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September 16th to 23rd, Novigrad, Croatia
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After a wonderful week
of decadence at Le Meridien Hotel with Gran and Gramps
Fisher, we sadly said good bye and returned to a more
normal cruising environment. Funnily enough, despite
over a thousand islands with isolated anchorages, we
seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time at the
dock in Croatia. Three months in Italy with a
fraction of the choices, and we spent a total of a week
in marinas. Out of six weeks in Croatia, we spent
one week at the dock in Split dealing with the repair of
our windlass, one week riding out some nasty weather in
Sibenik, and one week with mom and dad at their hotel.
Aside from the week in Split, we were happy with our
circumstances. Hobie even got free reign at the
hotel dock. He wound up injuring his uninitiated
little paws on the rough concrete of the dock and
seawall, but he loved the freedom of his expanded
territory.
With a forecast calling
for winds out of the south, we headed north to Pula,
where we spent another few days at the dock in nasty
weather. Although it turns out anchoring is an
option in the well protected harbor, none of our charts
indicated this so we wound up at the marina. When
Twice Eleven showed up and dropped the hook, we were a
little miffed that we hadn't done the same. The
flip side is the easy on and off the boat without having
to endure a wet dinghy ride in 30 knots of wind.
Pula is at the southern
point of the Istrian peninsula of Croatia. This
area was very much part and parcel of the Holy Roman
Empire back in its day. The spectacular Roman
Amphitheater in Pula provided overwhelming evidence.
Although not as big as the Coliseum in Rome, it is in
much better shape and much more pleasant to visit with
only a handful of other tourists as opposed to the
hordes that descend upon the Coliseum every day.
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The girls loved
listening to the audio guide's description of the life
of a gladiator and the "games" that used to be held
here. Scattered throughout the rest of town were
the odd triumphal arch, temple or statue.
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We enjoyed our visit to
this little city, exploring the downtown area with both
its modern and historic attractions.
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But at the first hint
of good weather, we left the dock for a few well
deserved days at anchor. We found a little island
15 miles north and dropped the hook there for a couple
of nights. Although a little chilly, the water was
clear and inviting and we enjoyed what might just be our
last swim of the season. We'll have to see what
the water is like in Greece.
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We knew we would have
to officially check out of Croatia before heading back
to Italy, and we had a number of different ports we
could visit to accomplish this. We elected
Novigrad and were happy for the choice. The
officials were friendly and the whole procedure took
just five minutes. Although there was some talk of
just leaving without checking out, mostly since we
weren't sure if we would be stopping back in the country
on our way back south, we decided it was best to do
everything by the book, even if it meant checking back
in at a later date.
We left Croatia with
mixed emotions, certain we had missed many worthwhile
places to visit. We were very pleasantly surprised
by the food, having braced ourselves for disappointment
after leaving Italy. Although the ice cream cannot
hold a candle to Italian gelato, and we generally stayed
away from the pastas on the menu, we found lots of good
dishes to eat. Joe became obsessed with "punjenje
paprike" (stuffed peppers) after finding them at an out
of the way diner in Sibenik. The whole family
loved them. Unfortunately, our discovery came
at the end of pepper season and they proved impossible
to find elsewhere. After asking at every possible
restaurant, tourist office and marina, even approaching
the bread delivery van to see if he might know of one of
the restaurants he delivers to that might serve them, I
finally broke out my recipe books and made them for us.
With a little refinement of my recipe, I'm confident we
will never again be forced to roam the streets in search
of a restaurant that serves stuffed peppers.
Next Entry >>>>>>>
Many thanks to our friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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