Pula

The next day Enzo stayed in Rovinj to meet up with some friends of his who had come over to see him for his birthday, and Terry and I cycled to Pula.  We took some main roads and some quieter ones and got there well before dark for a change.  We stopped to eat our lunch on a Roman ruin in the sun.  It seemed a bit odd that we were allowed to sit on it, but I guess there are so many here that they are not so precious about them.

Ruins in a small village.

We had booked an apartment for a couple of nights because Enzo was going to meet with his family in Pula.  We’d found this really cheap two room apartment that cost about 10 Euro per person per night – less than the last campsite, but when we arrived at the apartment it turned out that the apartment we had book was already booked so they put us in the penthouse instead!  For real.  This sort of thing is something you hear about happening to a friend of a friend, but never to yourself, so it was super cool!  We had a room each and we gave Enzo the master bedroom with ensuite as a birthday present.  Enzo arrived in the evening, having been dropped off by his friends, and was equally impressed.  I took the chance to do some laundry and have a shower and use the wifi and electricity.  Ah, modcons.  

The lounge of the penthouse apartment.

Terry cooked a risotto from the remaining ingredients we had left, namely rice, a courgette, cheese and some chicken stock.  It was excellent!  I made use of the remainder of the cabbage and made a passable coleslaw and together we had a pretty decent meal. Enzo went out to dinner with his parents and came back laden with several kilos of cheese, salami, and chocolates.  Over the next few days we all did our part to reduce the weight of food he would have to carry…

We were lucky enough to be able to extend our stay an extra day in the penthouse, so on the second day we went into town and had a look at Pula.  It wasn’t really very exciting, but the highlight was the Roman amphitheatre in the middle of town.  Like a miniature Colloseum but without the crowds.  It is used in summer as an outdoor theatre and concert venue and I have to say it would be fantastic to see a concert there.  There was no information around the site, but there was a single panel in an underground exhibition explaining the history of the amphitheatre.  We did see audio guide symbols, but hadn’t seen any signs for them on sale at the ticket counter.

Amphitheatre ruins.

Afterwards we went in search of lunch to the bakery up the street and bought the same pastry and cheese thing I had eaten in Trieste as well as an apple strudel type thing which we ate in the park across the road until it began to rain.  We then went back into town and took a short walk around the old part of the city.  It wasn’t as pretty as almost al the other places I had been, but we persevered and walked up the hill to the castle to see the view.  Turned out to mostly be a view of the port, which wasn’t so nice.  I did see the most fantastic safety fence ever, though.

A wooden fence tied together with tape.

That night we went to dinner with Enzo and his family.  After a frustrating time getting lost and then finding the restaurant closed that didn’t really need translation we stopped at a local place near where we had parked the car.  They served us a traditional meal of kraut, tasty sausages and mustard, grilled pork and a lot of red wine.  The kraut was a cooked cabbage dish with little bits of pork in it – very tasty!  Something I’d like the recipe for. 

Family dinner.

Might not look much but it was good!

This was followed up by crepes with chocolate sauce and crepes with apricot jam.  Also extremely good.  I’ve never had crepes with jam, but I don’t see why we don’t do it, it makes a good change from chocolate.  By this time though I have gone through a jar of nutella and am frustrated that all I can find in the supermarkets is a huge selection of nutella-like spreads, jam and honey, when I’d really like some peanut butter.

The next day we pretty much just sat around the apartment and had a mental and physical rest day.  I applied for some jobs and wrote a week’s worth of blog posts.