A little lacking in activity

I arrived in Pula after a long day on the bus from Zadar. I got to see plenty of the coast from the bus which was nice though, it did rain for most of the trip (for once the bad weather was when it didn't bother me). The coast gets very rocky as you head up further and it is surprising that people manage to grow anything here. Olives seem to be the most popular type of tree and there are lots of goats around. It was all rather bleak looking in the rain and wind.

I arrived in the late afternoon and jumped on a bus to my accommodation which was out in one of the villages that is practically a suburb of Pula. Unfortunately the website that I had booked through didn't have any instructions as to how to get to the place and it was only because of one of the reviews that I had read that I knew which bus stop to get off at. This wouldn't have been a problem except that there are three streets that have the same name in the village and they aren't all together. And I didn't have a map. And I made the foolish decision that the numbers must be running in order. So off I headed to look for number 130 which I thought would be further down the road from 88, 100, 104. But no, after walking probably one km I had managed to get into the next suburb and the street name had changed and I had not found the place I was looking for. The Croats were very helpfully driving past at well over the speed limit (they drive at the other 60 here) as I stumbled along the road verge (which was about 4 inches wide and made of sticky clay) trying to find a street sign or a house with a number on it. I eventually hit the next bus stop and figured that I had come too far.

I ended up turning around and heading back the way that I came and trying the other fork in the road. It was also the same street name and started with 110 so I thought that I was onto a good thing. It even had a footpath for a little while which made things easier. But unfortunately after 116 there were no more houses. Even around the corner that I headed around. Again with no footpath and now there were lots of trucks to force me into the bushes. So back I came again and tried the third possibility which was also not the street that I needed. It was starting to get dark and I was getting very tired and hungry and cold and pissed off.

I finally found a house with some people outside and asked them if they knew where the address was. They pointed me down the street (in the wrong direction) and off I set again. I was back down the first street that I had tried and was now finding it very dark and they don't have street lights in the villages (or most of Croatia it seems). I ended up stopping at a bistro and calling the accommodation who thoughtfully came and got me. It turns out that 130 is well before 80 and is down a side street that is completely not lit and has been dug up by the waterboard.

It turned out that I was the only person staying at the hostel so I had the whole apartment to myself. It was quite nice and it was warm inside which was what I needed. Thankfully, I had brought some food with me from Zadar so that I had dinner all ready to go as I hadn't seen a shop anywhere in my wanderings. I had dinner and a hot shower and headed to bed.

The next morning I headed into town (the woman who owns the hostel thoughtfully gave me a lift) and had a wander around. There isn't much to see other than the amphitheatre and a couple of gates and old buildings. I walked around most of the sights in an hour or so as many of them aren't open to visitors. The amphitheatre is the main sight in town and is well preserved. I didn't go inside as it wasn't open yet but you can see quite a bit from the outside and is so large that it is actually better to look at from a distance. The temple on the forum is quite nice but you can't go inside and there is a lot of graffiti on the walls. The town hall is next door and is an interesting building with lots of plaques on the walls. I went to the tourist information centre in the forum and found them very unhelpful. I wanted to find out when I could go to see the mummies at Vodnjan and she just told me that I would have to go out to the church myself and see if there was anyone there. It's not like it's just down the road. It is ten km away. I wandered around for a little while longer and found an internet cafe where I logged on for a little while and did some stuff. Most of the internet cafes I have found here are in smoky pubs which is a bit unpleasant but at least they have good connections.

At 11.30 I headed off on the bus to Porec which is a town about an hour north of here that has a 6th century Roman Basilica which is a world heritage site. There isn't much else in the town but it is worth a visit if you are nearby. It took about an hour and a half on the bus to get there and I headed straight to the basilica just in case it shut early like so many other things around here. Luckily it was open and opens long hours year round. It's quite an impressive building with a large courtyard and a fairly large church. The altar and parts of the walls have intact mosaics which are quite beautiful and are some of the only Byzantine mosaics still in place. There are a couple of sections where the floor has been removed and you can see the even older mosaics from the church that stood on the site before.  The church still functions as a church and there are masses every Sunday. You can also get married there as there were still the flowers from a wedding that morning. There were lots of people in the Basilica, in fact the most that I have seen since arriving in Croatia.

Other than the basilica there isn't much to see in town. There are some other Roman ruins that seem to be the hangout of the local youth and are covered in rubbish and graffiti. There is a large cathedral but it is fairly drab. I suspect that they didn't bother trying to compete with the basilica. I wandered around for a little while and then had lunch at a nice restaurant. The Croats do good pizza and it's the proper woodfired stuff. After lunch, I wandered back to the bus station and caught the bus back to Pula. It was a much quicker trip on the way back because we didn't stop at Rohinj. There was a lovely sunset over the water as we came along the coast.

I jumped on a bus back out to the flat in Surida and arrived in the pitch black darkness. There are definitely no street lights and virtually no light from the houses as most people have shutters. I was heading down the start of the street I needed in the dark, hoping not to fall into a hole when one of the people from the house, turned up in his car and gave me a lift back. They had been going to drive into town and look for me because I hadn't got back and it was dark.

The next morning I headed into Pula early so that I could catch the bus out to Vodnjan and try to catch the priest in the church during mass. I arrived at about 9am and walked down through the village to the church. There aren't any maps in the town but the church is very tall so it is easy to find. There was mass on when I arrived so I waited in the sunshine outside until it finished. I had a quick look around the church after the mass finished and then asked the priest if I could see the mummies. He told me to come back at 2pm after all the masses finished. So I headed outside, very grateful that at least it was a sunny day if I was going to have to hang around for 4 hours.

I walked around the town for a bit and that killed about an hour. The town isn't that big and doesn't have much other than the church. There are a couple of nice Italian looking buildings in the main square but little else. I grabbed a couple of the yummy pastries from the bakery and walked around eating them for a while longer. The only public toilet, by the way, is a squat loo at the train station and just a tip, when you flush it the whole floor gets covered in water. You have been warned!

I found a nice park and settled down in the sun and read my book for a couple of hours. It was pleasant enough but once I stopped moving around, I started to get a little cold. I finished my book after a couple of hours and headed back to the church to sit in the sun there for a while longer. Vodnjan is a real country town and a man turned up to the pub on his tractor with his dog in the side seat to guard it while he was gone.

At 2pm the priest turned up and let us into the church. While I had been waiting a group of Croatians had turned up to come and see it as well. He took them in first as they play a CD about the saints while you look at them. So I had another wander around the church which is quite interesting in itself. The marble altars are some of the most tasteful that I have seen in Croatia and there are spectacular stained glass windows throughout the church. It is a well lit church with a very airy feel to it.

It is the largest parish church in Istria and is very large given the small population of the village. They did have a good turn out to 8.30 mass though, so they must be good Catholics. It has the second largest collection of relics in the world (only the Vatican has more) and the CD explained that this was because they were hiding them from the French during the late 18th century (though I'm not sure why they weren't given back after the French left in the 19th century).

The mummies are impressive. There are the complete bodies of three saints which are up to 800 years old and then part of St Stephen who was alive in the 3rd century. There is also the leg of St Barbara and some 300 other body bits of various saints. The CD tells you all about the life and deaths of the saints that are there and it is quite interesting. The bodies are really well preserved and particularly the nun's body looks really good. They don't have any explanation as to why the bodies have been so well preserved and continue to be so despite having nothing special done to them. The sacristy which has more relics and a collection of religious art in it isn't open out of season so I headed out of the church and back to the bus stop.

I was going to go to Fazana but didn't have enough daylight left after having spent the whole day in Vodnjan. So I headed back to the flat and packed my stuff to head on into Slovenia on the train today. This morning, I have just come into town (the family gave me a lift again, they are very lovely) and wandered around looking for internet. The cafe that I went to before couldn't get their connection to work this morning. I have ended up at the internet cafe at the bus station and it is a good connection and cheaper than the other one too. Now I'm going to get some lunch and then head off on the train.

Pula has been okay as a bus as lots of buses go through here but there isn't much in the actual town to keep you occupied now that it's winter. Like most of Croatia a lot of stuff isn't open or is only open on reduced hours. It is somewhere that you could really do as a stop off on the way to somewhere else as a couple of hours is all you need to see the sights.