06.28.23
Exploring Istrian Peninsula (northern Croatia)
(Here is a compilation from my personal Facebook page and GROUP)
I love it when a plan comes together! Our “plan” when we left our room a few days ago in Ljubljana, Slovenia, was to go south to the Adriatic Sea and check out the towns of Koper and Piran in Slovenia. Since we were THAT close to Trieste, Italy, and since we had friends staying there, we joined them for coffee along the way. From there we drove into the coastal village of Koper…and drove out minutes later, for no reason other than we decided that the “Old Town” did not compel us to stick around. , on the other hand, Piran drew us in, and was pretty damn awesome! Having a bike helps since we can usually go past entry gates and this village had a nice entry road running right along the waterfront. We drove right IN TO the downtown area and we normally can park on the sidewalk or a designated bike area—and not pay for parking. Sweet!Even though so many of these coastal towns are so much the same, we had lunch in Piran and both agreed that it had good energy. These towns/ villages almost all have a castle, along with a few churches, and usually overpriced restaurants. But we enjoy them, and after an hour we were on our way south into the Istria area of Croatia. The upside of Croatia now being part of the Schengen Zone is that crossing the border is seamless with no stops.
The next day we hit Poreč, since that is the closest coastal town to us, and that was similar to Piran, and we gave it a thumbs up as well. The distances between some of these cities up north are not that great, so 15 minutes later we were in Novigrad, which sounds more Russian than Croatian, but we found a beach, laid out, and chilled for a bit. This was the first time in the ocean for both of us, and the temperature was ideal!
Rain hit that night and we postponed a snorkeling trip for the following day, but we DID go to another town we both wanted to check out called Rovinj. Again, similar to most coastal villages, and while some are better than others, this one was noticeably crowded, but got a big thumbs up, too. We can see the summer crowds building momentum, and it seems that German was the most common language we heard, followed by French, and even a few American accents in the mix.
Since we’ll be in the Istrian Peninsula for about 10 days we’ll get a good overview to determine where we might want to return to. Croatia is still very high on our “top countries” list. We know the town of Split pretty well, but the north is all new. The summer trip continues… Thanks for joining us!
06.30.23
In 2019, on our first visit to Croatia, we went to the city of Zagreb, the capital, and rented a motorcycle for about 3 days. We rode to the coastal city of Rijeka, and explored a bit of what is known as the Istrian peninsula.
From there our destination was the city of Pula since everyone said it was a cool town to visit, but our eyes lit up when we pulled in and saw a full size coliseum, just like in Rome! We found out that it’s one of the six largest coliseums outside of Italy, and the only one with four side towers entirely preserved. It’s a landmark in this town, and we both agreed that we wanted to come back. We just did.. .We spent the entire day in Pula, which is about a 1 hour magnificent ride from where we were staying, went to see the coliseum again, of course, walked around Old Town, and also did something that we hadn’t done for quite some time: we went snorkeling. The local Istrian tourist board is doing a campaign to introduce tourists to snorkeling in this area, so I contacted them and said that we were interested in trying it since we had never found good snorkeling in Croatia yet! We met Barbara Unkovic, a lifelong resident in this area, and a diver for three decades. She changed our mind about snorkeling in Pula as we spent quite a bit of time talking about the area, and over an hour in the water. Her passion was drawing maps of the topography of the coastline, and she did it where we dove plus 22 other locations! It’s like having a roadmap of where to dive, which, I think, is brilliant.
Pula was awesome, and if you get to Croatia, allow some time to go up north to visit the Istrian peninsula.
07.03.23
Of the many places we have stayed over the years, our most recent rooms in Slovenia and Croatia were a bit different. Whereas we used to stay “in the city,” especially near Old Town (if they had one), in Slovenia we stayed about 30 minutes south of the capital city of Ljubljana. In the Croatia Istrian area, we were in a small village called Katun, about 30 minutes from the West Coast, which we thought initially was in the middle of NOWHERE, so we were surprised to find, just 10 minutes away, a really cool town, just a bit larger, called Pazin.
We rode in the other morning and found yet another castle, and this one was awesome! It was primitive in that it felt “old,” unlike so many others that get modernized to the point of taking away their charm. Pazin is the capital of the Istria admin area and is almost in the dead center of the peninsula. We were able to drive to either coast in about an hour–which we did.
Behind the castle in Pazin we also found this HUGE chasm with zip lines running across. We passed on that, but we DID do the cave exploration, first time for both of us, so that was a great experience. Neither Kat or I had “spelunked” before, and it was challenging, but not scary, and we did two zip lines getting in, and came to the end of the tunnel 200 meters inside, to find the blackest black we ever experienced. Very cool.
Croatia has always been very high on our favorite places list, and that is still the case. In the last week we visited Trieste (Italy), plus the Istrian towns of Novigrad, Porec, Rovinj, and Pula, and we are soon going to the island of Cres, via ferry, then zipping over to the island of Krk, where we will stay. From there we ride down the coast to Sibenik, then Split, and onward a few days in Makarska. We exit Croatia to Bosnia and east, to eventually return to Romania in about a month.
07.05.23
Yesterday was another day of firsts as we took not just one ferry, but two. We left the inland area of the (Croatian) Istrian peninsula and went out to the east coast and departed on ferry #1 from probably one of the most beautiful ferry ports I’ve ever seen, called Brestova. We started from the top of a very tall mountain cliff and worked our way down to the waterfront and there at the port was a restaurant as well as a beach! The ferry took us over to the island of Cres, which only took about 20 minutes.
Cres is one of the largest islands in the country, relatively narrow but quite long, and as we left the arrival port area we started climbing and literally rode the motorcycle along the top of the mountain peaks. Water on the right side as well as the left. It was just thrilling, windy, and the sky was pristine, and Kathleen was a rockstar as she dealt with the curvy roads and the ups and downs.
We eventually worked our way down to the next departure port, Meraj, and 20 minutes later found ourselves on our second island of the day, Krk, which is where we spent the night. Croatia has over 1,000 Islands, and is a boater’s paradise, but most of the major islands are also accessible by ferry, so that works for us, though not all of them take vehicles.
This morning we started our next ferry trip, and this one took a little bit longer, about 90 minutes, to get to the island of Rab. The goal was to at least view some of these islands, and at some point we may return for longer.
Rab was absolutely amazing, and surprisingly not very crowded and relatively affordable. Tomorrow it is back to the mainland and onward to Split, kind of like a distant hometown for us.
