Jen and Rebecca Are Back in the HR

On Sunday, we got up early for our ridiculously early 6:30AM train to Rijeka, Croatia – Hrvatska to the locals. (Thanks Stari Tisler Hotel for giving us to-go breakfast!) Fortunately the train station was only a few blocks from our hotel, easy walking distance for lugging suitcases. (Not that Rebecca had a problem lugging her one carry-on sized backpack. She may be getting a bit bitter now…) Between the multiple requests to produce our train tickets and passports, there was much napping on the train in the compartment we had to ourselves. But by 9:30 the train stopped in Croatia. Jen and Rebecca had officially returned a year later to see the corner they missed in 2012! There was some additional baggage schlepping to the harbor-side car rental office where we had to wait about an hour for our automatic car to arrive. (Jen, would you learn how to drive a stick shift already?!) We had a lovely hour-long drive across the Istrian peninsula through a lot of woodsy hills to reach our villa in Rovinjska Selo, outside the harbor town of Rovinj. Unfortunately, all of the streets in Rovinjska Selo seem to have the same name, and we couldn’t find the Vila Ester without calling our host who graciously met us to let us follow him there.

Villa Ester is a lovely house! We each have our own bedroom, each with a private bath, plus a swimming pool in the backyard and a deck from which you can see the Adriatic Sea (if you squint a bit). We haven’t made use of the pool yet, but hope to before we leave on Wednesday morning. (Rebecca hopes she has a swimsuit by then.) The most exciting feature of the house may be the laundry facilities. Since we were all short on clothing (some more than others – ask Rebecca), using the washing machine was our first priority.

Pretty villa all to ourselves!

We spent the afternoon wandering about Rovinj based on Rick Steves’ guidebook.  Rick provided an excellent walking tour of the old town.  We picked up some fresh fruit at the town market, Rebecca bought a dress for the warmer weather, we saw the Communist Era Monument and Tito Square, saw pretty vistas of the harbor, and hiked up to the Church of St. Euphemia at the highest point in Old Town.  And because Rebecca likes to freak Jen out, we climbed to the top of the church bell tower up a wooden staircase that looked as if each stair had partially decomposed over the last several hundred years.  But we got even more great views of the pretty harbor and the pretty city.  It was a little reminiscent of Dubrovnik.  To round out the cultural tour, we even saw a local marching band parading through town, presumably playing Croatian/Istrian/Rovinjian traditional music.

City band.



Scary bell tower stairs.



Pretty harbor town.

As luck would have it, Rovinj was having an Istrian wine festival in the evening, so we each bought a commemorative St. Euphemia’s wine glass, complete with a wine glass holding necklace, and sampled some of Istria’s finest fermented grapes.  Once we’d had our fill of pounding grape, we settled in for some harbor-side dining, Jen sampled some theoretically local fish, Rebecca tried some truffles in her pasta, and Anna the creature of habit opted for more pizza.  We must have lingered a bit too long over our food, though.  The wait staff moved us inside from the patio as lightning became apparent over the sea and the wind picked up, then a torrential downpour trapped us inside the restaurant with other diners for about an hour, waiting out the worst of it.  At least we had wine and after-dinner brandy to keep us company.

Hands-free drinking.