Just when the weather was starting to appeal to us in Opatija, it was time to pull up stakes from the Imperial Hotel and head out on the road again. We had a lunch reservation in Pula and of course wanted to spend time in the nice weather (despite the effective A/C in the rental car).

Größere Kartenansicht

But try as we might, we couldn’t get onto the highway in Opatija. I suspect this was a combination of several factors:

• Roads in Opatija were all in good shape — even up in the hilly residential areas — so they might have been newer than our GPS. The road we were trying to get on might not have been a limited-access highway at that point along the coast in the recent past.
• It was giving us instructions like “turn right in 20 meters” at places where there were 2 or 3 different possible right turns. As a result, there was a lot of back-tracking and hanging of u-turns.
• I tended to follow the GPS’ instructions more than the local signage, based on successes thus far, and this proved to be unreliable for getting out of Opatija, at least.

So we eventually gave up and just looked for signs pointing to Pula and ended up taking the long(er) way there along the coast. It was a nice drive up and down the hills along the shore.

We got to Pula and drove past the place for lunch. We still managed to get there a little bit ahead of our reservation, but therefore didn’t have time for much more than a stroll around the marina area. Lunch turned out to be a glorious four-hour affair, with a combination of prix-fixe menus for the omnivores and on-the-fly, yet perfectly coordinated à la carte options for those in our party with more detailed requirements. The service and presentation were both impeccable. I only had one glass of a local prosecco, right at the start as an aperitif, being the driver, but I wish I’d had more — the local wines were great. There was a big emphasis on wild asparagus in all the courses — in a risotto; in a little scrambled eggs tasting dish; in a cool, spreadable paste. Really yummy stuff in terms of flavor and texture. Desserts were equally exciting: red wine ice cream with fig cream (Sarah), a polenta/honey/cream parfait (Scott and I), fennel ice cream with a chocolate soufflé (Jul…and that would have been my second choice). This meal was certainly an experience all its own.

Eventually we got to Rovinj without incident and were a little confused by the gates to the old town and the parking lots just outside it. Our GPS led us pretty much right to the Casa Garzotto, but for the last few meters where the names of the streets became unclear. We checked in there, got the keys to the apartment around the corner we’d rented and got moving, exploring the old town and the seaside at dusk. I was squirrelly about handing over the key to the rental car, so the hotel’s porter Steve (that’s how he introduced himself) could move it to a parking spot elsewhere in Rovinj — but in the end, I found out it didn’t matter much because they didn’t have a reserved parking spot available for our car anyway (they expected their parking connection would find one eventually, but I guess he never did). So we left it in the public lot overnight and Casa Garzotto picked up the tab the next day when we were ready to depart Rovinj. Steve and I guided the car through the city gates into the old town, and then he expertly loaded our stuff back in — much better than we ourselves had done — and shepherded us back out of the old town via his Razor.

Suffice it to say that Rovinj has just about all the charm and friendliness you could imagine, whether marveling at the ancient apartment buildings, sharing a bottle of wine on the rocks with friends (and fairly bold fiddler crabs) as the sun goes down, taking a mid-morning coffee break on a veranda over the clear blue harbor and under the clear blue sky, or strolling the edge of the old town in search of lunch or gelato.