Back in Istria again

As usual once again we left our hotel in Otočac at 8AM in the morning. The sun was shining but still, this early in the morning, the temperatures were cold and not what we were used to since the last couple of days, so needless to say, we were all glad to be out of there.

Driving through the still sleepy town of Otočac, we noticed that several old houses still have bullet holes in them of the latest war with the Serbs, which sadly enough wasn't that long ago. The nineties for me were a period of me having fun with friends and getting to know the world while not all that far, people were fighting for their freedom and their lives. It is hard to imagine, but sadly enough history keeps on repeating itself.

Half an hour into the drive we were back on the highway again for our trip back to Istria. Our first stop of the day was going to be the beautiful town of Poreč, but since we still had a drive of more than 3 hours ahead of us, most of our group resorted to sleeping, listening to some music or just read a book. I was one of the many who opted to close my eyes for a while. The landscapes we passed were more than beautiful enough but my eyes needed a bit of rest as well and as we stopped at a local roadhouse cafe, I was thankful for a warm drink as well because for some reason I still felt rather cold. I just couldn't wait for the heat to come back.

After our little coffee and stretch your legs break, it was still a drive of a few hours and we arrived at Poreč around noonish, where we had a quick visit to the city. We were dropped off by Paul at the centre of town for a quick do it your self guide tour through town. Surprisingly enough most of our group was rather lazy and opted to go and find a nice terrace on the main square. Maybe the time frame had something to do with it, I don't know, we only had about an hour to walk through town, but I just wanted to make the most of it and started walking through the main shopping street, ending up at the Euphrasian Basilica located in the center of all the shopping streets.

Since I didn't visited too many churches this holiday, I gave it a go, paid my entrance fee and I was on my way to learn a bit more about this cathedral complex being one of the best-preserved complexes of early Christian architecture in the world. Named after Bishop Euphrasius who refurbished an already existing basilica, he did quite a good job seeing it all happened in the 5th Century. The mosaics which you can still find here are said to be the oldest in Europe. So of course it was worth a visit but since the complex was rather big with all sorts of rooms and chambers, I really needed to hurry back to the harbor for our boating trip towards Rovinj.

It took a bit of searching but hearing some of the voices of our members of our group, I quickly found the right boat which was chartered by Victoria Tours and as soon as we were all back together as one happy family we could "sail" towards our next location.

During our trip on the water we had a nice lunch with of course the much needed drinks, but the white wine and the sun made me also feel a bit tipsy so, seeing I was on a boat I just restricted my refreshments to two glasses and as we walked back on solid ground I was glad that I made that decision. Some of us were still having fun and feeling happy, not able to go much further, so they once again found a nice terrace to relax on. I on the other hand had a quick walk in town, couldn't resist the ice cream vendor once again and eventually also resorted to relaxing on a terrace at the harbor with a more than nice view on St. Euphemia church, the main attraction of this little town.

A bit later than 5PM I met up with the group again, we all talked about our experiences and some of us actually did end up at the church which apparently had a more than nice view on the surrounding area, but I was happy I just took it easy. All in all it was more than a successful day and as we arrived back at Rabac about an hour later, it was nice to see some familiar faces again.

Once again the staff greeted us and somehow it felt like coming home. It was our first hotel of the trip and sadly enough the last one as well. So being, the entire group had one last dinner and while we were all together reminiscing about the things we saw during the week, we had one last blast of an evening.