Day 5: Exploring the Istrian Peninsula
Today was one of our most jam-packed days: we left the hotel right after breakfast, didn't return until well after dark, and did a ton of different things in between!
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Before departing, we explored Motovun a bit. We had arrived in the evening the prior day, so it was nice to see the town in the daylight--it's very cute!
As we were leaving for the day, we stopped at a scenic viewpoint, which afforded us beautiful views of Motovun. Stunning!
Me and mom
Beautiful views
Beautiful views
Me and mom
Exploring Colorful Pula
We ventured next to Pula, a port town that is home to Roman ruins and a colorful, charming Old Town.
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Our local guide in Pula was Tamara, and she led us first to the Pula Arena, a Roman ampitheater. What an impressive structure!
From the amphitheater, we ​headed into Pula's Old Town. It isn't large, but it's filled with colorful facades--I couldn't stop myself from photographing all the colorful facades (and sneaking a selfie, of course).
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After our stroll through Old Town, we had a bit of free time to ourselves. We grabbed pizza calzones from a bakery for lunch, then continued strolling through town until it was time to hop aboard our bus once again.
An Afternoon in Rovinj
From Pula, we headed to Rovinj, a lovely little town perched on the Adriatic. We had several hours there to do as we wished. Mom and I began by hiking up the hill, through Old Town, to the Church of St. Euphemia. Along the way, I was completely charmed by Rovinj: cute little streets and shops, colorful buildings, and doors draped in plants and flowers.
At the top of the hill, we found the aforementioned Church of St. Euphemia. We poked around the church for a bit and admired the views from the hilltop.
Then, we headed back downhill and made our way to the harbor. We found a café and settled in to have a cocktail (or, at least, I did; mom opted for diet coke).
The café was fairly unremarkable, but the views and atmosphere were pretty great!
We left Rovinj as the sun was setting (not a bad view, huh?!) and drove to Konoba Astarea for one of my absolute favorite meals of the trip!
Astarea is a family-run place with a huge open stove in the middle of the dining room; I loved the atmosphere there!
They also served us gigantic portions of hearty, delicious food: a grilled scallop appetizer, two different types of pasta (one with meat, one with mushrooms), pork medallions, roasted potatoes, and baked strudel.
We could also choose from three flavors of grappa to finish off our meal; I opted for the mistletoe-flavored one, because, honestly, how often in life are you going to drink mistletoe grappa?!
Full beyond belief and pretty exhausted from a busy day, we piled back onto our bus and returned to Motovun.
It wasn't necessarily fun to climb back up the hill to our hotel while that stuffed, but at least my residual mistletoe grappa buzz eased the journey somewhat :)
Scroll below for extra photos from day 5
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