A Lot Like Life: Going Coastal Part 2: Poreč

After Pula we traveled a little farther North on the coast to Poreč, Croatia. This town was so wonderful and beautiful and the people were so nice everywhere we went. Poreč has an old downtown area on a peninsula and walking trails and resorts that go for several km up the beaches. The beaches here are like tide pools, with rocky areas but it's very cool because they have stairs carved into the rocks that lead straight into the water! There are even railings that look like pool stairs but they go right into the ocean! Not that we could go swimming because it was freezing but we loved it anyway :)

The downtown area is full of cute little windy streets with great buildings and cobblestones. It's pretty small so you can walk from one end to the other in a pretty short time and when you reach the edge you are greeted with a wonderful view and a waterfront walkway that wraps around the whole peninsula! It has cute streetlamps all along it and it was like finding treasure when we first came across it. We were so impressed, it was gorgeous!

After walking around for awhile, we stopped at a cute little cafe that we ended up frequenting because we liked it so much, but which also had bombus! I had never had one before but I had heard about them being popular in Spain... Bombus is a drink that combines red wine and Coca Cola. It was kinda odd tasting, like the two weren't even really mixing but you would get a taste of one and then the other. Erin didn't like it at all, and I still can't decide whether I like it or not. Guess I'll just have to visit Spain and try another one.

Kathleen playing invisible beer pong at the tables in the park.

The next day we went for a walk along the coastline which was beautiful. The woman we rented the apartment in Poreč from told us we should head North from the downtown area to walk along the ocean because the views were amazing, and our decision was also helped when we read on the map she gave us that there was a beach called Plava Laguna, which of course we had to see! (If you know what movie Plava Laguna is from that's right, 5 points for you!). So off we went.

Here's a few pictures from the coast.

Here's some of the stairs that end in the sea

The terrain here is so cool with forested areas going right up to the coast line, so the sidewalks along the ocean are shaded, and no sand to get all over everything, pretty much the best of both worlds! Also, the way the water sounds as it rushes through the tide pools in the rocks is really calming, we probably could have just sat down and watched it for hours, but we were determined to reach Plava Laguna before it got dark so we kept on our way.

They have really cool pine cones that look like flowers

We found a water park! Totally normal.

We did have to stop for awhile when we found this though. I guess there's a few underwater caves in the rocks here, you can see the water go into them from the bottom of the stairs. But when the water hits the back of the cave it comes up through a hole in the ground like a huge fountain! I got sprayed a couple times waiting to take a picture of it from the top, but it was awesome so I didn't care. Sorry about the video, Erin was talking vertical pictures and forgot to flip it when she took a video, and its a little long since it takes awhile for the water to splash up, but I thought I'd add it in case you want to see it in action.

We found a dive shop! Maybe we can come back in the summer and go diving. We could see the bottom through the crystal clear water, but decided it might be a tad to chilly to go at the moment.

After walking for like two and a half hours we figured the distances on the map were probably a lot farther than what we thought, as we still had not made it to our intended destination, but we thought we would go around one more peninsula and if we didn't find it we would turn back.

But eventually we made it! Now if you didn't guess what movie it's from look at my hand for a clue, but that's all you get! (Okay one more, think big blue [hence plava- blue in Croatian] Opera Singer)

More stairs that end in the sea!

Sea Birds

We finished off our sightseeing for the day with the Roman Ruins and the old Cathedral on the downtown

Peninsula. The Temple was just in the middle of the town, surrounded by houses and shops, only identified
by one little sign. It wasn't the most well preserved of places, but it was cool to see the ancient building there still surviving and standing.

The Cathedral was wonderful. The tower sticks above all the other parts of town and you can see it in many of the pictures we took from the beaches up the coast. It has elaborate mosaics all over the walls and was a beautiful and peaceful place to visit.