how long it had been in the sun unfortunately.  There was a lot of lavender soap and other products also in the market, and the colours of the different fruits really popped. 

We had dinner on the waterfront again at a different place and even nicer than the first – though there are so many to choose from.    We thought the prices weren’t all that cheap anywhere, probably reflecting that it’s a tourist centre.    The walk home on a still-hot evening was loooong!   On the plus side we’ve been treated to some beautiful sunsets, and our floor to ceiling front sliding doors have been a perfect grandstand.