balkans

Day 14: Hellenistic on Wheels

Today we were up early and out the door by 0900hrs, heading for our easternmost stop on the trip, Sozopol, an old Thracian settlement on the Black Sea.  The Bulgarian coast on the sea is a pretty popular party area, especially in cities such as Varna and Sunny Beach, but because we’re not a partying bunch and are history nerds, we decided on Sozopol.

We decided to hire a driver, so we had sweet and professional Ivan drive us out.  Ivan was very knowledgeable about the area we were driving through and offered his CD wallet for us to pick the tunes.  Sadly for me, whether it be on a plane, boat or back seat of a comfortable vehicle, I tend to get motion sickness, so I popped a ginger-chew Gravel and dozed off.

We pulled into resort town of Sozopol around 1400hrs and after a bit of a run-around, found our quaint, family run Hotel Hedy.  We grabbed some lunch (another Shopska salad for me, so good!) and went down to hit the beach.  Our hotel is between two different beaches, Central Beach being a 3 minute walk and Harmanite Beach being a 4 minute walk, so we chose the 3 minute walk.

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We have had beautiful sunny weather pretty much every day of this trip, and the day we get to the beach, it’s cloudy and windy.  It was, however, and very manageable 22C degrees, so Ma and I took our boots off, felt the sand in our toes and dipped our feet in the Black Sea.

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As I previously said, Sozopol is a resort town, and we caught the very end of the season.  No one else was out on the beach, no surfers in the water, no one relaxing in cabanas or lounge chairs.

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Although we were all feeling pretty tired, we decided to walk the length of the beach and at least head up to the old town at the tip of the peninsula for a minute.  The wind had really kicked up and many restaurants were closed and boarded up.  Although I was mildly disappointed about the slightly stormy weather, I also delighted in it, because it reminds me of the Pacific Ocean at home, the salt water air perfuming my clothes and the wind whipping my hair.

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As I said before, we chose Sozopol because it has some pretty old history, and we started to get reenergized seeing old structures, like this ancient Hellenistic cathedral in ruins from years 7 BC – 5 BC.

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Some of the medieval landmarks of Sozopol are old wooden houses and structures, so we wandered deeper into the enchanting old town to get an eyeful.

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After a few hours of wandering and picking up some postcards, we decided to grab a light dinner in the old and head home, just beating the impending rain.

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Croatia (Part 6: Rovinj)

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Our last ‘home base’ in the Croatian leg of our Balkan odyssey was a peninsula called Rovinj (pronounced Roh-VEEN).  Rovinj sits at the northern bit of the country and the reason it looks so much like Venice is because it was occupied by the Venetians however many years ago.  Rovinj juts out into the Adriatic and is a haven for seafood and pasta lovers.

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Rovinj has the same beautiful, shiny brick streets as Dubrovnik and Split does, but the city takes on a different character than its Dalmatian brothers.  The climate is still warm and mediterranean but where Split and Dubrovnik has palm trees, red roofs and tourists, Rovinj has colourful buildings and laid back locals.

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We spend several days in Rovinj and we loved every minute there.  I had probably the best spaghetti and meatballs of my life there.

The sunsets were unbelievable.  Late September is my favourite time of year to shoot because the light is such a beautiful golden glow in the evening and I was so lucky to be in such a vibrant city at this time of year.

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Another one of the things I loved about shooting Rovinj was the colours.  As you may know by now, I love shooting in bold, bright colour and Rovinj had a lot to offer, with the neutral coloured buildings, pink, orange and red sunset, the brown of the rocks and the blue and green of the water.

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Ah!  If only I had brought my bathing suit I would have joined these sun bathing beauties on the rocks!

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If I lived here, I would drink a press of coffee and watch the sunset at this little table.  Every.  Day.

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We were lucky enough to close out our stay here with a sunset evening inlet boat cruise on the last boat of the day on the last day of the season.  I insisted we sail the Adriatic in Rovinj because we had to cancel our sail in Split, and we totally lucked out.  We headed out and the boat’s crew passed out glasses of juice and wine.  We were entitled to one glass of wine on the cruise but one of the deck hands kept refilling Pa’s glass.  We sat right up front to that I could get some uninhibited shots of the city from the sea as well as the sunset.  Then we got some unexpected guests – Adriatic dolphins!  The dolphins swam right up to the boat frolicked beside us as the sun went down on Rovinj and our time in Croatia.

Croatia (Part 2: Korcula)

 

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Korcula, Croatia

The second part of our Croatian adventure was to the island of Korcula.  Korcula is a sleepy, beach-y island, much quieter and humbler than its glitzy neighbour Hvar.  We wanted to go to one of the Dalmatian islands and seeing as Ma, Pa and I are all pretty introverted, we chose the quieter island.

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The island ended up being a vacation within our vacation.  We’d met back up with Pa on our last day in Dubrovnik and decided to take it easy on this tranquil rock.  As you can see, the waters are just as beautiful and inviting as they are outside of Dubrovnik.  IMG_8031

The climate was Mediterranean – warm, some palm trees, rocky and the architecture Venetian – lots of red tiled roofs.  Korcula was fun to photograph because of not only its stunning natural beauty, but because of the whole laid back feel there.   The locals love to talk about their maybe native son Marco Polo and you can visit his perhaps birthplace.  It wasn’t too crowded so you weren’t rubbing elbows with everyone like we were in Dubrovnik and not cursing every clueless selfie sticky-carrying doofus who ambled into your shot.

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Like Dubrovnik there were plenty of laneways and staircases, just without the people, so you could get mysterious shots like this one.  I often think back to Croatia and if I had to choose only one part to go back to and spend more time, it would be Korcula.  Maybe.

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