The voyage to the city of Pula was not only interesting – we saw neat submarine tunnels and such along the way – but it marked our departure from the region of Dalmatia into the region of Istria.
Istria is its own region / peninsula in Croatia with its own flare. (The peninsula also includes parts of Slovenia and Italy.) The lands are much flatter allowing for more agriculture, so we saw its unique olive oil, truffles, and wines everywhere. Many of the restaurants touted specialties made with truffles, so we all tried something. (We’re talking the mushroom type.)
We really enjoyed Pula, and have lots to say about it. I may have to let photos tell the story…
I will say that our entrance into Pula was not encouraging as it is an extremely industrial area. Huge shipyard area. However, the cranes redeemed themselves by night by being artistically lit up. I thought they even looked kind of like origami cranes.
We stayed at the ACI Marina Pula. Its best feature is that it is located directly within the Old Town and is spitting distance of its iconic arena. Its worst feature is its slime lines – first time we saw ecosystems growing so largely on them. We even had a couple of crabs escape from them onto the foredeck!
The other not so great feature about the marina is that it was the very first stay we had where you could not walk to a swimming spot. What?! Taking a bus or taxi, however, would take you to a beautiful beach that the kids enjoyed.
Time here also afforded Conor, with the help of Kyle and Sean, to fix our sail bag. Conor got to haul up the mast again, which I think he enjoys. We were excited to have this fixed so we could really sail again upon our departure.
I think we had our best walking tour here in Pula as our guide, Martina, was great. She is an elementary school teacher and was full of energy. We saw all the sites, learned great history, and received great suggestions too. I already mentioned in a previous post how we love the way historic buildings and structures are just a part of everyday life here. We saw this throughout the city. Here’s a smattering of neat sites…
Since we are getting closer and closer to Venice, we are seeing more and more Italian influences. We learned that signs here have to be in both Croatian and Italian since the Italian population is registered as an official minority. Martina said they make up about 7% of the population in Pula.
We also had even better pizza. 🙂
A couple of oddities – seagulls walking around parks and city streets looked out of place; and the tourist medical center looked like you had to get a tattoo if you went inside. 😉
Side note: It was interesting but did not surprise us to see a “tourist medical center.” It was the first one we had actually seen, and we wish we had seen one back in Kaštela. When Laura first arrived to the boat, she developed what turned out to be a sinus infection. We spent most of a day trying to get her in to see a doctor. Long story, but we learned that in Croatia, medical clinics will not see tourists (because they are not set up to accept payments). This might work differently in bigger cities, but we learned we could only go to an emergency room / hospital. Once again, we found ourselves a fabulous taxi driver who stuck with us until mission was accomplished!
Sailing Sabática 