Travelin' Fullers Blog: Istrian Peninsula, Pula, Motovun, Groznjan,

We started off the day with a bit of a surprise. Our friend, Tom, came to breakfast with a very swollen hand. It was warm, red, and tender to the touch. We all decided it merited a trip to the Pula (largest city around with about 65,000 people) hospital. It happened to also be an Ironman race day with the finish line inside an extremely well preserved amphitheater! We managed to miss most of the ironman contestants on our way to the hospital. Everyone was very nice and though we all suspected a hairline fracture it turned out to be either a contusion or tendinitis. They took X-rays, but the Dr. wasn't 100% sure and told Tom to get it xrayed again if it was still swollen in 10 days.

After our hospital excursion, we toured the very well preserved Roman Amphitheater. The Romans had been exposed to Greek Theater but it was a smaller forum. For the gladiator fights and the throwing of slaves and Christians in to the lions they wanted something twice the size, hence the term amphitheater. They put two of the Greek Theaters together to make the amphitheater. The word "arena" meant sand and the floor of the amphitheater was sand to absorb the blood and the smells. We learned that the Romans brought olives to this part of the world. Also, it was the Emperor Vespasian who first created pay public toilets. He was raising money to build the amphitheater and declared the "money didn't smell"! To this day, some Italian tourists will ask for the "Vespasian" -- the public pay toilet!

This area was once part of Yugoslavia. Marshall Tito controlled the region and though a communist, he was beloved by the people In the area. He stood up to Stalin. When Tito died, the surrounding provinces, Slovinia, Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina wanted to be independent. However, Milosovic who was the leader of Serbia, wanted to make Serbia larger. This resulted in the war between Serbia and Bosnia. It became an ethnic cleansing as the catholic Serbians killed a great many (7,000) Muslims in Bosnia. Eventually the US intervened and Milosovic was removed from power and peace was restored to the region.

There is a heavy Italian influence in Croatia. Partly because Venice was so close, but also because Mussolini controlled Croatia for several years. Mario Andretti was actually born in what is now Croatia and lived here until he was eight years old. He moved to Italy when Mussolini was no longer in control.

We visited the hilltop town of Motovun, a completely enclosed walled city. We climbed to the top and walked around this very well preserved medieval city. This region is famous for truffles and so, of course, we had to do a truffle tasting! They no longer use pigs, but instead use trained dogs to dig up the truffles in the forest. Black truffles are more plentiful and are available in the summer. White truffles are rare, expensive and a much shorter season. Their season starts Sept. 15 and lasts until early January. One KG of white truffles (about a pound) costs $2500-$4000. US. A pound of black truffles is ONLY $400! Our truffle tasting consisted of black truffles chopped very fine and mixed with cream cheese and then spread on fresh bread. We also had truffles with scrambled eggs and with pasta! They have a strong flavor but it was tasty. They also had an olive oil tasting of 3 very different but excellent olive oils. They can farm raise black truffles, but they cannot do the same with the white truffle. They have not been able to determine how much water and sunlight they need to grow. So far (and its early in the season) there have not yet been any quality white truffles found. They grow in the clay soil of the region, in the forests, under the ground.

After a lovely late truffles tasting, we proceeded to a small artist village called Grozjean. It was a village abandoned in the 1960's by Italians. One artist came, bought for very little money one of the empty homes and then invited other artists to come live and work there. It is now a charming artist colony and has totally revived this lovely little village.

We were late getting back to Rovinj tonight so they dropped us in town close to "old town" where we walked to a restaurant on the cliff by the sea to have dinner. We had made a reservation the night before . The food was excellent and the view spectacular! I've counted up the walking distance the past three days and I believe we've walked very close to 10 miles!!!!!! Good thing since we haven't had any bad meals yet! Signing off for tonight. Tomorrow is a long drive (6 hours) to Split and we leave early.

However, I can't sign off without mentioning our fantastic guide for the last two days. She speaks beautiful English (and German and Croatian) and actually did an internship at the Broadmore Hotel in Colorado Springs for 18 months back in 2001. Her name is Gordana Rojnic Gruber in Rovinj, Croatia. We called her Goga! Much easier!😊. If you ever come to Croatia, you would NOT be disappointed if you used her as a guide! Excellent! Very knowledgeable and entertaining with just the right amount of information! We all Highly recommend her.