HOP IN RIJEKA AND OFF TO THE ISLANDS
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| boarding time for the Islands, Rijeka |
The city has a rich past with the Trsat castle perched on a hill next to Our Lady of Trsat which is the destination of a pilgrimage to the Holy Mary. Following a visit to that church from the Pope John Paul II, a bronze statue representing him kneeling was erected in front of the church to mark the event and highlight the importance of Mary of Trsat who is revered by seamen as the Queen of the Adriatic or the Star of the Sea. Inside the castle's courtyard, next to a mausoleum looking like a Roman temple, was a café with a breathtaking view over the Kvarner bay. The café was apparently a place popular at night for cocktails and party.
In the town centre, close to the sea, elegant buildings have been constructed during the Austro-Hungarian period. A lot of coloured facades adorned with stone carvings or clay mouldings are conveying an air of distinction to the city. Yet many buildings are still dilapidated either awaiting repair or transformation. Signs of the times, the Gentlemen's Shop, a barber and taylor has added tattoos to its collection of services indispensable to the perfect Fiumian (meaning from Rijeka) gentleman.
A section of the center has been upgraded in an intriguing mixture of old buildings rehabilitated with modern additions like the konoba primorska. It is a traditional inn in front of which a veranda looking like a cube of glass has been added as a standalone building in lieu of the terrace. I had there my first ink fish risotto, or risotto nero which I enjoyed very much just like my black tainted smile afterwards.
We had dinner at Mornar, right by the harbour. Lovely marinated sardines and grilled tuna with swiss chard was my selection. Kvarner cuisine was definitely oriented towards seafood. Sardins would be my staple food for picnic over the next few weeks. It was interesting to see how easy it was to find good sardines in tins in all local supermarket while in Italy all one could hope to get was tuna.
We used our time in Rijeka to shop for new pairs of mountain shoes. Despite the fact that we were done with mountains as such, the islands that we planned to visit, are essentially made of limestone and require good walking shoes. We went to a specialized shop where the owner wore the very shoes he would recommend to customers. A good selling argument usually. The morning market next to the city's park was very colourful and quite busy. Fruits, dry fruits, vegetables and flowers were on display outside while meat, cheese, wine and fish were inside a beautiful 19th century hall. It was the season for plums and mandarins.
In the town centre, close to the sea, elegant buildings have been constructed during the Austro-Hungarian period. A lot of coloured facades adorned with stone carvings or clay mouldings are conveying an air of distinction to the city. Yet many buildings are still dilapidated either awaiting repair or transformation. Signs of the times, the Gentlemen's Shop, a barber and taylor has added tattoos to its collection of services indispensable to the perfect Fiumian (meaning from Rijeka) gentleman.
A section of the center has been upgraded in an intriguing mixture of old buildings rehabilitated with modern additions like the konoba primorska. It is a traditional inn in front of which a veranda looking like a cube of glass has been added as a standalone building in lieu of the terrace. I had there my first ink fish risotto, or risotto nero which I enjoyed very much just like my black tainted smile afterwards.
We had dinner at Mornar, right by the harbour. Lovely marinated sardines and grilled tuna with swiss chard was my selection. Kvarner cuisine was definitely oriented towards seafood. Sardins would be my staple food for picnic over the next few weeks. It was interesting to see how easy it was to find good sardines in tins in all local supermarket while in Italy all one could hope to get was tuna.
We used our time in Rijeka to shop for new pairs of mountain shoes. Despite the fact that we were done with mountains as such, the islands that we planned to visit, are essentially made of limestone and require good walking shoes. We went to a specialized shop where the owner wore the very shoes he would recommend to customers. A good selling argument usually. The morning market next to the city's park was very colourful and quite busy. Fruits, dry fruits, vegetables and flowers were on display outside while meat, cheese, wine and fish were inside a beautiful 19th century hall. It was the season for plums and mandarins.
In 2009, a Serbian friend told me that it was time to hurry and buy an island in Croatia because many had been sold already. This enthusiasm, nuanced by the fact that one should make sure the island had its own water supply and that the seller had proper ownership rights to do so, did not convince me that, should I ever have the money, I should go ahead and buy my own Croatian island. However I made a mental note that I should check those islands out.
Nine years later, I was on a Jadrolina ferry from Rijeka to Čres town (pronounced tseress) to explore my first Croatian island, obviously not for sale because it is uninhabited by a few thousand people and nearly hundred kilometers long. From the ferry, Čres looked like one of those deserted islands, covered with scrub and stones. The shore was rocky and rather uninviting until we entered the bay where Čres town is hiding from the main seas. It was a collection of pastel colored houses with terracotta roofs. It looked touristic but the main tourist flow had already dried and gone back to work. Only retired people were sipping drinks at café terraces preferably in the sun because the air was cold. The Bora, a local wind, was blowing icily, making one forget at times that the sun was still an early autumn one.
Pointed ears revolving around a spit above red charcoal attracted my attention. A whole piglet was being roasted in the outdoor barbecue pit of the konoba Kumpanija. Twice a week a piglet is roasted and served with roasted potatoes in that restaurant. This one was really delicious with its caramelized skin and well accompanied by an Istrian cabernet sauvignon.
Before that dinner we had taken a walk to the lighthouse at the entrance of the bay. The sunset was intense as the bora had swept nearly every cloud out of the sky. We had to keep our eyes nearly closed as we walked against the sun. Most food bungalows along the seashore promenade were closed, but near the lighthouse, a camping was buzzing, mostly with German pensioners. At the bar facing the golden sea, couples were sipping beers, white wine or just some coffee possibly with some tiramisu, all resolutely facing the sun, like sunflower fellows. A black dog approached the terrace carrying its own beach carpet in its mouth while its leash was dragging behind. The dog preceded an elderly couple. The woman took the carpet from the dog's mouth and they sat at the next table. We were obviously the youngest of the sun soaking customers on the terrace.
Nine years later, I was on a Jadrolina ferry from Rijeka to Čres town (pronounced tseress) to explore my first Croatian island, obviously not for sale because it is uninhabited by a few thousand people and nearly hundred kilometers long. From the ferry, Čres looked like one of those deserted islands, covered with scrub and stones. The shore was rocky and rather uninviting until we entered the bay where Čres town is hiding from the main seas. It was a collection of pastel colored houses with terracotta roofs. It looked touristic but the main tourist flow had already dried and gone back to work. Only retired people were sipping drinks at café terraces preferably in the sun because the air was cold. The Bora, a local wind, was blowing icily, making one forget at times that the sun was still an early autumn one.
Pointed ears revolving around a spit above red charcoal attracted my attention. A whole piglet was being roasted in the outdoor barbecue pit of the konoba Kumpanija. Twice a week a piglet is roasted and served with roasted potatoes in that restaurant. This one was really delicious with its caramelized skin and well accompanied by an Istrian cabernet sauvignon.
Before that dinner we had taken a walk to the lighthouse at the entrance of the bay. The sunset was intense as the bora had swept nearly every cloud out of the sky. We had to keep our eyes nearly closed as we walked against the sun. Most food bungalows along the seashore promenade were closed, but near the lighthouse, a camping was buzzing, mostly with German pensioners. At the bar facing the golden sea, couples were sipping beers, white wine or just some coffee possibly with some tiramisu, all resolutely facing the sun, like sunflower fellows. A black dog approached the terrace carrying its own beach carpet in its mouth while its leash was dragging behind. The dog preceded an elderly couple. The woman took the carpet from the dog's mouth and they sat at the next table. We were obviously the youngest of the sun soaking customers on the terrace.
The camping was hosting mobile homes primarily and camping cars packed front to back along the beach front. Two women were busy setting-up wooden tables and benches, the same as those in a German Biergarten, for a giant beach barbecue on a concrete platform that protruded in the water and which was used as a beach during the day. They were making sure the tables were spotless. The menu involved three of four fares, among those grilled sausage and grilled mackerel.
The next morning, the old town was slowly waking up under a bright sun made more bright by the bora that was still blowing over the island. The sky was impeccably blue and so was the sea, albeit a shade darker. A few people, mostly men, sat at terraces for coffee, their breakfast ritual. We bought dry figs perfumed with dry laurel leaves, a local delicacy, from a man selling as well yellow mandarins. We were not alone to shop at the mini-market located on a square within the old town. In front of the butcher, a women told us that a crew was filming inside, so we couldn't get in for the time being. However she went in, to act as a local customer while the film assistant was telling the butcher how to hand over bags to customers over the counter.
We left town in the direction of the South, passing through the rather deserted sailing harbour and then further on along the bay where terraced olive groves were planted pretty much all the way down to Osor, the town that marks by a bridge the separation with the island of Lošinj. There were a few spots fitted out as concrete beach, each of them had instructions about who could access. Those barred for nudists, those barred for dogs, and so on... The soil had a thin upper layer of brown earth, but limestone is actually constituting most of the ground and therefore a nearly unlimited supply to build dry-stone walls all over the island as material delimitation of land ownership but also as enclosure for sheep herds. Thinking about it, it must have been a huge work to build and maintain all those walls.
We reached the top of the hill from which we could guess the outline of Valun, a small fishing village. The view of the dark blue sea, the silvery green blanket of olive tree foliage and the white stony path made me think of Ulysses and its Odysseus across the Mediterranean sea. Many trees were definitely a few centuries old considering the tormented shape of their trunks. Fig trees were also grown next to the olive trees. The air was dry, and so was the land after a long hot and dry summer. Beside olive trees, one could see Kermes oaks with their small thorny leaves and occasionally pine trees. The areas of scrubland had lots of aromatic plants like sauge, thyme...
We had rented an apartment in Valun. A young guy had been tasked to assist his mother with tourists (reception and key hand-over) which he did in a brisk manner probably to hide a bit of shyness and inexperience. We asked him if he was happy that the holiday season came to a close. He smiled and said yes, he was happy to soon be able to go back to University and party. He told us which restaurant was good to taste lamb meat from Čres. The two others were good for fish. In front of the fanciest one, a black cat was on self-imposed duty of guarding two grey armchairs padded with a white cushion decorated with red floral prints. We went early to the restaurant, the staff was finishing their own dinner but we were regardless offered to sit at a table by the fireplace. Soon other guests arrived and the room started buzzing with conversations. The lamb was alright! A party of Italians came much later. They were coming for a wedding and were from the groom's family. We had seen earlier at the entrance of the village posters advertising that the wedding of Lidija and Fabrizio would take place a couple of days later.
The wind blew more moderately the next day. We climbed to the summit of the Island, after having stopped in Lubenice, a fortified village on the west coast of Čres which offers a panoramic view on the sea and features a sheep breeding museum. One old lady, dressed in black, was walking with a stick in front of her house, she had just come from cleaning the church. She was the second person we met in the village.
In order to avoid walking on the road after leaving Lubenice, we used a small forest path that soon morphed into a stony alley framed by dry-stone walls. After a good while, we saw that the alley was blocked with thorny bushes that had been cut on purpose. For a moment, we thought we would have to turn back, but after closer inspection we managed to push aside a big chunk with our walking sticks and pass through. We will never know the real intent of the one who obstructed the way. Was it to prevent people walking on his land? Another possibility, we learnt, is that it might have been a way to prevent wild boars from entering into grazing enclosures to disturb sheep. At the island summit, we met three Germans, one of them doing research on birds in Čres. They told us that wild boars had multiplied extremely rapidly after their introduction on the island for hunting purpose. They were reportedly going as far as killing sheep, lambs in particular, that they met on their new territory to the great discomfort of farmers who are taking great care of their cattle. We saw some sheep being transported by car or at the end of a leash from one grazing place to the next. From the summit we could see the Vranska Jezero, a sweet water lake, that sits between two ranges of hills in the center Čres. It is believed that the water might come from the Velebit mountains underground below the seabed. It is not allowed to visit its shores to avoid polluting it.
The next morning, the old town was slowly waking up under a bright sun made more bright by the bora that was still blowing over the island. The sky was impeccably blue and so was the sea, albeit a shade darker. A few people, mostly men, sat at terraces for coffee, their breakfast ritual. We bought dry figs perfumed with dry laurel leaves, a local delicacy, from a man selling as well yellow mandarins. We were not alone to shop at the mini-market located on a square within the old town. In front of the butcher, a women told us that a crew was filming inside, so we couldn't get in for the time being. However she went in, to act as a local customer while the film assistant was telling the butcher how to hand over bags to customers over the counter.
We left town in the direction of the South, passing through the rather deserted sailing harbour and then further on along the bay where terraced olive groves were planted pretty much all the way down to Osor, the town that marks by a bridge the separation with the island of Lošinj. There were a few spots fitted out as concrete beach, each of them had instructions about who could access. Those barred for nudists, those barred for dogs, and so on... The soil had a thin upper layer of brown earth, but limestone is actually constituting most of the ground and therefore a nearly unlimited supply to build dry-stone walls all over the island as material delimitation of land ownership but also as enclosure for sheep herds. Thinking about it, it must have been a huge work to build and maintain all those walls.
We reached the top of the hill from which we could guess the outline of Valun, a small fishing village. The view of the dark blue sea, the silvery green blanket of olive tree foliage and the white stony path made me think of Ulysses and its Odysseus across the Mediterranean sea. Many trees were definitely a few centuries old considering the tormented shape of their trunks. Fig trees were also grown next to the olive trees. The air was dry, and so was the land after a long hot and dry summer. Beside olive trees, one could see Kermes oaks with their small thorny leaves and occasionally pine trees. The areas of scrubland had lots of aromatic plants like sauge, thyme...
We had rented an apartment in Valun. A young guy had been tasked to assist his mother with tourists (reception and key hand-over) which he did in a brisk manner probably to hide a bit of shyness and inexperience. We asked him if he was happy that the holiday season came to a close. He smiled and said yes, he was happy to soon be able to go back to University and party. He told us which restaurant was good to taste lamb meat from Čres. The two others were good for fish. In front of the fanciest one, a black cat was on self-imposed duty of guarding two grey armchairs padded with a white cushion decorated with red floral prints. We went early to the restaurant, the staff was finishing their own dinner but we were regardless offered to sit at a table by the fireplace. Soon other guests arrived and the room started buzzing with conversations. The lamb was alright! A party of Italians came much later. They were coming for a wedding and were from the groom's family. We had seen earlier at the entrance of the village posters advertising that the wedding of Lidija and Fabrizio would take place a couple of days later.
The wind blew more moderately the next day. We climbed to the summit of the Island, after having stopped in Lubenice, a fortified village on the west coast of Čres which offers a panoramic view on the sea and features a sheep breeding museum. One old lady, dressed in black, was walking with a stick in front of her house, she had just come from cleaning the church. She was the second person we met in the village.
In order to avoid walking on the road after leaving Lubenice, we used a small forest path that soon morphed into a stony alley framed by dry-stone walls. After a good while, we saw that the alley was blocked with thorny bushes that had been cut on purpose. For a moment, we thought we would have to turn back, but after closer inspection we managed to push aside a big chunk with our walking sticks and pass through. We will never know the real intent of the one who obstructed the way. Was it to prevent people walking on his land? Another possibility, we learnt, is that it might have been a way to prevent wild boars from entering into grazing enclosures to disturb sheep. At the island summit, we met three Germans, one of them doing research on birds in Čres. They told us that wild boars had multiplied extremely rapidly after their introduction on the island for hunting purpose. They were reportedly going as far as killing sheep, lambs in particular, that they met on their new territory to the great discomfort of farmers who are taking great care of their cattle. We saw some sheep being transported by car or at the end of a leash from one grazing place to the next. From the summit we could see the Vranska Jezero, a sweet water lake, that sits between two ranges of hills in the center Čres. It is believed that the water might come from the Velebit mountains underground below the seabed. It is not allowed to visit its shores to avoid polluting it.
We proceeded towards Martinšćica, and traversed Vidovići, a tiny group of dry stone houses overlooking the sea horizon. An old man was working in his garden when we came. He was visibly either bored or curious to know more about us because he offered us to drink some local spirit in response to our greetings in Croatian. Schnapps, he then said, after realizing that we had not understood him the first time.
We sadly had to decline his offer for we hoped to be able to have a swim in Martinšćica while the sun was still warm. We followed a narrow path descending along the steep slope. We had booked a room in a large hotel by the "main" road. The receptionist was very happy to have someone to talk to when we arrived, for we were the only guests that day, and he upgraded us to a room with sea view.
Down in the harbour, a couple of sailing boats were tied to the jetty. The wind wasn't really strong by the shore and the presence of a few beach goers reassured us that it was a sound idea to go for a swim and so did we on a small pebble stretch a few hundred meters East from the heart of the village. The pebbles were well polished but rather uncomfortable to walk on in and out of the water, it was easier with water shoes. A man was repairing fishing nets on his boat tied to a Y shaped piece of wood cast in the concrete of a nearby mini-jetty. He seemed to enjoy this moment of solitude very much while his wife talked to him from a window on the second floor of the house they occupied, right across the street from the beach. One could imagine a worse environment to live in. Summer was over, but there still quite a few visitors. The waterside restaurant was full at dinner time.
We left the seaside, the next morning, for the hills because there was no path following the shore in the direction of the South. The landscape changed, the vegetation morphed into a wind swept moor with a few islets of higher bushes. We had lunch in the shade of a newly built chapel. Our endeavor to reach Osor through stone paths shown on the GPS turned sour as the track stopped in the middle of thorny scrubland which was pointless to attempt crossing. We opted instead for another larger path that was meant to lead us to the main road a few kilometers ahead of Osor. It did, after having to cross a dumping ground and manoeuvring to pass over the gate by the roadside.
We had a coffee on the Venetian-styled church's square in Osor to which Ivan Meštrović, a bronze-casting artist has given some of his works to be displayed on the village's streets. We crossed the water channel that has been dug between Čres and Lošinj to allow boats to cross from East to West thus sparing a long detour around Lošinj.
We spent the night near Lopari in a large camping. We had booked a nice bungalow but hadn't realized there would be cleaning fees worth the price of a one night stay. That was the unpleasant and unexpected piece of news of the following morning. Not the only one though. The Bora was blowing strong and as we ascended the hill to walk on the crest path, in the direction of Nezerine, we had a hard time moving forward on the sharp limestone karst that formed most of the crest. We had to walk from the top of a stone to the next. The wind was so strong that even our walking sticks could fly away if we didn't hold them firmly. It took us an eternity to complete a few kilometers, snails might have been faster. We found out that goats were equally unhappy with the cold wind as we disturbed one of them, white with a long goatee hair flying in the wind, that was hiding in the wind shadow of a dry-stone wall. Fortunately we had joined the crest trail towards the end after having followed the seashore up to Sveti Jakov and therefore avoided the summit of Lošinj where the wind would have been stronger. We therefore managed to reach Čunski safely.
After that, there was no other option than walking along the road through the narrow stretch of land that leads to Mali Lošinj, the largest town of the area. The road was on the southern side of the island which was protected from the wind. It now felt like summer again. The road was squeezed between the rocky shore and a wood of thick pine trees. The reflection of the sun on the water acted like a grill on our skin. It was nearly too hot. When we reached the extremity of the long harbour we saw some guys sunbathe on their boat.
Mali Lošinj is built on the slope of the hills around the U-shaped harbour so that many houses have a harbour view. A red "Happy Hipo" semi-submarine was parked and waited for its next tour to take customers watch the seabed from inside the boat through its bottom in plexiglass. Next to it, were a couple of ancient-looking sailing boats with two or three masts used for cruises. We discovered the concept of cycling cruise. Participants can take their own bicycles along with them so that they can cycle around when the boat stops. It seemed quite popular with Germans. There was also a pirate pad with a wax figure of Captain Hook scrutinizing the horizon from the upper deck of his ship.
Mali Lošinj felt like being the capital city of Čres and Lošinj combined. It was a welcoming place protected from the freezing torment of the Bora.
We had dinner in an local restaurant called Bocca Vera which was very busy but the food was worth it and we celebrated our walk on the limestone crest with a nice bottle of Korlat Shiraz from the area of Benkovac.
The naked figure of a greek athlete was posing right in the middle of a white air-conditioned room fitted with a couple of portholes for visiting peeping-Tom's to peer through them and get a good look at the bronze-casted flesh of an Apoxyomenos, a Greek statue from the first or second century BC found by chance in 1996 by the Belgian tourist René Wouters on the seabed near the small island of Vele Orjule. The name Apoxyomenos means scraping, it represents a Greek athlete scraping his body with a strigil, a curved piece of metal, to remove the oil mixed with sweat and dust after exercising and in order to preserve it in a jar. The precious content is called gloios and was sold to people who believed it had special healing virtues. Expensive sweat that was. The Apoxyomenos is currently housed on its own in an eponymous museum on the harbour, that looks resolutely contemporary with a few notes of kitsch like the psychedelic carpet especially designed for the room where a video about the discovery and restoration of the statue is screened.
We had come to the end of our time in Lošinj and thought it would be easy to move to Krk, the next island where we had in mind to walk. The direct bus was overbooked so instead we had to drive to Rijeka, back to square one, and then take a bus to Malinška on Krk island. The airport of Rijeka is on the island of Krk which is connected to the continent via a bridge. We were now ready to discover our second Croatian island.
We sadly had to decline his offer for we hoped to be able to have a swim in Martinšćica while the sun was still warm. We followed a narrow path descending along the steep slope. We had booked a room in a large hotel by the "main" road. The receptionist was very happy to have someone to talk to when we arrived, for we were the only guests that day, and he upgraded us to a room with sea view.
Down in the harbour, a couple of sailing boats were tied to the jetty. The wind wasn't really strong by the shore and the presence of a few beach goers reassured us that it was a sound idea to go for a swim and so did we on a small pebble stretch a few hundred meters East from the heart of the village. The pebbles were well polished but rather uncomfortable to walk on in and out of the water, it was easier with water shoes. A man was repairing fishing nets on his boat tied to a Y shaped piece of wood cast in the concrete of a nearby mini-jetty. He seemed to enjoy this moment of solitude very much while his wife talked to him from a window on the second floor of the house they occupied, right across the street from the beach. One could imagine a worse environment to live in. Summer was over, but there still quite a few visitors. The waterside restaurant was full at dinner time.
We left the seaside, the next morning, for the hills because there was no path following the shore in the direction of the South. The landscape changed, the vegetation morphed into a wind swept moor with a few islets of higher bushes. We had lunch in the shade of a newly built chapel. Our endeavor to reach Osor through stone paths shown on the GPS turned sour as the track stopped in the middle of thorny scrubland which was pointless to attempt crossing. We opted instead for another larger path that was meant to lead us to the main road a few kilometers ahead of Osor. It did, after having to cross a dumping ground and manoeuvring to pass over the gate by the roadside.
We had a coffee on the Venetian-styled church's square in Osor to which Ivan Meštrović, a bronze-casting artist has given some of his works to be displayed on the village's streets. We crossed the water channel that has been dug between Čres and Lošinj to allow boats to cross from East to West thus sparing a long detour around Lošinj.
We spent the night near Lopari in a large camping. We had booked a nice bungalow but hadn't realized there would be cleaning fees worth the price of a one night stay. That was the unpleasant and unexpected piece of news of the following morning. Not the only one though. The Bora was blowing strong and as we ascended the hill to walk on the crest path, in the direction of Nezerine, we had a hard time moving forward on the sharp limestone karst that formed most of the crest. We had to walk from the top of a stone to the next. The wind was so strong that even our walking sticks could fly away if we didn't hold them firmly. It took us an eternity to complete a few kilometers, snails might have been faster. We found out that goats were equally unhappy with the cold wind as we disturbed one of them, white with a long goatee hair flying in the wind, that was hiding in the wind shadow of a dry-stone wall. Fortunately we had joined the crest trail towards the end after having followed the seashore up to Sveti Jakov and therefore avoided the summit of Lošinj where the wind would have been stronger. We therefore managed to reach Čunski safely.
After that, there was no other option than walking along the road through the narrow stretch of land that leads to Mali Lošinj, the largest town of the area. The road was on the southern side of the island which was protected from the wind. It now felt like summer again. The road was squeezed between the rocky shore and a wood of thick pine trees. The reflection of the sun on the water acted like a grill on our skin. It was nearly too hot. When we reached the extremity of the long harbour we saw some guys sunbathe on their boat.
Mali Lošinj is built on the slope of the hills around the U-shaped harbour so that many houses have a harbour view. A red "Happy Hipo" semi-submarine was parked and waited for its next tour to take customers watch the seabed from inside the boat through its bottom in plexiglass. Next to it, were a couple of ancient-looking sailing boats with two or three masts used for cruises. We discovered the concept of cycling cruise. Participants can take their own bicycles along with them so that they can cycle around when the boat stops. It seemed quite popular with Germans. There was also a pirate pad with a wax figure of Captain Hook scrutinizing the horizon from the upper deck of his ship.
Mali Lošinj felt like being the capital city of Čres and Lošinj combined. It was a welcoming place protected from the freezing torment of the Bora.
We had dinner in an local restaurant called Bocca Vera which was very busy but the food was worth it and we celebrated our walk on the limestone crest with a nice bottle of Korlat Shiraz from the area of Benkovac.
The naked figure of a greek athlete was posing right in the middle of a white air-conditioned room fitted with a couple of portholes for visiting peeping-Tom's to peer through them and get a good look at the bronze-casted flesh of an Apoxyomenos, a Greek statue from the first or second century BC found by chance in 1996 by the Belgian tourist René Wouters on the seabed near the small island of Vele Orjule. The name Apoxyomenos means scraping, it represents a Greek athlete scraping his body with a strigil, a curved piece of metal, to remove the oil mixed with sweat and dust after exercising and in order to preserve it in a jar. The precious content is called gloios and was sold to people who believed it had special healing virtues. Expensive sweat that was. The Apoxyomenos is currently housed on its own in an eponymous museum on the harbour, that looks resolutely contemporary with a few notes of kitsch like the psychedelic carpet especially designed for the room where a video about the discovery and restoration of the statue is screened.
We had come to the end of our time in Lošinj and thought it would be easy to move to Krk, the next island where we had in mind to walk. The direct bus was overbooked so instead we had to drive to Rijeka, back to square one, and then take a bus to Malinška on Krk island. The airport of Rijeka is on the island of Krk which is connected to the continent via a bridge. We were now ready to discover our second Croatian island.
Images:
1/ boarding time for the Islands, Rijeka
1/ boarding time for the Islands, Rijeka
2/ Olive, sea and sun near Čres
3/ Sheep on a leash
4/ karst on crest in Lošinj
5/ Mali Lošinj
6/ Apoxyomenos through a porthole
3/ Sheep on a leash
4/ karst on crest in Lošinj
5/ Mali Lošinj
6/ Apoxyomenos through a porthole
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| Olive, sea and sun near Čres |
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| sheep on a leash |
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| karst on crest in Lošinj |
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| Mali Lošinj |
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| Apoxyomenos through a porthole |
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