South into Croatia we go, first passing the salt farms of Socovlje where salt has been farmed since Roman times, we cross the Border into the Istria Peninsula of Croatia.

Our first stop on the peninsula was the town of Porec, where we stopped to see a 13th century Byzantine Church. The Church contains marvellous mosaic decorations around the altar. Unfortunately, the rest of the town is a small medieval with everything designed to overcharge tourists. I think they have realised that being the first stop into the country they can charge a lot more for items.

Our second stop further down the coast was Rovinj another UNESCO listed town a large fishing town positioned on a narrow strip of land running our to sea where its skyline is dominated by a large church. A wonderful stop for lunch, though a very bumpy ride for Isabella in the stroller as it seems they haven’t fixed the cobblestones in awhile. The own takes about an hour to wander around and enjoy and then some time for lunch.
From Rovinj we traveled South to the city of Pula, located at the point of the peninsula traveling south at a nice speed before getting stuck behind a very slow moving 70’s van with German number plates. And we had our first real drama of the holiday.
For accommodation in Pula most of the hotels are located about 6 km’s South of the city in a weird about way tourist area. With strange one-way streets and a very bored woman controlling a boom gate, except she lets in anybody, we didn’t see the point!

Anyway after running around the different hotels to compare prices etc we had just finished on checking our last hotel and leaving through the car park. We saw this little Toyota Corolla up ahead that seemed hesitant, so Kane slowed down and stopped about 10 metres behind it, it was a one way street but the car’s reverse lights came on, Kane was changing into reverse and was about to check what was behind him when this car shot backwards, Kane hit the horn and there was screams from the back as the Toyota crunched into us!!

After a few minutes of trying to get the driver to pull into a car bay we had a look. Luckily it only looked like a stone chip on our front air dam, with a larger scratch on her real bumper. Then there was even more drama as it turned out this young female driver wanted to go to the police, as it was her first accident. I got the feeling that she was expecting us to demand money on the spot. After ½ hour of trying to convince her that her insurance will take care of it and we didn’t want money, multiple phone calls to her mum, she finally starts to complete the paperwork. The poor girl didn’t even know which one was her drivers license number on her drivers license (pretty insane huh). So over an hour later we finally got her to finish filling out the form and we could check into our accommodation. What a drama if you have an accident from a Southern European prepare for a long process. Luckily all was right with Isabella and our other passengers, as it was just a bump really, no harm done but we definitely won’t forget Pula in a hurry!

So why did we go to Pula, well it has a fantastic Roman Colosseum and other small Roman structures spread around the old city. After our delay we finally drove into Pula to find food, we didn’t have enough change for the parking meter, so Kane went looking. A bit of a pain as shops were either closing or hadn’t opened yet as it was too early in the evening, after visiting 4 shops he managed to find some change from a grumpy owner who complained she handed out change all day for parking. Kane did thank her gratefully for the change as he left. The other little problem we had was that Isabella was running low on solid, we found a baby shop (Europe has great baby stores) and asked about baby food they told us to look in the pharmacy so we had dinner and found a pharmacy. We were about to buy some food when the owner approached us and made a scissor motion with his hands. Hmmm what did he mean, oh he switched off the lights it was closing time and he shuffled us out the door without allowing us to buy anything!! I guess he had a long day….
A bumpy start to Croatia.