istra / istria / istrien, HR - 03/2022

our visit to the croatian part (pula area) of istria in february war so nice, that we decided to come back just a month later as long as i can work online and don't have to go to my office yet 😄

our croatian and foreign stops this time? as i had to work all day, we usually only could walk during my lunch break in the nearby cape kamenjak nature area, swim in the ice cold sea for 40 - 60 seconds (however, almost each day ☃️), go for dinner in the evening and walk around the restaurants in the particular village a little bit 😂. only on weekend we could visit few interesting small old cities and the mountains of the ucka NP.

• koper (capodistria), SI ~ slovenian part of the istrian peninsula
• premantura (promontore) + almost all villages near there: pomer (saragossa), banjole (bagnole), volme, pjescana uvala (this beautiful and most likely expensive bay area is already a suburb of pula (pola)), sisan (sissano), vinkuran, cape kamenjak (rt kamenjak, capo promontore) + the beautiful adriatic sea (adria)
  
• fazana (fasana) - the fisher village with our favorite restaurant in istria 'stara konoba' (=old pub)
• groznjan (grisignana) - the artists' village
• zavrsje (piemonte d'istria) - this was a really sad experience, indeed. according to wikipedia, from over 1,000 in 1931, today there are only 47 inhabitants left. why? well, after WWII the most italian families left istria as it became part of yugoslavia, you know? there was so much destruction, castle ruines, empty old houses ruines, wild looking cats and two school girls playing and cycling in the empty streets. btw, our car was also the one and only visitor at the parking place in front of the renovated church below the city
• umag (umago) ~ that's the city from where i fled from socialist block to the west in 1988 ~ refugee
  
• ucka NP, mount vojak (=soldier) 1401m. we've had a nice hiking tour at the summit and walked also on the educational trial through the beech forest (buchenwald). on the northern hillsites there still was snow ⛄ and we ony have had 1 - 2 degrees celsius up there, my dears
  
• the smallest city in the world, hum (colmo, cholm) close to buzet with only 30 inhabitants
• piran (pirano), SLO ~ slovenian part of the istrian peninsula
• trieste, IT - we did not really visit triest this time as we choosed to learn s.th. about piran, SI. okay, i was too stingy to buy the slovenian highway bill (15 €uros) as the highway around the city of koper is maybe only 10 - 15km long. thus we had to take the hill & coast road from koper via muggia (IT) and trieste (IT) to the highway trieste - udine. of course, we have drunk a cappuccino and a coffee at the highway testaurant, so you will find a sunset picture over the bay of trieste in my google fotos album. the above link shows our visit to trieste in 2021. i put that link here just to show ya, that the beautiful istrian peninsula is part of 3 independent countries today: croatia HR / slovenia SI / italy  IT 😄
  
• oberdrauburg, kärnten, AT - castle ruines und hiking in austria

istra / istria / istrien (source wikipedia commons)

and yes, there were few cities and beautiful architecture, too 😉

groznjan

let's move to zavrsje, both the beautiful and sad remaining of former times:

umag:

fazana:

hum, probably the smallest city in the world with only 30 inhabitants:

sunset .... our earth is FLAT, you see? 🤣

ucka NP

more pictures here.

pictures + insights from 3+3 weeks in croatia in 2021 here 😄.