Day 26 (Rovinj)

It was a nice quiet night without the Beast. We both slept good and feel rested, finally. The weather is 68 and no wind. Sounds like a good day to satisfy the swim. If I get stung by a jellyfish then at least I get a free drink. Fingers crossed!

A few minutes later Lori sent me an article about the excessive amount of jelly fish in the Rovinj area. They are also stinging and causing skin irritation. That is all I need to hear. The swim is off. It is not worth taking a chance to only end up getting a free drink. I am bummed because I really wanted to swim out there.

Today is another lazy day and we keep talking about extending our trip here in Rovinj. We are thinking about staying another 4-5 days. We love the apartment and the city of Rovinj! We will be deciding at some point today.

Lori is looking forward to doing some more shopping at this jewelry store that is about 100 ft from our door. She has been talking to Sophia about some bracelets that she thought she might like. The “Nazi hat” for Chase was a bust so maybe we will do better with Sophia. There are jewelry stores everywhere but Lori really likes this one. The nice thing is that she can go by herself and I don’t have to wait outside. I can wait in the apartment. Lori loses track of time in a jewelry store and I think that she forgets about me standing outside for 30-60 minutes while she tries on every bracelet in the shop.

We decided to go to this “cute” cafe that we found on one of the first days in Rovinj. It is in an alley somewhere in the middle of Old Town. I am pretty sure that I know where it is but it may take some trial and error to find again. Of course that means potentially risking exposure to a jewelry or sundress store. I try to keep her distracted when I see them up ahead. Unfortunately the bling seems to win out and there I am guarding again. It seems that even when I am standing against a wall someone always tries to squeeze between me and the wall. Why is that? Just go around! Another frustration of standing guard. I always seem to be in the way of star gazing tourists.

After about 4 Jewelry stores and a couple of pass through clothing stores we found the cafe. There is a guy with his lap dog sitting next to the doorway chain smoking. Everyone smokes over here. We can’t tell if he is 60 or 90 yrs old. We take a seat outside and Lori satisfies her coffee addiction and I have a glass of wine. No addiction….yet. It is right on a narrow alley way with some good tourist watching. We were hoping for a more favorable wind direction but the cigarette smoke consumed us. By the time the guy left we were discussing washing our clothes and buying a pack of cigarettes. A lot of people who live here have dogs and they are very well behaved. The walk right next to the owner without a leash and don’t seem to be bothered by anybody passing by. They are obviously seasoned to the area. You can tell which dog owners are visitors because their dogs go crazy every time they pass another dog. After a few drinks, we decided to stay another night since it will be raining all day tomorrow.

At about 4 pm we started to discuss dinner plans. We really like the Bookeria for Tuna steak and Squid but feel like we have to give some other restaurants a chance. There is a book in our apartment that has several dinner suggestions. We decided on a restaurant (Maestro) that is a little past the Ice Cream district. That way we can have some dessert on the way back. The restaurant was right on the bay with a perfect sunset view. We were lucky enough to get a table for 2 right on the edge of the bay. The menu did not have pictures but the reviews were excellent. I like to see a picture of what I am about to order. Lori ordered the Tuna Steak and I ordered stuffed Squid. It seems that we have found our favorite food since we keep ordering it. Lori’s Tuna steak came and was about half the thickness of the one at the Bookeria. Hers tasted like fish so she only ate the potatoes and left the Tuna steak. Mine came with 2 baby squids stuffed with some shrimp and something else. Neither meal was what we were hoping for. They ended up not charging us for the Tuna steak which redeemed them a little.

On the way back we stopped at a Gelato (italian ice cream) shop. We received a little tip about Gelato when we were in Italy 2 years ago. The way to know if it is good Gelato is by the case that it is displayed in. If the Gelato is in a variety of colors visually presented in trays then it is NOT the good Gelato. If it is in covered stainless steel, individually stored containers then it is the GOOD stuff. They are usually hard to find and usually have a line so it must not be a secret. Lori got a double scoop of 2 different flavors. I had my thoughts on a homemade ice cream place that had a large selection of sundaes. I chose the cookie sundae which had 3 scoops of ice cream, small cookies and a mountain of whip cream. We tried to time it out to see the sunset again but I think it may have taken me too long to eat my ice cream. We missed it.

We decided to stop for a glass of wine at one of the wine bars next to our apartment. They are like a skinny bar with very little seating. It was getting cold outside as it was starting to get dark. We wanted to sit inside to shelter from the wind since there was not sunset to see. We approached the lady and asked for seating for 2. The bar was empty with lots of seating but the tables and chairs must have been displays because she said that there was only seating outside? We looked inside and were puzzled as to why we could not sit inside. There was no plastic on the seats and it looked inviting but she stood at the door like a 7ft bouncer and would not let us pass. We think that the inside seating is reserved for eating customers. Even after I said that my wife would like to be out of the cold, she would not budge. Weird!? We come across this every so often and have found that they reserve seating and will leave the tables empty just waiting for the reservations to show up. I think that it has to do with the wait staff being on salary and not working for tips. They don’t try to fill in vacancies to make more money or maybe they are not in a hurry to eat and move like we do in the US. We did find a place back in Vienna that let us fill in for about an hour while they waited for the people with reservations to arrive. That seems to make more sense as we usually only stay for an hour tops. It appears that when someone sits at a table they can have it for the day and the restaurant does not care. They never rush you by bringing the bill or asking if you need anything else. We always have to go and ask for the bill so that we can move on.

We decided against sitting outside and left. We have 2 bottles of wine at our apartment and decided to have some while we wound down and watched some TV. We called our friend Harold (Coop) to see how he is doing. He is a combat vet that we have become really good friends with and care about very much. He sent us a picture of him at the casino and yes he looked like he was loving life!