Rovinj has been a very charming little town.  I have enjoyed seeing the colorful buildings as well as all of the art galleries.  This has been one of my favorite towns to visit on this trip.

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We took a day trip from Rovinj to Pula.  I had Igor (the man we are renting the apartment from) get the car out of the narrow driveway, and we drove an hour to Pula.  Pula has one of the six surviving Roman arenas left in the world.  The arena is still used today for concerts in the summer time.

There was a little display under the arena of some pottery that was used in the Neolithic time (6000 – 2000 BC).  Pula is in the region of Istria.  This area is popular for wine and olive oil.  The pottery on display is what they used to use to store olive oil.

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Since arriving in Croatia, I have seen more cats than I can ever remember.  Coming from the States, I always think that every cat belongs to a person and that it has a nice home and food.  However, the cats in Croatia are not a household pet but an animal that roams the city finding food as it goes.  I remember seeing a lot of cats in Rome but I see a lot of cats in every city I go to in Croatia.  This cat below was sleeping in the fishing nets.  Shortly before this a crab must have crawled out of these nets as there was a crab walking the boardwalk.  The cats are harmless.  They want nothing to do with you unless you are trying to give them food.  I’m pretty sure they also help with any rodent issues.

On Sunday, we flew from Dubrovnik to Zagreb so we could rent another manual car and drive to Rovinj, Croatia.  The flight was less than an hour but would taken all day to drive so it was worth it to fly most of the way and get another car.  This time I got a sporty red VW Polo.

We are staying in a cute apartment about 10 minute walk from the city center.  The hosts invited us to have a beer when we got here, but we really needed food as all we ate before we left Dubrovnik was a pastry from the bakery and now it was well past dinner time.

Rovinj is very charming and lovely to walk around.  Rovinj has the feeling of a fishing port but also with nice yachts.  The old town is colorful with a church that sits up high on a hill.  There are restaurants with terraces overlooking the Adriatic.  There also many shops with jewelry and art.  You can walk a little outside of town on the Adriatic and find many beaches (rocky beaches of course) and people swimming.

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I love to take photos of flowers but learned not to get too close to the Oleander trees since they are poisonous.  They are everywhere in Montenegro and Croatia.

When I think of Montenegro, I think of nice sandy beaches and sunny weather.  I’m guessing Hollywood put these ideas in my head because I can’t say I saw nice beaches or sunny weather.  I had wanted to do a day trip to Montenegro once I realized how close it was to Dubrovnik.  Our host, Tony, offered to take people on day trips.  I also knew that the roads in Montenegro were not the best, and the drivers drove a little more aggressive.  Before we knew how much Tony could talk, we asked him if we could hire him to take us on a day trip to Montenegro.  We arranged to go on Saturday and he told us the weather would be great.

We meet him at 8 in the morning.  Thank goodness I packed an umbrella and jacket with me because it pretty much rained the entire time.  We first drove to the Bay of Kotor.  On the way, I saw one car that was in the bay and one boat that was underwater.  I heard many motorists honk their horns as their hood was basically touching our bumper.  The steep roads and many curves made me glad that I wasn’t driving.  Although it did cross my mind that I put my life in the hands of a stranger.

Kotor was a small town that basically thrives on tourists.  The Republic of Venice at one point ruled the area.  We walked briskly around the town as Tony would give us a little history tour.  I think we waited longer to park than we actually stayed in the town.  Next we drove to Budva.  Budva is 3,500 years old which makes it one of the oldest settlements on the Adriatic.  Budva is one of the most popular summer destinations in Montenegro.  I think because of the bad weather we didn’t get a real Montenegro experience.  There wasn’t anything that I saw there that would make me hurry back.

On the way back to Dubrovnik, Tony said he knew a good place to stop for lunch.  He explained some of the menu and told me that the meat with cheese was really good.  The cheese was made locally from the mountains above.  I decided to try it but was horrified when I got 10 cevapcici sausages again over a very hot soft pile of cheese.  He told me that I must eat fast because the fresh cheese would turn to liquid from the hot sausage.  I really do like these little sausages but I don’t know why they need to give you 10 of them every time.

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I hope this short video gives you a glimpse of how beautiful Dubrovnik is.

Here is a video from Lokrum island.  The island is around a 15 minute boat ride from Dubrovnik.

Here is a video of our guided trip to the top of Mt Srd.  You can hear our host, Tony, in the background.  He talked non-stop so it was hard to get a video with out him telling us stories.

Just a ten minute ferry ride from Dubrovnik is the Island of Lokrum.  Lokrum is a nice natural island where cars aren’t allowed.  You can walk the trails of the island up to a fortress where you get a nice view of Dubrovnik.  They have a small botanical garden on the island, however most of the plants are not native.  Someone donated a lot of peacocks to the island so they roam around looking for food from people.  I was one of the crazy tourists that started taking pictures of the peacock as soon as we got off the boat.

We were told there is a nice beach there but every beach we ever saw was just a ladder down into the rocky sea.  We sat on the rocks for awhile and just watched the waves crash on the rocks.  Lokrum was worth the visit (and a nice place to get away from the cigarette smoke).

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