Lori and Troy do Europe 2025

Breakfast was uneventful. We arrived early and had a pretty good selection of chow including donuts. We are renting a car for the next 2 weeks and are picking it up today at 11am. The pickup location is about 2 miles away so we called an Uber. Hopefully I will not forget my train lessons.

We rented a Fiat 500 which is one step above a Smart Car. I wanted something small because lanes are narrow and parking can be tight. Lori thinks that because we are dropping the car in a different location that it is a good opportunity for them to ditch their garbage cars. The guy at the rental car company was happy to tell us that he did not have the car that we originally ordered but he would upgrade us for free. Awesome! Maybe an Alpha Romeo or a Mini Cooper I’m thinking. Then we are taken to our upgrade. It is a happy looking bright green Suzuki Swift. #%^#^! That was not at all what I was expecting and Lori was right again. They want to dump this car on the next car rental place. I would not be caught dead in this car at home. After breaking from my disgusted stare I turned to see the guy backing out of his parking spot and disappearing into traffic. Well it’s ours now. It is surprisingly spacious but beeps at you if you go 1 mph over or under the speed limit. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to turn it off!!

We drove down the coast looking for “cuteness”. We were told by the customer service guy at the train station about a small town that he was from. Moscenicka Drago is a really nice little town and a must see. It is a walking town so you have to pay to park and then walk into town. It is a short walk but worth it. It is located on a small bay with lots of fishing boats and a nice view of Cres island. It feels like a small quiet spring break area with everything located on a pebble beach. There is a nice promenade (walkway along the ocean) with lots of really nice houses, beautiful views and lots of places to swim. Also, lots of cafés and beach areas with “cute” little restaurants that are right along the beach. Make sure that you pay for your parking before you approach the gate arm or you will not get out and it will cause a very long line of upset Croatians.

About 30 min down the coast is another gem, Rabac. The drive is winding but well worth it. It is a another fishing village with a large resort hotel on the inside corner of the bay with a peninsula jetting out on both sides of the bay. One side is all forest but the other side has a really nice promenade with many “super cute” shops, cafes and restaurants. There is a small carnival like train that runs from one end at the resort hotel to a beach at other end along the Adriatic Sea. The beaches are made of small stones, not sand. People still lay out as if it were sand.

We continued driving along the coast with spectacular views both inland with the rock faced mountains and the shore with cliffs and royal blue waters with an occasional yacht or sailboat. We arrived in Pula where we considered staying the Grand Hotel Radisson. It was a beautiful hotel but it was away from town on a peninsula. The views were amazing but it did not have a warm feeling. Everyone was scattered around as if they were better than the others. There were no cafes or restaurants to walk to but there were a lot of nature walks and an Aquarium within walking distance. A nice place if you want seclusion but not if you like a more immersive feel.

We toured town which appears to be a major shipping port with lots of cranes for off loading ships. The town of Pula was a Roman strong hold at one time with monuments, temples and a really cool colosseum. It is the 5th largest colosseum in the Roman Empire. It is also one of the best preserved and sits next to the Adriatic Sea which makes for some awesome pictures. This town is more of a large city than a place that you would want to stay long term.

This ended up being a shorter stop than we thought. We decided to drive back on the more inland road which ended up being a turnpike with tolls. It was still a beautiful drive with many mountains and scenic valleys. We arrived at a mountain face with a pretty impressive entrance to a tunnel. This tunnel is enormous and just opened on Sept 25th. They are still building the road on the Opatjia side of the tunnel so there is a bottle neck there but once you are past that the tunnel traffic flows freely. The stats say that it is over 3 miles long but it felt more like 10. This is a 2 lane tunnel in both directions with 2 separate tubes. It is well lighted and there are cut throughs that are closed off by large garage doors. This will be on the Amazing Marvels Show someday.

After the tunnel came a mountain road that I’m sure is in the top ten motorcycle rides for this region. I included a picture of google maps below. We didn’t reach this part of the drive until dark so we missed some of the views but it appears to be the only road from the tunnel to our hotel. This tunnel is going to open up a lot of traffic to this peninsula.

We arrived back at the hotel completely exhausted and considering a lazy day for tomorrow. We still have more places to see in this Istria Peninsula. So we will see.