Jen and Rebecca Wander the Ruins

After a good night’s sleep and a breakfast in our lovely villa of fruits from the Rovinj market and some other random supermarket purchases, we headed south to Pula for a day of exploring Roman ruins.  First stop: the amphitheater, one of the best preserved in all of the Roman empire, and the 6^th biggest built for such sport as gladiatoring. (Okay, we may have made up that word, but you get the point.)  We wandered the arena, marveled at the architecture, and luxuriated in the sunny, blue skies before following the Rick Steves-recommended walking tour through town.

Happy in the sun in the amphitheater.



Fighting to the death, gladiatorial style?

Pula has continued to grow and develop over the last two millennia, so as new buildings are constructed, past structures are discovered.  It was not uncommon to see Roman ruins between two apartment buildings or next to a parking lot.  We found Roman mosaics next to a parking lot and remains of several old houses between two souvenir shops.

Jen with mosaic tile

We attempted to tour the fish market, but we were about 30 minutes too late, much to Anna’s relief, since she hates fish.  The fishermen bring their catches directly there (or sell to a nearby restaurant), so the seafood doesn’t get much fresher than that!  After an oddly healthy lunch (salads all around!), we headed up the hill to see the town fort.  There wasn’t much to actually see in the museum, other than a few artifacts and placards that we couldn’t read, but the views were outstanding!  We attempted repeatedly to get a photo of the three of us with the amphitheater in the background, but were continually stymied by the sun and poor directional camera aim.

In the background is theoretically the amphitheater again.

Much to Rebecca’s delight, Adria Air emailed to say they had finally found her bag. Turns out once they stopped looking for Jen’s green bag, which had already been delivered to Jen, and started looking for Rebecca’s black bag, they had a lot more success. Since we’d seen what we wanted to see in

Pula and had a pre-celebratory ice cream cone, we headed back to our villa to await the much anticipated, much missed luggage, while snacking on some cheese from Bohinj and fruits from Rovinj. We even managed to see a sundog out over the sea while relaxing with our snacks and wine out on our patio.

And hooray! Rebecca’s luggage finally arrived, 8 days after our arrival. Clean clothes at last, plus all of those cosmetics and medical supplies she hadn’t anticipated being without for 8 days. Rebecca decided she could finally be happy for Anna’s arrived bag now that hers had appeared too.

We opted for a short walk to the local pizzeria for dinner, rather than venturing further afield, since Rebecca’s excitement at her luggage’s return could hardly be contained by a car ride. Yay! It was kind of an early night, but when you have a pretty villa to hang out in, that’s really not such a bad deal.