Brijuni Island Trip

November 11

Today is 11/11/11. That's a good omen, don't you think?

Yesterday, Mom made arrangements for a trip to the Brijuni Islands which are a short distance from Pula, a town we visited about a week ago and saw the Roman Amphitheatre. It is difficult this time of year to take the tour because the National Park is officially closed for the season.

Mom had emailed the agent several times until she found a date for which there were several other large groups who wanted the tour, and also found an English-speaking guide for us.

The next challenge was to get us there on time, 9:45. There are no buses that connect to the small ferry town of Fažana, so Mom talked with our friend Duška who got a driver for us, Robert. He is the police chief in the neighboring town of Buzet. He is a very nice guy, pointed out several spots of interest and spoke English well.

Fažana is another charming port town about 5 miles north of Pula and we roamed the streets a bit before boarding the ferry. It's main purpose these days is to provide ferry service to the Brijuni Islands. There are 14 of them. The tour covers only part of the main island, which is several miles long.

It has quite a history going back to Roman times when it had a fort to guard the main shipping port of Pula. More recently, it was the summer "white house" for the first president of Yugoslavia (for life from 1947 until 1980), a man named Maršal Tito.

He was a flamboyant leader who invited many famous people of the time to visit him on the island. (Gina Lolabrigida, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Muammar Ghaddafi, Nikita Khrushchev, Fidel Castro, Indira Ghandi, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Jawarral Nehru, and hundreds more). Tito's real name was Josip Broz, a Communist of the third-way, and a leader of the non-aligned nations during the cold war.

The island was designated a national park in 1984. There is an 18-hole golf course (with sand greens), a safari park, and actual dinosaur imprints, several hotels, and a church. Our tour had us in a tram for most of the time, so unable to roam around much. Beautiful water views, many archaeological sites and even a 1600 year old olive tree.

We met a very nice man, a banker from Slovenia, who was also on the tour. He convinced us to visit his country. We will only be a couple hours away when we return from southern Croatia, so we hope to do that. Good old Rick Steves sure speaks highly of it. The whole country just has 3 million people.

Yesterday was an interesting day too. We took Duška out for lunch and talked about tourism in Croatia, mainly Novigrad. She drove us to a great agrotourism restaurant with very traditional Istrian dishes. Great food ! We started with Bobici, a vegetable soup and then homemade pasta dishes with wild asparagus and truffles. It definitely turned into lunch and dinner.

Enjoying Novigrad

Stayed pretty close to home so far this week and the weather has been perfect for walks. We are still intrigued by the winding streets and always seem to find one we haven't been down.

Plan to go to a town tomorrow that is about an hour away called Rovinj. We were there last year, but only for a short time and it was raining. It is another idyllic fishing town, but bigger than Novigrad.

Making plans for more exploring since we leave here next Thursday. Plan on getting down to the Split area and Dubrovnik and maybe into Montenegro. Several out of the way places, or as Rick Steeves says, "backdoor places", are on our list.

Agritourism and Family

November 6

This was a wonderful, special day, the best we've had this far in Istria.

Why? Because it was an afternoon shared with a local family: Ticijana, Bruno (her husband), Moreno (18 year old son); Eda (sister), Roberto (her husband), Roberta (daughter), and Ivan (23 year old boyfriend).

Bruno drove us to a mountain top agritourism restaurant, Stefanic Agroturizam, in a small village outside of Motovun. We had been in Motovun last November 11, 2010. It is one of the truffle centers of Istria, and the site of an annual film festival in July.

Even though there was a light sprinkle while we waited outside for a table, we had a good time getting to know the family members. The adults speak limited English, but their 18-23 year old children speak and understand not only English, but Italian and German. So, we were able to share a lot of thoughts with them...from sports to politics and the economy to music and movies.

Every year the agroturizam in the region host a day with a set menu for 50 kuna ($10) per person, including carafes of red and white wine. The meal consists of ingredients produced on the property, from vegetables to meat to desert to wine. Our main dish was sliced pork with baked mashed potato filled with a fruit, kind of a large gnocchi or dumpling. Desert was diced warm cinnamon apple and custard. It was all very tasty and filling. Afterward the owner gave us a tour of the wine-making room, and a taste of fresh white wine just picked a month ago.

On the way back, our host drivers stopped at Motovun to give us tour of the town. We saw parts we had not seen last year...parts of the ancient walls and wells, side streets, and the piazza. Motovun was part of Venice several centuries ago as was much of the coast of Istria.

A few more new things

November 5th

We played tennis last Thursday for a hour on a wonderful clay court. They make good use of their abundance of red clay in this area. It is a pleasant walk right along the Adriatic to the hotel that has the sport center. That's where the outdoor ping pong tables are located too. It seemed easier on the legs to be playing on clay, and the balls sit up higher, plus it wasn't hot. The view of the sea wasn't too shabby either.

Dick had a great idea for class Thursday evening. He played Frank Sinatra's My Kind of Town, Chicago Is... on the IPad and I gave out the words for everyone to follow along. Another animated evening.

We tried our hand at another Istrian dish, gnocchi with veal stew. Went to a little butcher shop right next door and after a nice young woman made a phone call to check the ingredients we left with veal, rosemary and tomato sauce. Then on to my friend at the fruit and vegetable stand.

Yesterday, Ticijana, from our class, gave us a ride to Brtonigla for the mushroom picking contest. Several clubs competed and we came during the fun lunch break time. Lots of singing, dancing and beer drinking. We did a bit of each and took a leisurely walk around the town. There's a **** hotel, San Rocco, there and we took a little tour. They are big on spas here and this hotel has quite an elegant one.

Everyone was entertained at the lunch party by two accordion players who sang traditional Croatian tunes. We joined the dancing and lip-synched the songs. Lots of fun and laughing. The mushrooms were judged for size and prettiness, not for taste. Some teams had very elaborate vests embroidered with their club name. It's a serious pastime.

We ended the evening with still another different kind of pizza and watched a strange ball game on TV at the cafe...a kind of a cross between basketball and lacrosse/soccer.. Its played on a basketball-type court, with a lacrosse-type goal, guarded by a goalee. The soccer-sized ball is thrown into the net, defended by six players plus a goalee. Croatia lost to Serbia, 22 to 20.

Olive oil lesson

November 2

Another great and very interesting day.

We really started out as locals by doing our shopping for dinner in the morning. First picked out a sea bass at the fish shop caught this morning; and then to the vegetable stand for potatoes and Swiss chard. That is how fish is served in this area.

We packed a lunch and walked several miles to see some local family olive oil operations. There are several outside of town. Olive pressing is pretty high tech these days. Everything is mechanized: washing the olives first, "mashing" them, separating the water and other foreign matter from the oil using a centrifuge (this is the pressing operation), and finally straining the oil to remove any last matter. Now it's ready to use.

One is owned and operated by the Beletic family. Their son Kristian is the owner of Tobasco konoba just next to where we live. His mother, Georgia, owns Torcic 18, also a restaurant and sobe (guest house) a few more steps down our street.

Another young woman, Michelle ("like your first lady") Babic, whom we had already met at a tourist center in town, runs an olive operation with her husband, Ante. They started only 5 years ago with a 500€ loan, bought 200 olive trees that are over 100 years old; built a new production building and equipment; then they have added 1,300 more trees.

She took lots of time with us explaining their operation. It runs 24 hours a day for almost two months during the pressing season. They are very proud of their production here in Istria since they only produce extra virgin olive oil, which means only oil from the first pressing is used. They use cold press, which processes the olives at less than 27c. It takes 10-15 Mg of raw olives to produce 1 liter of oil. Kind of like maple syrup, which takes 40 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of syrup.

Learning about the making of olive oil was on my wish list, so this was perfect.

We both worked on dinner and it was such a grand success. Think we will expand into using truffles next !

The Bells of St Pelagius

The parish church in Novigrad is St Pelagius. There are at least two other catholic churches in town. I have not seen any other denomination anywhere in Croatia.

A bit of history...Pelagius was a Christian boy left by his uncle at the age of ten as a hostage in trade for a clerical relative previously captured by the Moors. The Caliph offered him his freedom if he would convert to Islam. The boy, having remained a pious Christian, refused the Caliph's offer. As a consequence, he was murdered/martyred in the year 926AD. The church in Novigrad was the first Croatian church to venerate Pelagius as a Saint.

Many of you will remember that Sandy and I have had our differences with church bells. Well, the St Pelagius bell is an exception. For one thing, it is sonorous and has a nice timbre, even though it is pretty loud.

The other thing is it isn't rung every hour and half hour throughout day and night. When it is rung (by person or by mechanics, we don't know), it can be for a minute or more...as many as 60 as bongs.

And, it is only rung at 7:00am (8:00 on Saturday and Sunday); at 12:00pm noon; at 5:00pm (for obvious reasons); and at 7:45pm and 8:00pm...the latter two, for calling people to evening mass.

On October 31, Monday, we were confused when the bells rang at 8:00 instead of 7:00. When we ran to catch a bus scheduled for 14:15 and it didn't arrive until 15:00, we realized clocks had been set back an hour on the previous Saturday night just as we do in the fall.

Of course, on Sunday there is a ringing at 10:45am for mass and immediately after mass (this last, to probably make those folks who missed mass feel guilty). All-in-all, it is an understandable and reasonable system.

On the other hand, we could never figure out why a bell would ring at night when most people are sleeping or, at least, trying to; nor how to know if it's 12:30, 1:00, or 1:30, all with a single bong unless you check your watch.

We will listen for other ringing times of St Pelagius' bell. There must be some exceptions. Tonight, Sunday October 30 (Halloween?) might be the first exception. At 9pm, there were 94 bongs. Maybe warding off the the ghosts.

Today, November 1, All Saints Day, is another major exception. At 10:45 the bells (three of them, each a different tone, not just one as usual) rang for at least five minutes. We won't be here for Christmas, but that must be the most impressive ringing.

Umag and Poreč by Bus in One Day

October 31

We caught an early bus to Umag today by mistake, kind of. We had intended to go to Poreč on the 9:10 bus. When it arrived it wasn't going to Poreč, but it was going in the opposite direction to Umag. So, we changed our plan.

Later in the day we figured out we were an hour early for the 9:10 because clocks had been turned back an hour on Saturday night. We actually caught the 8:10.

Umag is a coastal town in Istria only 15 miles north of Novigrad. We had not been there in 2010. As we walked into town, we noticed there were many large (3' in diameter) concrete tennis balls lying around in parks. At the Tourist Information (TI), learned that Umag is the home of the Croatian Open Tennis ATP tournament which is held in July. Novak Djokovic, the Serbian, a neighboring counntry to Croatia, attends each year.

The town has limited appeal due to the intermix of tacky-new construction among the uncared-for old. However, we had a great lunch of sea bass on the harbor front, one for each of us, probably 500 grams a piece. That's a lot of fish! We had the waiter do the boning so we could learn how when we prepare our own. The skin was crisp and tasty. Good local white wine and a small pivo (beer).

Monday must be wash day. We saw many homes with wash hanging out to dry in the nice sunny weather. Unfortunately, our apartment doesn't have an outdoor place to hang things. Hanging out would cut down drying time from two days to a few hours.

We ran to catch the bus only to find we were an hour early. En route back to Novigrad we decided to continue on to Poreč, another 10 miles south. We had been here last year. It, too, is a port town on a long narrow peninsula.

What a different feeling from Umag! It is dressed up, tidy and well maintained, almost too much so. The streets are lined with upscale shops and konobas. The hotels, houses and other buildings are painted in typical Mediterranean style. The old stone structures are all in good condition. No car traffic allowed in the old town. The streets are paved with large stone blocks. The harbor has lots of tour boats and ferries, one that connects with Venice daily during the summer.

The main historic draw is a 6th century Byzantine Basilica Saint Euphrasia, a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is renowned for the high quality mosaic decoration due to the cleric Euphrasia. Around town there are Roman ruins from the 1st century.

We finished the day with gelato and cappuccino watching the sun set across the harbor. Then, bused home arriving around 19:30. It's dark, but still 15c (60F...we learned a quick conversion from centigrade to Farhenheit: double the c and add 30 to get the approximate F).