Today we left our accommodation early to explore the island of Krk (pronounced Crack, or Creck), which is just off the coast of Rijeka. It sits in the bay of Kvarner and was likely inhabited since the Neolithic age. The Roman town of Curicum (Krk) was built in the Roman era and a Franciscan Monastery and the ruins of Roman baths have been found in the town. It is believed that the city walls were built in 50 BCE. In thr 600s, the town was overrun by the Avars and became one of the Dalmatian city-States. The town was ceded to the Byzantines in 812, at which time the area was known as Vekla. As the Kingdom of Croatia grew in power, the Byzantines began to make payments to the Croats in order to keep control of the town. The town was conquered by the Venetians in 1001 and again in 1118.
The Venetian Counts that ruled the town became so powerful that Venice removed their authority, but their power continued to grow, taking the name Frankopan (citing a Roman background), with a coat of arms of two lions breaking bread (a play on the name Frangere panem - to break bread).
Krk is now a resort area and tourist destination for cruise ships and tourists from Slovenia, Germany, Austria and Italy.
After making some obligatory "We're on crack" jokes, we headed across the bridge connecting Krk to the mainland and drove towards the main town. Despite the initially hill start, Kristine and the kids commented that the island felt a little like Kangaroo Island in Australia.
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| The picture I sent Alana to tell her that Cam and I were on 'Crack' - I'm so mature at times I shock myself.... |
Our first stop was the town of Krk, which was on the south central coast of the island. We spent some time looking for parking and I was having flashbacks to the difficulties we faced in Rijeka, as we had to back out of another tight road packed with cars. We found a safe place to pull over and I snapped a few photos of the Frankopan Monestery. I was ready to call it quits at this point, but one of the many reasons I married Kristine, and it's her stubbornness (the old joke goes that I need someone to tell the waiter that they gave me the wrong order) - she managed to find a great carpark near to the center of town.
Here's the first pics I took looking over at Krk from the eastern side:
A random side note here - One of the big problems we had was with Kristine's camera. While I snapped my photos with my phone (Iphone 12), Kristine had a digital Canon EOS90D, with a decent zoom lens that took much better photos. It used an SD card to save the images and every night at the accommodation I would take the SD card out of the camera and back up the photos onto a laptop using a card reader. If the internet was decent I would also upload all the photos to our Google Drive (which in turn automatically backs up to a NAS (Network-Attached Storage) so we would have them safely backed up. On the night before we travelled to Postojna caves, I had taken the SD card out of the camera and the little locking clip fell off:
Since the lock function is that when the tab covers the lower part of the notch it locks the camera, preventing photos from being deleted, we didn't think much of it. Kristine couldn't use her big camera in Postojna, so it was only when we got to Predjama Castle that we found the issue. Kris lined up a perfect shot and pressed the button but nothing happened. Well, something happened. The camera flashed up a CARD ERROR message. The SD card we'd bought wasn't cheap. Unlike the picture above, this one was 256GB (so she could store the millions of photos she takes at the rugby) and was a high speed one to allow her to take multiple shots quickly. While I panicked, Kristine made her way to the reception desk at the Predjama café and requested a few strips of sticky tape. With these she managed to cover the hole and the camera worked perfectly again.
Why do I tell this story, other than to make myself look dumb? When I got out of the car to take the pictures of Krk, we were across the harbour so I needed a decent zoom to get a clear shot. I pulled out Kristine's camera, lined up the perfect shot and... nothing. CARD ERROR. The photos from the phone wouldn't turn out super clear as it was too much zoom. I managed to get a few shots and then by playing with the tape on the SD card I managed to get the camera working long enough to snap off a few of the better shots. From then on, the camera worked fairly sporadically - each set of shots took a bit of playing with the card to get it to work. We finally cracked in Venice and bought a new card, which worked perfectly for the rest of the trip.
Anyway, with a half-hearted selection of photos I was a bit worried that we'd wasted the drive out to Krk. I didn't want to have to fight for a carpark or risk getting our huge car stuck, so I suggested we just head off the island and to our next destination. We'd had to do this after Rijeka - we'd wanted to go for a swim at one of the beaches nearby but the roads were packed with cars and we ended up getting jammed at the end of a road where there was no room to turn because a car had parked illegally and blocked the only turning space. Luckily the driver was nearby and came over to reverse their car enough that we could get out. At that point, we gave up and headed back to our accommodation for the night. I didn't want a repeat of getting stuck again, but Kristine's stubbornness pulled us through. First we found a park at a shopping center overlooking Krk, but it would have been a twenty minute walk on hilly terrain in 32 degrees, so she decided we could do better. In the end she found an all day carpark just outside the city center, with ample parking, which cost us only 5 euro (about $7.50).
So with that done, we headed into town.
Our first stop was the harbour:
We then headed to the castle, passing the Seafront Tower (Kula na obali).
The sign on the tower read:
"Seafront Tower is located at the intersection of the southern and western walls. The inscription and coat of arms indicate that the tower was built by the order of Nikola Frankopan in 1407. The inscription was carded into a Roman tombstone from the 1st century."
We then headed through a town square along Vela Placa to the Square Tower (Kula na trgu):
The streets in the area were narrow and winding and the boys really enjoyed waiting for us to take photos and search the souvenir stores for a cloth badge:
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| This road was Pluj (from the Latin pluvia) - a steep incline to allow rainwater to drain off |
We then passed the ruins of the Roman Baths:
Our next stop was the Krk Cathedral, or the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Built in the 5th century, the church's current design is Romanesque from the 11th century, and Frankpan castle, built in 1191:
The view over the water from the castle was pretty nice:
Finishing up in Krk, we headed off to our second town on the island, Baška.
Baška is famous for the Baška Tablet (Bašćanska ploča), which dates from 1100 AD and was found in 1851 at the Church of St Lucy. The tablet contains the first mention of King Demetrius Zvonimir and the native Croatian Glagolitic script. The text talks about the King's donation of land to a Benedictine abbey run by Abbot Držiha, and the building of the abbey by Dobrovit and nine monks.
"I, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I abbot Držiha wrote this about the land which gave Zvonimir, the Croatian king, in his days to St. Lucia, and witnesses župan Desimir in Krbava, Martin in Lika, Piribineg deputy in Vinodol and Jakov on island. Whoever denies this, be cursed by God and the twelve apostles and the four evangelists and Saint Lucia. Amen. May he who lives here, pray for them to God. I abbot Dobrovit built this church with nine of my brethren in the days of knez/count Cosmas who ruled over the entire Krajina. And in those days Nicholas in Otočac was one with St. Lucia"
Pula sits right on the tip of the Istrian Peninsula and is famous for its old Roman buildings, including an intact colosseum. Like many of the towns in the area, Pula had many owners. Evidence has been found of life in the area dating back to homo-erectus 1 million years ago. The modern city was built in 177BC by the Romans and the town sided with Cassius in the war against Octavian and Mark Antony and was destroyed. Octavian's daughter, Iulia, requested the town be rebuilt and the new town was named "Colonia Pietas Iulia Pola Pollentia Herculanea".
The town was raided by Ostrogoths in 476BC and mostly destroyed. It then remained under Ostrogoth rule until 538AD when it was taken over by the Exarchate of Ravenna and the Byzantine Empire. In 788 it was ruled by the Frankish Empire under Charlemagne and in 1148 it was seized by the Venetians. It was captured by the Pisans in 1192 and then recaptured by Venice.
In 1238 an alliance of Genoa and Venice against the Pisans. Pula sided with the Pisans, who lost and was sacked in 1243, 1267 and 1397. The local families fought over the town and was eventually held by Venice until 1797.
It was continually attacked by Genoese, Hungarians and Habsburgs and suffered from plague, malaria and typhoid. By the time the Venetians lost the city it had only 3,000 citizens. In 1813, the town became part of the Austrian empire and became a major harbour and shipyard. The town was mostly Italian speaking at the time, so after the War, the town became part of Italy. In World War II the town was captured by the Germans who used it to build U-boats and so the town was bombed repeatedly by the allies. The town became part of the Socialist Republic of Croatia after the war (part of Yugoslavia) and the Italian citizens left and the town became formally part of Croatia.
Our accommodation in Pula was called Blue Vibes and came with a sample of the local alcohol, Rakija and Sljivovica (plum brandy):
We were only a short walk from Pula Arena, so we headed into town:
The Pula Arena is a Roman Colosseum or amphitheatre, the only one in the world with all four side towers remaining. The initial building was timber (14AD), but the stone version was built around 40AD. It was enlarged to allow for gladiatorial combat, which continued until 681 when combat to the death was outlawed. After this time, the stone was plundered for town buildings until the Patriarch of Aquileia banned it in the 1200s.
In the Middle Ages the amphitheatre was used for knight tournament and animal grazing. It was restored in 1816 and used for theatre and military demonstrations. It is now mainly used for concerts.
The strange part of the arena was that even though we were heading downhill into the town, we didn't see it until we turned the final corner and it opened in front of us. It is in the centre of town and the town buildings:
Our next stop was a metal map showing the town and the main buildings:
Next stop was Zerostrasse - an underground tunnel system that was used as an air raid shelter in World War I (similar to the tunnels in Rijeka and Zagreb). Outside the tunnels was the Twin Gate - one of the original ten gates that led through the town walls into the city. The walls were removed to expand the city, but the Porta Gemina or Twin Gate remains:
We then headed to Pula Citadel. The castle was built in the typical star fort design by the Venetians between 1630 and 1633 and was partially constructed with stone from the amplitheatre.
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| View of the Arena from the citadel |
Our next stop was more impressive Roman buildings - the Temple of Augustus. This temple was built between 27BC and 14AD and dedicated to Augustus the first Roman Emperor. It was originally part of a set of three temples (a triad). The Temple of Augustus was the leftmost temple, with a central temple that no longer exists and a third, the Temple of Diana, whose ruins have been incorporated into the Communal Palace (built 1296). Many older Roman temples did not survive to this day as they were destroyed under Byzantine rule and the persecution of the pagans - however the Temple of Augustus was used as a granary and survived. It was hit by an allied bomb in 1944 but was reconstructed in 1947.
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| Communal Palace |
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| Temple of Augustus |
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| Inscription on the Palace |
We picked up an ice-cream at a nearby shop and then started our hunt for a hidden gem in Pula. Tucked away behind a set of buildings off the main road, was a small courtyard housing the Mosaic of the Punishment of Dirke (Kažnjavanje Dirke).
This mosaic was believed to be part of the floor of a Roman residence that was covered over later. It was accidentally discovered when a bomb detonated nearby in World War II.
The mosaic depicts the story of Dirke (or Dirce) - a powerful demigoddess who married the King of Thebes (Lycus). She had a niece, Antiope, who she disliked and who was impregnated by Zeus. In shame of her pregnancy, Antiope fled the town, but Dirke convinced Lycus to force her to return and leave her twin sons behind. Antiope later escaped again and met up with her, now adult, twin sons. Dirke found them and bewitched the sons, convincing them to tie their mother to a bull and have her dragged to death. The shepherd who had raised the boys broke the spell and Dirke was instead tied to the bull and killed.
Our final stop in Pula was the Arch of the Sergii, a Roman Triumphal Arch commemorating the three members of the Sergii family, particularly Lucius Sergius Lepidus who served in the 29th legion in the Battle of Actium. It is believed to have been constructed in 29BC and served as a city date. The inscription states that it was paid for by Lucius' wife. His name, hers (Salvia Postuma Segius) and the uncle Gaius Sergius are carved into the arch.
This was our final stop in Pula and we headed back to our apartment for the night.
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