Blogs from Pula, Istria, Croatia, Europe
January 6th 2011
Colonia Pietas Iulia Pola, name given to Pula by the old Romans, has been writing its history for 3000 years. The city built at the end of a beautiful bay and on seven hills reveals many lovely and interesting stories. According to the legend, it was founded by the Colchidians, after the pursuit of Argonauts and their leader Jason who stole the precious Golden fleece from the Colchidians. Today the city lives in many colours and sounds, perfectly interlacing the variegated exciting past with modern times of its inhabitants and visitors. It boasts perfectly preserved amphitheatre, the largest amphora site in the world, Temple of Augustus, many churches, monasteries, Venetian and Austro-Hungarian architecture, excellent various food specialities and wine in its many restaurants, rich museums, galleries, concert events, great nightlife and many other beauties located in ... read more
November 4th 2010
Split Matt and I woke up on the night train in the morning and opened the curtains to a most amazing view of the Croatian coast at sunrise; so beautiful! In Split we found a great hotel to stay right in the centre around the corner from Diocletians palace. We dumped our stuff and went to explore. Split is a stunning town, a network of tiny winding streets make it easy to get lost but its so small you don't stay lost for long. We explored the streets, brought some wooden beads at a cool homemade wood stall, had a drink in a cafe in a little square. We walked around the park, explored Diocletians palace (which of course I loved because anything Roman I adore, and its right in the middle of the city, there ... read more
October 10th 2010
Croatia has a warm October this year. We decided to have a weekend getaway in Istria. It was wonderful to be driving in short sleeves with opened windows in October! We left home on Saturday morning, around 9. Our main destination in Istria was Pula, because we were actually visiting a couple-friend living there, although we ended up visiting Rovinj and Opatija as well in our way home on Sunday. This was our first road trip in Croatia, since we got our new car somewhere last month. I have to say that during the trip, I was impressed by the inter city road and tunnel system in Croatia. I didn't expect that from the country. We took non stop toll road from Zagreb to Rijeka that cost us 60 kunas (around 8,5 euros). It took us ... read more
July 3rd 2010
Having tried planes, boats, and trains, we added to our repertoire today with a bus ride into Croatia. We do not think camels will play any role in our transportation scheme. You cannot readily rent a car in Italy and return it in Croatia, and we did not want to have to drive all the way back to Trieste at the end of our Croatian sojourn, so we took a bus from Trieste to Rijeka, Croatia. Rijeka is situated at the "kink" in the coastline between the Istrian peninsula and the Dalmatian coast. It is a busy port and industrial city, but rather lacking in character for tourists. After some delays occasioned by a change in address of our car rental company without any notification, we boarded our 9-passenger Open van and headed first for Pula. ... read more
March 17th 2010
Please see the same text and many pictures at the sites below Click here For a web page, or cut and paste this link: http://www.dickschmitt.com/travels/Croatia/dalmatia/pula/index.html Click here For a slide show or cut and paste this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/schmitt.dick/PulaCroatia#slideshow Pula Croatia At the Southern tip of Dalmatia's Istria Peninsula, Pula rises from a bay that has sheltered navies from the galleys of Byzantium to the dreadnoughts of the Austro-Hungary Empire. Today it sports impressive Roman ruins including perhaps Europe's best-preserved forum and the 6th largest surviving amphitheater. In letters home, James Joyce called it a "naval Sibe... read more
August 12th 2009
Am nächsten Tag machten wir uns auf um Pula zu besichtigen. Die Stadt hat mir sehr gut gefallen, vor allem das Amphitheater ist sehr beeindruckend. Es ist das Wahrzeichen der Stadt und wurde von Kaiser Augustus erbaut. Es hatte für ca. 23.000 Menschen Platz und war somit eines der größten von den Römern erbauten Amphitheater. Pula ist die größte Stadt der istrischen Halbinsel. Natürlich mussten wir auch in den nahegelegenen Nationalpark. Dort verbrachten wir noch ein paar sehr schöne Stunden. Das Meer war traumhaft und das Wetter auch. Leider schnitt ich mich an den scharfen Felsen auf. Trotzdem war es ein unvergesslicher Tag. ... read more
August 11th 2009
Von Krk fuhren wir nach Opatija und machten dort halt um uns die Stadt anzusehen. Opatija gilt als einer der ältesten Fremdenverkehrsorte Kroatiens (war ein sehr berühmter Kurort) und ist etwa 18 km von Rijeka entfernt. Es war sehr heiß und so beschränkten wir die Besichtigung auf einen kurzen Ausflug, außerdem hatten wir ja noch eine lange Autofahrt vor uns. Als wir endlich in Medulin (wir hatten die Länge der Strecke etwas unterschätzt) waren wir sehr müde und froh doch zum Schluss noch eine nette Unterkunft mit einem riesigen Balkon, auf den wir unsere nassen Sachen zum trocknen aufhängen konnten, zu finden. Den nächsten Tag verbrachten wir am Strand und genossen die Sonne und am Abend das Essen. Am Nachmittag lernten wir eine Gruppe von Niederländer kennen. Mit diesen trafen wir uns am Abend wieder und ... read more
August 8th 2009
Elvis was some one I met through Ivana. They met at a xenophobia prevention workshop in Zadar. I searched for weeks on CouchSurfing for people in Istria, but either they were not responding to anyone or they were not hosting. The night before we left for Zadar she said, oh hey, I have a friend in Pula, maybe he will host you. She contacted him and everything was set up. I got into Pula and met Elvis at the bus stop. He told me about where I’d be staying: a fortress, close to his apartment, he sleeps there in the summer because it is colder in both the day and the night, there is no toilet, and no running water, but everything is close by, and if I don’t like the fortress I can sleep on ... read more
July 26th 2009
This summer, Pula will welcome numerous international stars in its amphitheatre so it would be a good idea to say something about this beauty's history. There used to be a large ancient theatre on Monte Zaro, outside the ancient Pula walls. The small Roman theatre could welcome up to 2000 and the big one up to 4000 visitors. The only remainder of that theatre today is the stone block. The rest of it is built into a series of buildings in Pula and, among others, into the big military fort in the centre of the old part of Pula which was built by Antoine de Ville. Only the old inscriptions witness the glory of the great ancient theatre. In the book "Pula sa starih razglednica" (Pula from the old postcards), it is written that the theatre ... read more
October 22nd 2008
17th October by Blake We stayed in Labin in Croatia. It was really windy and really cold. We didn’t have any electricity at the camp ground. We didn’t have hot showers and no lights in the toilet. There was a straight down hill what we was biking down. I went so fast that I fell off. I didn’t hurt myself. There were heaps of olive trees everywhere. Dad picked some and tasted it. He said it was disgusting. Then we went for a walk to look at the place. We went to a beach I saw two crabs. Mason killed one by accident. We went home after that and Mum and Anton made gnocchi and fudge cake for dinner. We played loser (card game) and I was the champion for most of the game. In the ... read more
