mayo 03, 2010

pula & brijuni national park

Last Sunday, we woke up extremely early and went on a trip to Pula and Brijuni islands, in the Istrian peninsula, at the west of Croatia, quite near Italy. Between Zagreb and Istria you have 'Gorski kotar', a mountainous region with beautiful woods and lakes (šime i jezera, in croatian). It's higher and wetter than the rest of the country, so in winter (zima) it's quite cold and you have a lot of snow there. It would be a fantastic place for camping and easy living, if there were not wild hungry bears around. Anyway, you'd enjoy a fantastic stay before being their lunch.
A long tunnel separates this region from Istria, after wich weather can change drastically, as you can see in the pictures. One hour and a half later you get to Pula, a beautiful little city on the coast of the Adriatic sea (Jadransko more), in the extreme south of the peninsula. It has one of the few coliseums (arena) in the world, and some extremely friendly cuasi-italian population. After walking through the city, we crossed the Fažana strait on a ferry to get to Veli Brijuni, the bigger island of the Brijuni archipielago. It was one of Tito's residences (former president of Yugoslavia)... wise guy. It has a little zoo, with an elephant and some zebras, and an olive tree 1600 years old, but it still looks nice.
The crossing of the strait was, for me, one of the most beautiful moments of the trip. I wish it would have last more, but it's a very short strait.
Ok, here go the pictures. See you later!
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1. on our way / Gorski kotar landscape
2. on our way / After crossing the tunnel, in Istria side
3. on our way / going down to Pula
4+5. around Pula
6+7. around Pula, looking at the Colisieum
8+9. around Pula, again.
10, 11, 12 + 13. before, meanwhile and after crossing the Fažana strait.
14. Brijuni islands, big map
15. around Veli Brijuni
16. excursion around in a tiny bus, Veli Brijuni. at the center, Najwa from Jordan. at her right, Ignacio from Argentina. in front of her, little bit to the right, Vjollca from Albania (but she lives in Macedonia and studies in Kosovo).
17. taking pictures feverishly to everything that moves.
18. where are we?

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mayo 02, 2010

"Tazi Tazi", from Let 3

a new one for my "Absolutely Top Ten"



thanks Tomislav for the recommendation
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