Rovinj Our paradise -Il nostro paradiso
After 8 weeks on the road living like nomads and loving every bit, we left Palma de Mallorca and flew via Stuttgart to Zagreb. Arriving to Stuttgart was a very first cold and rainy day we’ve seen since leaving New Zealand.
It was only 11 degrees, with miserable rain. We were freezing! Everyone in the airport building was wearing long sleeves and winter coats in August and two of us in our shorts and summery tops! Luckily Nebojsa had long sleeves in his hand luggage, a true life saver!
Zagreb weather was a bit better, no rain, but still too cold for the middle of a summer, very unusual.
It was Sunday and everything was closed in Croatia. We kind of knew they introduced this new law that says shops must be closed on Sundays but still found it strange. We could see tourists wondering around looking to buy some street food (us included), but no luck. I don’t think this new law is doing any favours to Croatian businesses, but well, who am I to judge politics?!
We got to our car and drove to the first petrol station to buy junk food and carried on to Rovinj.
Petra and Chase have already arrived a couple of days earlier, the apartment looked spotless, thanks guys! After unpacking we went straight to bed.
In the morning we caught up on mutual travel stories and three weeks later we still haven’t had a chance to sit down and properly chat and see each other’s photos.
You’ll wonder how is that possible? Three weeks of holiday in your own place and no time for this?!
Let me tell you, it’s easy!
Rovinj has a phenomenon of simply not having enough hours in a day to do everything you’d like to do! It sounds crazy but it’s true!
This is how it goes:
Early morning swim - nothing beats that early morning water calmness, gentle sunshine, empty beaches, stunning Zlatni Rt (Golden Cape) pine park / forest that surrounds Rovinj beaches. Thanks to Georg Hütterott, a businessman from Trieste who developed the park back in 1852-1910 we are now enjoying this true paradise.
Breakfast at the beach, relaxing and chilling till 11-ish.
Bike ride through the forest comes next, a couple of hours min with a few stops to jump into the sea to refresh.
Lunch at the apartment, and then it’s free time while sun is too hot. I love biking / going to the old town to wonder the shops and chat to locals, or read a book, Nebojsa loves spending time with his guitar or on his computer.
Before you know it we are back at the beach around 4pm till the sunset.
Dinner time around 7pm, shower, dressing up and going out to the old town for a few promenade walks, drinks with friends, ice cream, local concert and by the midnight we are in bed!
Not a bad routine I recon! But you can see there are not enough hours to do it all. Two active relaxers simply can’t sit still!
And guess what…there is more!
We have now added a new beach toy into a mix - a paddle board has arrived for more activity as if we had not have enough! 😂
We both love it and we enjoy it in Auckland, but the Adriatic Sea is calmer and the use of the paddle board is now a daily routine. We bought a long and sturdy one so we can both paddle together and visit many tiny islands within the Rovinj archipelago, it is already so much fun! And we negotiated a free deal to keep it at the hotel’s beach storage, it helps when you are a local and speak the language 😉
In only three weeks here we have already welcomed a number of our Kiwi friends.
We love it, it is soooo cool to show them around, take them to the restaurants where the locals eat ( much better food and better priced), teach them about the region, history, everything they want to know and let them explore on their own before meeting them for a dinner.
The famous 5 star Grand Park hotel is the must see and it featured in BBC series “The Grand Hotels” which was aired in New Zealand TVONE, in November last year - check it out
And then there is more …
We love concerts and they are literally happening every day, whether that’s in Rovinj or nearby places.
As my cousin would say: “ Draženka, imali li gdje da mi ne idemo?! (… is there anywhere that we are not going to?!)
Ha! My answer is simple - no, you live life only once, it’s not my fault they all decided to perform one after the other! 😂😂😂
Pula is only 35 mins drive from Rovinj. Paula’s Roman amphitheater is the unique venue for local and international artists. Experiencing a live concert in the amphitheater that can host up to 23,000 people is simply phenomenal, irrespective who is performing. We have already been to a few concerts, and more to come.
I have to tell you a story about Zdravko Čolić concert, he is known as ex Yugoslavia Tom Jones!
He performed yesterday celebrating 50 years of his musical career, with a live philharmonic, a choir and sold out Arena! I bought tickets months ago, when we were still in Auckland!
To say it was an amazing concert is understatement! I don’t know what was better, his performance at its best at the age of 72, the philharmonic and choir performance, pianist and saxophone player, or just watching the crowd singing along from young people to our generation friends.
When I was growing up every girl was in love with Zdravko, and every mother hoped to have him as her son in law! I can’t explain how and why young people know his songs today, they were not even born when he was a top pop star, but here we are, we had awesome time and created another memorable moment. He will entertain us for many more years, and if someone tells me again how age matters, I’ll tell them to let go of that belief! It’s not true!
And if that wasn’t enough, we are off to another concert tonite and tomorrow night!
I am telling you, there aren’t enough hours in Rovinj to do it all, sleep is good but short 😴
Days keep flying fast, we are here for another month looking forward to seeing our relatives who arrive on the 4th of September from Serbia, so so happy knowing we will see them again and spend the time together in this paradise.
Until the next blog, enjoy the photos of Rovinj, our New Zealand friends and us, and a few videos from different concerts, as I rush to get ready to drive to Vrsar for another concert.
Rovinj/Rovigno Photo Album
