Rovinj, Croatia

After our two days in Plitvice Lakes, we headed about 4.5 hours west to Rovinj, Croatia.  (Pronounced Rov-een.)

Rovinj is located right on the Adriatic Sea in the Istrian Peninsula and it is still an active fishing port.  For a while it was under Venetian rule and almost 98% of the people that lived there spoke Italian, but is part of Croatia again now.  The oldest part of the town (pictured below) was once an island, until they filled in the canal next to it in 1763.

We ate breakfast at a little café type place overlooking the harbor.  I ordered a hot chocolate and they gave it to me in a Christmas mug.  Haha!  The guy even said Merry Christmas when he gave it to me.  =)  Abbie had a minor major meltdown and had to go back to the car for a bit, but she was ready for a picture with daddy when they got back.  And Ben zonked out during breakfast.

Here’s a typical European breakfast.  They usually have slices of meats and cheeses with bread.  Yes, that is raw bacon in the picture on the right.  I didn’t eat any of it.  Those eggs, however…  I don’t know what they put in them, but they were fantastic!  Abbie ate most of them.

After breakfast we took a few pictures with the good view in the background.  It really is a beautiful city.  The person that took the family picture for us obviously wasn’t big into photography since the old town part is behind our heads and it looks like I’m sitting on a boat.  Oh well.  Better than nothing!

After breakfast we drove around for a good half hour trying to find a bike rental place, which turned out to be 3 minutes from where we ate breakfast.  Go figure.  Abbie loved the bike ride, which was fun, and Ben loved it too, so much that he fell asleep.

The views on the bike ride were beautiful.  There is a huge park just south of old town Rovinj that has lots of walking and biking trails right along the coast.  The coast in Croatia is typically very rocky, but people just go lay on the rocks, which doesn’t look comfortable to me, but it is beautiful.

We decided to stop at this “beach” area to let Abbie play in the water for a bit.

She had a great time looking for the tiny hermit crabs that were everywhere.

And then we tried to get a family photo on the beach, which turned into a disaster.  I didn’t bring the remote shutter release for my camera, so I put it on timer and then ran across the water, trying not to fall on my butt on the slippery rocks, to get into the picture.  First time I didn’t make it.  Tries 2-6 Abbie wasn’t cooperating and I was about ready to strangle her, and then we gave up.  This was the best of them.

After naps, we headed back down to Old Town to check it out.  Abbie lead the way, as usual.

The port was very pretty.  I’m still not sure how they get out to the boats though.  Do they just jump from boat to boat until they get to theirs or what?

I wanted to look at these paintings since Mark and I like to get artwork at some of the places we visit.  Mark didn’t really want to at first, but then he ended up wanting to buy one of them.  They are all original art, which was neat, so we added to our collection.  It’s currently being framed.

This is what the typical menu looks like at restaurants around Rovinj.  Lots of fish since it’s a port city.

Abbie always manages to find the animals and then we have to pry her away from them.

We hiked up to the top of the top where the church is located.  The views on the way up were beautiful, but it was a bit of a hike pushing the kids in the stroller.

We walked down a different way that was more through the town, instead of around the outside of it.  It was neat because the street was all cobblestone and lined with little shops everywhere.

Abbie has to throw money into every fountain she sees now.  We created a bad habit with her when we let her do it once.

Next we decided to eat.  Many restaurants in touristy areas in Europe have picture menus, and then have descriptions in the native language, English, Germany and Italian usually, sometimes French also.

Here’s what we ate.  That salad in the middle is a Greek salad, and I usually don’t like them, but it was REALLY good.  It had some sort of sheep’s cheese, which I always think they mean goat cheese.  But I don’t really like goat cheese, I don’t think, so maybe it is sheep cheese?  Whatever it was, it was amazing and we all loved it.  (My boys don’t look alike at all….)

No one makes him laugh like she does.

After dinner we walked back to the car and took some sunset photos.  Rovinj is a really pretty place and I hope we get to explore more of it some day.