Leaving Vancouver and reaching Opatija in Croatia and onto Pula and Spinovci

On Saturday, October 14, we were ready to embark on our European journey.  And yes, I did do carry on the entire way and I could have left that bathing suit at home.  Oh well!

I picked up Sue at Clark Sky train station and then we were picked up by a limousine (part of Collette's service) and we were off to the airport for our KLM flight to Amsterdam.  We left on time at 3:00 ( five minutes early)

I had an aisle seat in the middle section across from Sue and every seat was full.  I watched four movies and part of a TV show on the nine hour flight (we save time going over the Arctic).

It was a fairly short stop in Amsterdam's airport

and of course, with a nine hour time difference it was now late morning.  We liked the cute touches on our flight to Venice and I was happily in a window seat with Sue beside me in the aisle seat.

Above is really all we saw of Venice.  We booked this trip not knowing what our airline itinerary would be and if we had changed it we would have lost our great deal so why we didn't take advantage of our stops in Amsterdam or Venice.

We had almost a two hour wait for our transit to Opatija and we were feeling a bit grumpy and tired though I did fall asleep on the flight from Venice.  We were happy we hadn't flown through Toronto as two people were stuck there for seven hours due to a plane having to be replaced.  Six of us had a two hour drive in a van to Opatija.  

If you want to follow our route we drove through near Trieste in Italy then a little bit of Slovenia and then into Istria, this area of Croatia into Opatija.  Leaving the airport it was rather flat and uninteresting scenery but got pretty as we got to Trieste and into Slovenia and Croatia with hills and autumn colours.  And I fell asleep again.  

But eventually we reached our destination, beautiful Opatija at about six when the sun was beginning to set.  This was our view from our hotel.   We then only had about forty minutes before orientation and dinner and then we happily went to bed so not much viewing of Opatija.   We slept soundly though for eight hours and were up again in fairly good shape for our optional tour on Monday.

Opatija was a favourite of the Hapsburgs when it was part of the Austrian Hungarian Empire. And the architecture reflects that.  Neither Austria or Hungary have sea coast so this provided them with their own riviera.

Here is a view of the area as we were leaving.


Sue got this picture of wind surfers in the Adriatic

Our first destination was Pula or Pola, the largest city of Istria County

It is known for its ancient Roman buildings, and here we are at the most famous, the Pula Arena.

It has been a long time since I was in the Coliseum in Rome and as someone who had to teach ancient Roman history it was very neat to be in this amphitheatre.

Pula is said to date back to ancient Greek legends and Jason who stole the Golden Fleece was supposed to have escaped here and settled in a place called Polai, the city of refuge.

The arena has archeological displays such as this one of jugs.

We were fascinated by the elevator used to transport gladiators and lions into the arena.  Now it is used for concerts and even once an ice hockey game.

I liked this map from Roman times.

The city has much evidence of the glories of its Roman past.

Limestone is the most common building material in this area.

We were excited to find the market

I am a lover of markets

and always interested to see what is to be found.  And I made my first purchase in Croatia, Lavender sachets.

But it was time to leave 

We enjoyed our ride through the countryside into the hills.

Our destination was to have a late lunch at a working farm in the Motovun district.

and we reached our destination.

and were greeted by one of three dogs we saw there, but none of them were truffle hounds.

I should note our local guide was excellent and gave us so much information. And in case you would like to visit here is their website.


We were greeted with fruit liquers and then taken into the barn for this amazing meal prepared by the farmer's wife and her husband is the vintner but she has a strong role in this as well.

All food was raised on the farm or locally

I missed pictures of the salad and main course which was a beef stew but above you can see our delicious truffle pasta.

And here is a truffle which are locally sourced.  My friend Donna actually went truffle hunting a few years ago in this region.  Here is the article she wrote.

Desert was a delicious pana cotta.  The meal was delicious, the wine great, and we had good company as well.

and it was time to leave ( i think it was about 5 pm)

Such a pretty area.

and high on the hill is the town of Motovun, once home of Mario Andretti, the famous race car driver, whose family left when this area was taken over by Yugoslavia after the second world war, and his family eventually moved to the United States.  We didn't have time to visit but it looks like a fascinating place.

when we got back to Opatija, we thought this was our opportunity to do some exploring

just a beautiful charming town but needless to say we were not really hungry

You can see why this is called the Croatian Riviera

And just look at that gelato!!!

The town is carefully preserved so you can kind of imagine Franz Joseph enjoying himself at the turn of the century.

We poked in a few shops that were still opened and I decided against buying a very small jar of truffles for $25.  

It was a lovely relaxing day in this beautiful country with all its layers of history.