23 June 2011

Pula, Croatia

Back in southern weather, Pula was an enjoyable scorcher of a tourist trap.

I say tourist trap because the town looked like a smaller one from all appearances of their infrastructure, but at the same time was filled to the brim with restaurants (even a McDonald's), hotels, shops, and other ways to part with your money.

Some of the draws of the city are Pula's Roman ruins. It was interesting to see another Roman amphitheatre. In comparison to Verona's, this smaller arena had shorter seating areas with soil and grass in place of some of the stone (possibly due to the looting of the stone that took place), but seemingly higher walls with three levels instead of two.

The sizzling beaches and the rugged nature surrounding the city are also an attraction of Pula. We took the 1 hour hike down to the water on one of our afternoons, which fried us quite sufficiently. It's going to be strange to go back to weather with temperatures below 30°C.

Everything in Croatia has been fairly cheap too, which doesn't hurt. We had some inexpensive Jupiter's pizza, 1€ corn on the cob at a street vendor, and some low priced cevapi, a Serbian dish of grilled minced meat in between a bun (think sausages in a hamburger bun)

This was another 2-day visit, so again not enough time to really get the spirit and culture of the place, but I think we covered enough of the main attractions for now.