What we love most about Croatia

We’ve been traveling the coast of Croatia for at least a month now, and have a few things that we unanimously love most:

1. Islands, water, swimming. Duh. Endless beautiful islands to explore. Crystal clear water nearly everywhere. The almost daily treat of a refreshing, comfortable swim in the perfect temperature. 

2. The history. It’s so complex and fascinating. Interesting to learn and to see so many influences. Conor is already on his third history book.

3. Croatians live amidst their history. We haven’t really seen this elsewhere in our travels so it feels quite unique. Rather than rope things off or have many museums, the buildings and structures that were built hundreds or thousands of years ago are simply a part of everyday cities and lives. My favorite example is the iconic arena we just saw in Pula – more on Pula later. It’s the sixth largest surviving Roman amphitheater in the world. In the mornings, tourists can pay to get inside to have a look around. Our walking tour guide gave us the tip that paying is completely unnecessary. You can walk all the way around it on a nice footpath and see everything you’d want to see. Then, during the days and evenings, the arena is used for all kinds of events – from concerts, to soccer games, to ice hockey games, to gladiator re-enactments. We did the walk around and got to see and hear the evening’s concert doing their sound check. I so loved how this 2000+ year old beautiful structure is completely in use today.

Side note: Pula also won the Guinness World Record for creating the longest necktie — it wrapped all the way around the arena and went down the street. (There was no competition, really.) Why a necktie? Because the necktie was apparently invented in Croatia. 

Second side note: We also learned that only the Colosseum in Rome is called a coliseum. It’s the biggest in the world. All others are called an “arena” or “amphitheater.”

Also, Croatians seem experts at “Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.” Love it. The cities have been under the control of so many empires, and each time a new one came in, many buildings would be torn down or repurposed. What meant something to one group, meant nothing to another. So today, you can see old town walls built with “bricks” made up of regular stones but also broken Roman stones that adorned former buildings. Or at the park, your bench may be an old Venetian building stone. Or, a more modern government building may be the refurbishment of two old temples melded together.