Pula ( Croation for Shithole )

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I suppose its not all that surprising that when you are away for a month not all your experiences will be highlights, and there is no doubt that our short stay in Pula was the lowlight of our trip so far. The day had started well enough, we had decided to leave Rab Island early, mainly because the weather had taken a turn for the worse and if we couldn´t spend the day swimming there was not a lot else to do there.

The drive back to Pula took us along the coast providing spectacular views of the towns below and the islands that seem to surround the coastline of Croatia. The decision to go to Pula was largely on the back of Matt's tip that there was some great Roman ruins there similar to the Colosseum. We arrived in Pula shorlty after lunch and immediately went straight to what we thought was the best hotel in town. It actually was the best although fell short when compared to the best western in Broadmeadows.

After checking in we made our way to the ruins which I must admit were reasonably impressive. We spent the rest of the day wandering around what must be the most unimpressive city in all of Europe. Really is hard to say anything good about it. It was dirty, crowded and the people seemed to go out of there way to extremely unhelpful.

Anyway we thought we'd finish the day on a high note by having dinner at the hotel restaurant. Vicki had seen that they offered a buffet dinner there for 150 kunar. Well we can only say that this would have to be one of the worst meals we have ever eaten, best described as mass produced mush. The funny thing was the locals were hoeing into like it was some croatian delicacy. I went straight onto the tin fruit and iced cream followed by a lemon gelati.

If we needed any further convincing that our stay in Pula would be only one night the meal was it. As soon as we left we went straight to the internet and searched for coastal towns in Slovenia. We come across a town called Piran and after doing a bit of research agreed that first thing in the morning we would head there. We reasoned that it couldn't be any worse and we felt more at home in Slovenia than Croatia.

As it turned out this proved to be stroke of genius. Stay tuned for a next report


Glenn & Vicki

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