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Pula seems very far away from anywhere of any note. I think that's mainly to do with the train journey we endured on the way in. As I mentioned in the Zagreb post we had to wake up at 5 in the morning. A time which before this day existed only in fiction (horror fiction!). But still, the sun had arrived even before that and it was fairly light when we made our way to the station. We sat on a train for a while, sleeping fitfully and then getting to a point where we may have been starting to get comfortable. A knock on the cabin. "Autobus now." A replacement bus. We aldready knew that we'd have to stop at some point to get a connecting bus. Was this going to take us to that bus? Or maybe all the way to Pula? Or what? Everybody was quite confused, but hey-ho. Just gotta ride with it. Turns out that this was just a short bus to another train, which then had to stop for the bus connection again, which took us to yet another train. With so many connections, any chance of getting a bit of a nap in were completely blown out of the water! So it was a tiring journey. One with a lot of pretty sights, granted. But tiring all the same. At the end we weren't sure where we had to go at all. We couldn't find the buses and couldn't even find taxis. But we walked in what looked like the direction to town and passed the first major sight here. An entire Roman Colliseum. In great condition and just there, in the middle of the city. Pretty spectacular, but we needed transport. We eventually found some taxis. We asked for a price and even managed to haggle the dude down to a semi-decent compromise. Pretty chuffed.
First Day
Well, we got here. We were past the point where a nap would have been any good to us, but it was still early enough for us to explore the area surrounding our apartment.
(Quick note - apartments here are far better an cheaper than hostels. We can cook all our own food. Not so lively, but great for the privacy)
The Pula outskirts are lovely. At first it reminded me of Cyprus. But I think that's just due to the coastal environment. There are big differences in how the houses are built and laid out. We walked through the streets and down past the docks. Very big docks, there's a huge amount of yachts here. Then we were at the Verudella Peninsula. This is where the big hotels are along the shore with rocky beaches. So we had a bit of fun climbing around the rocks and checking the place out before heading home just before dark. We also had to get some shopping in.
Pula Town
We'd already seen the colliseum from outside and knew that there were more sights in town to see, so this was the plan for our first full day in Pula. Sightseeing. Its a small city so everything is very close, but you can easily take up a whole day taking in the town centre. Not much more than that, mind you. We started at the colliseum. Paid a very small amount to go in and have a wander round. It was pretty awesome to be inside this fairly ancient structure and to sit on the benches imagining the kinds of things that went on here. We did a bit of lizard counting too. There's loads! There are lots of other sites here. None quite so impressive as the colliseum, but definately worth visiting. There was a museum that we never went into (we heard its a bit rubbish) but the garden around the building is covered with parts of Roman statues that had been unearthed and a small Roman theatre round the back. The gate leading onto the main shopping street was also cool. I think this one was Hercules' gate. There's 3 gates here, but the map wasn't entirely clear which was which. It was a very nice day of sightseeing, complete with nice big ice creams to top it all off.
We later ventured back into town for a shopping trip. It took a long while, but we did eventually find some decent cheap shops for Katie's summer wardrobe. As well as a couple extra T-shirts for myself. And a snorkel & goggles set!! Still to be properly tested.
Coastal Explorations
So we'd seen a couple of the beach areas so far. There were pebbly beaches split up by large areas of rock. So we endeavoured to do a big walk, starting from where we'd seen before and then following the coastal route all the way down to the bottom of our map for a look at one of the forts.
Pula has many forts. They were built by the Austro-Hungarian Empire to ward off attacks from the sea, Pula being quite an important transportation hub connecting Croatia with the rest of Europe just across the sea. As Pula is quite far up the Adriatic Sea anyway though its already in a pretty good defensive area as it is and the city was never attacked. This has left the forts in very good condition. Today they are used for many different purposes. More on those later.
As well as giving us a nice long leg-stretching, we were using this walk to scout out some nice beaches for the days ahead. And we found some lovely places. No sand, but very nice locations. The entire walk took quite some time though and we were fairly hot and sweaty by the time we got to our target. A campsite with fort in the middle. Cue another ice-cream break. We're loving the ice-cream now. Straciatella and hazelnut are my two clear favourites. Getting back to the apartment was a more direct route along the road, but the entire excursion pretty much lasted the whole day. Was excellent.
Money
OK, so its about this time I take a look at our accounts and it turns out we're probably not gonna be able to manage Italy or Greece. Our last train ticket has run out and we gotta pay for another. As well as flights home and more accomodation. Katie is very disappointed. I am too obviously. But we need to make a plan. So we've decided to get ourselves a ticket each that's good for travelling Croatia. Much cheaper. We'll spend the rest of our time making our way South and have a great time doing it. Luckily for us an opportunity for a good night appears...
Fort Bourgignon
So here's one of the forts I mentioned before. Its a big two-storey circular building. Its circular for a very good reason. Strength. But it turns out that its also great for acoustics. Nowadays they hold the occasional rave in here and we were lucky enough to be in town to catch one. It was incredible. We needed a torch to get there as it's in the middle of nowhere. But get there we did. The inside of the fort is just like a massive donut. The inner courtyard is circular too with no roof above. It made for a totally unique dance floor. The hefty bass was bouncing off the walls and while it wasn't packed with people the atmosphere was wonderful. There was another DJ playing inside, but the place to be was definately out in the middle. Until the rain started to kick off. That's when the DJs cleared their decks in a matter of seconds and everybody squeezed inside to carry on the party. Well, that didn't last long either as the electrics cut out and everything went pitch black. It was out with the torches and, while they did get it going again, Katie and myself decided to head home. It was about half 4, they finished at 5 anyway. It was an awesome night. Definately one to remember.
We finished the night off with a bowl of pasta, cheese and butter. Sitting on our bed watching an impressive lightning storm out the balcony window
So yeah, a rainy day on Sunday. Good day to recover from a hangover.
Forest Park
The rain only lasted for a day. And we were due a good day or two before it got chilly again so we headed out to the other side of the city to check out a forest park that we found on the internet. Another gorgeous place, and so very different from the rest of Pula. Lots of green everywhere and lovely plantlife. Lots of undergrowth too. With wildlife within. This is where we saw the snake. It was just a rustle in the grass at first. Katie pointed it out - "What was that" she said and we both turned to look at the grass. All we could see was about 5 inches of body. "I think that's a snake!" We moved closer and the thing just bolted away from us. Katie got a hell of a shock, she must have dived back about 2 metres in a single movement. It was huge! About two inches across the body and it made a hell of a racket as it moved through the grass. The amount of grass that moved with it gave us some clue about its size. It weren't no grass snake anyway! The rest of the walk through after that was spent scanning the bushes. I was desperate to see another while I believe Kate was fairly desperate not to.
Lots of Rain
We'd ran out of time at our last apartments (7 nights) and so had to move to the next place to wait for our train tickets to come in. Another 4 nights. And the weather forecast for the next little while wasn't too great. Another rain storm followed by some cold cloudy days. We set this day aside for visiting the aquarium. We'd seen aquarium's before, but this was relatively inexpensive and better than sitting in an apartment watching rain out the window. Quite glas we did it though. Its no Sea Life Centre, but they had a good few fishes that I'd never seen before. As well as tanks showing local sea-life. It was very interesting. Especially since it was based inside another of the old forts. The turtle rescue centre inside was also quite nice. Their tanks were very small. But at least they were clean and safe. Katie also spent a few minutes experiencing life as a turtle herself. You can see the picture in the album. Was great fun, though I'm shocked that she actually did, what with all the teenagers around watching. We had a right laugh, and all at her expense. She loved the attention.
Premantura
I've mentioned the bad weather. We've had some good days too, and took advantage of them at the beaches. But we're nearing the end of our time in Pula and we had to spend a day with good weather checking out the Premantura peninsula. Our Europe Backpackers guide made light of it, but the internet was raving about it. Two buses got us in and it was well worth the time. Premantura town itself is very small. A short walk will take you to the entrance of the national park. We primarily went to look at the beaches but its a bigger area than we thought. We walked down one side which took us onto the 'Dinosaur Trail'. A lovely walk which ended by the shore where dinosaur tracks had been discovered long ago. Years of natural corrosion without much care had left them quite close to invisible. But they're still there. We walked along the coast a while before crossing to the other side of the peninsula to take a lunch break on one of the beaches. Wesat there several hours in the nice weather watching yachts coming in and out. Then we made our way to the Safari Bar. Possibly the coolest bar in the world! Its looks like somewhere Peter Pan and his Lost Boys would live. Complete with awesome playthings for the kids. An awesome slide, a giant hamster's wheel (see photo) and loads more. I didn't just fall in the hamster wheel. I had a fairly spectacular tumble from a mini roundabout. We headed away about 6 or so. Plenty time to get the bus back.
In Closing
Our last day out was nice. A trip to one of the beaches close by. The weather was good. And while the water was still cold I did have a dip and tested out my goggles. I chose the worst place to go though. I saw the sea urchins but just didn't think too hard about what that meant. I'm now sitting here, writing this blog with quite a few spines stuck in my feet. Its kind of painful. And a little worrying. I'm gonna keep trying the whole vinegar thing. Leaving my feet in vinegar for however long. Some people say it helps to dissolve the calcium-based spines. I don't know though. At least they weren't venomous. The mossies have found their way in here too. We're both covered in bites. Time to invest in repellant. But first we'll get to our next location - Rovinj. You can see it on the map just North of Pula. Til then!
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