After arriving via threeish hour ferry from Rab, our stomachs were sufficiently seasick. The ferry was huge, even carried cars, but harboured every single bump, wave and motion of the Adriatic that morning. So we got off the ferry and stumbled on sea-drunk legs in search of the bus station to take us away to Venice. twenty confused minutes and one long queue later, we learned that all tickets to venice were sold out for the day. earliest leaving time would be the next morning, monday, at 6am.
This presented several problems: 1. lonely planet was not forthcoming with accomodation possibilities and no-one held 'zimmer' signs up offering rooms for rent 2. it was sunday. everything closes on sunday at insanely Catholic Church hours.
we went to the train station.
we wept at the train station.
we've never seen a smaller, more defunct train station.
so we walked to the town centre and were rescued once again by the tourist information office that held the business card of a lady with rooms for rent. For 150KN/night we got put up in an apartment right on the main street with two lovely single beds, an eldery grandmother, her daughter and a large cup of apple juice upon check in. The place even came with advice:
"i like your hat. how old are you? because you should wear as many ridiculous things as you can before you turn 30. nobody cares now; be young and carefree while it lasts!" very few breaths in between. we bonded, me and this croatian woman called Marija Popovic.
being young and wearing something ridiculous
Korzo, the long pedestrian central street. lots of Austro Hungarian influence...
right next to our apartment and local watering hole
this trip has a dearth of sign photos
after exploring the five restaurants and bars that happened to be open on a beautiful sunday afternoon, jen and i went in search of several mythically coved beaches, for lack of anything better to do. we walked across the delightfully coventryesque concrete jungle of the outer regions of Rijeka, past the shipping docks and over a large roundabout meets motorway. Past that lies the youth hostel and several beautiful, beautiful hotels. That and hundreds of windy staircases that look private but lead to little gems of coved beaches frequented by locals. Seeing as Marija Popovic, advice giver, sent us this way, it made sense.
try to beat children with a lollipop?
reaching the concrete jungle bit
And so we descended a golden staircase into the crowded lewdness of families, friends and men soaking up the dying day.
with layers of hues of blue-green water
men in small swimsuits
and peace
until phone calls from home pierced our privacy once again. so we headed back to the centre, drowned the day in cocktails and laughed about nothing much in hopes to stave off a recurrance of hysteria.
In the end though, Croatia got ten out of four thumbs up from us. We're going back, staying longer and thinking that perhaps at a happier time in our lives the place might be even more beautiful, if that's even possible.
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