Finding peace and hope in stunning Rovinj
I arrived in Rovinj sad and a little lost. On the night bus from Munich, I called my mom in tears. I was homesick. I felt untethered. What am I doing here? How can I be so frivolous as to indulge in what I want while the world falls apart? Why don’t I feel how I thought I would? The poor guy at the front of the bus now joins the club of Europeans that have had to watch me cry in public. It's a small but growing group.
Before we left Germany that evening, we spent the Day at Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial site. Dachau was the one of the longest-running concentration camps during the Holocaust and was used as a blueprint for other, larger, more horrific camps. I felt like I was sinking into the earth with the weight of the hundreds of thousands who suffered unimaginable cruelties there, with the weight of the more than 41,000 who died unthinkable deaths there, and with the weight of the knowledge that we continue to fuck it up. It was dark and heavy and the absolute bare minimum we could do to witness and show our respect to the victims of the Nazi Regime. We left for Croatia in a daze of sadness, feeling numb and disconnected.
After driving through the night, passing through Austria and Slovenia, and what I’m sure were stunning landscapes by day, we arrived in Rovinj at 8 am in a semi-delirious state. I couldn’t tell if I had slept on the bus. My body felt like a crumpled soda can from trying to contort myself into a comfortable position for hours. Emotionally, I felt spent. Even feeling emotionally and physically ruined, it was impossible to ignore that the town was absolutely stunning.
Bright-pink-marble paved streets were lined by warmly painted homes. Red terracotta roofs rose and fell over the horizon as the bright blue Adriatic, dotted with small forested islands, spread out behind the town. I’d seen pictures of Rovinj, and by the end of the week I had taken many, but they didn’t do the beauty of the town justice.
The Airbnb we stayed at was the first place we had been completely alone in since before we moved out of our apartment almost two months ago; the privacy and marina view immediately lifted my spirits. When Grant laid down to nap under the open windows, I went for an early morning walk by the sea.
Rovinj was the exact respite I needed. There are so few times in life that you get exactly what you want and need and the time we spent there was that for me. Rovinj is a small town in Istria, a region of Croatia known for small hill and sea towns and their production of truffles and olive oil. Croatia, I’m learning, has a very complicated history. To oversimplify it (next week’s newsletter is the history edition), this region was under Italian influence and control for huge swaths of time. It was most recently occupied by Italy until WWII. If you ever have the chance to visit Istria, this fact becomes immediately apparent. The Italian style of architecture is strong in this region and it adds to its beautiful, old world Mediterranean (even though it’s on the Adriatic) charm.
There was hardly anything to do in Rovinj at this time of year. As a town catering to tourists who want to enjoy the stunning beaches, mid-October seems like it’s a slow time for them. But for us, the city was perfectly populated. We never shared even the most open spaces with more than a few dozen people. We spent our days wandering around the town, zig-zagging through their cobblestone streets that circle around the emblematic bell tower perched high above everything and in the middle of the town. I painted on benches overlooking the marina. I painted on sharp rocks sloping down to the sea. We climbed the same rocks down to swim in the chilly, salty, crystal clear Adriatic Sea. The water was so salty and calm, it was impossible not to float, drifting gently over schools of small fish. When we got out, the salt was caked on and tight over our skin-my favorite reminder of being in the ocean.
For the first three days in Rovinj, we had absolutely no plans for any part of our days. We spontaneously bought fresh shrimp-possibly caught by the fishermen I saw from our window every morning-and made shrimp scampi for dinner. It was the second best shrimp I’ve ever had-second only to a delicious meal in Anacapri on our honeymoon. It was sweet and delicate-things I really didn’t know shrimp could be. We bought more fresh groceries: chanterelle mushrooms, gilt-headed bream, parsley, cherry tomatoes, potatoes. They were all so good. It was nourishing, mind, body and soul, to cook for a change, and especially with such delicious-and affordable-ingredients. When we have eaten out though, the food has been excellent.
all of these ingredients were locally grown, foraged or caught and cost us $24 (thats a whole kilogram of chanterelles!)
Every night I sat in the window of our apartment and listened to the saxophonist who, miraculously, would play for hours. He played the same songs every night and they all began to run together in the best way but my absolute favorite was Moon River. It was impossible to not have a *Main Character Moment* as the soft music drifted over the bobbing boats and into our quaint apartment’s window.
Rovinj was romantic as hell. There’s no other way to put it. It gave me the space to be quiet and consider the moment I was living in. It gave us the chance to exist completely separately from others; to fully spread out, physically and mentally. I unpacked my bags so hard it looked like I had signed a lease. Without realizing what it was that I needed, Rovinj was that. It was such a sweet gift and it came at the perfect time.
the sunsets here were stupid pretty
stupid! pretty!
When we weren’t leisurely strolling around Rovinj, we were taking day trips in our first ever European-car-rental. The first day we took a trip to Slovenia to visit the very popular Lake Bled. Honestly? We didn’t like it. It was expensive, fairly crowded, and, I hate to say it but, a little underwhelming. Part of the lack-luster we felt for the destination could be because it looked very similar to lakes we have back home. Imagine if Beaver Lake was 3 times bigger, surrounded by communist era architecture and had a bell tower on the island in the middle of it - that’s kind of what Lake Bled looked like to us. Still very pretty (minus the brutalist buildings) but just something we’ve seen before.
Lake Bled
The wonderful thing about this moment in our lives-and having a rental car-is that we can, kind of, do whatever we want. So we left Lake Bled as soon as we could, eager to not waste anymore daylight. We found a place on the map that looked beautiful and was near-ish and ended up in one of the most jaw-dropping places I’ve ever been: Kranjsksa Gora, Slovenia.
We took the rental car up a kind of sketchy dirt road to an overlook for this view. We met a lovely Canadian couple camping in a rented van.
In total, we spent 6 hours in the car that day-but it was worth every minute. You may not be able to tell from this picture of the alps, but this part of the world looks, surprisingly, like our beloved Blue Ridge Mountains back home. As I drifted in and out of sleep on the way to and from Slovenia, I was sure that we were driving on I-40 through Tennessee to Asheville- on the very highway that hurricane Helene washed away. It was disorienting, to say the least, to be so out of time and place.
The next day, we took the car around Istria to explore more of the small towns that each have their own charm. Our favorite one was Bale, an absolutely tiny town with nearly all the buildings made out of stone. There’s evidence of human (not Homo sapien) life in this corner of the world dating back to 800,000 B.C..
Thanks to our friends, Emily and Annie, for all of the Croatia recommendations! We would have never found this place on our own.
In the afternoon we stopped in Pula, a 2000 year old port city with one of the best preserved ancient Roman ruins in the world. Construction on the Pula amphitheater began before the colosseum did and finished in 68 AD. Between the open windows, you can see the docks on sea and the robotic arms waving in the air, dropping cargo containers on top of one another. It felt strange to straddle two worlds while standing inside the arena, visions of gladiator fights swirling in my head. We ended the day in Donji Kamenjak park; Grant cliff diving into the turquoise water, me trying to muster up the courage to not be afraid of heights, searching for dinosaur footprints preserved in the rocks while we watched the sun set in a purple-pink sky.
if you look to the bottom left on the rocks you can see the boy who was cliff diving from 40 feet Spiderman style-climbing back up
Grant said it was a bit chilly!
Driving a car through recognizable landscapes, it was easy to be dropped back into our life from just a couple months ago and consider what we liked about it and what pushed us to make this drastic change. Of course, the feeling was promptly followed by a wave of grief for a Western North Carolina that will never be the same as we left it. Even in places as stunning as we’ve been, it’s still easy for me to slip into despair and grief for a world on fire. As news came in about innocent people dying horribly in Palestine and unhinged conspiracy theories threatening people’s hurricane recovery back home, “wherever you go, there you are” took on a much broader meaning for me.
But a week in beautiful Istria has, overall, left me feeling renewed and recharged and ready to continue the work of hoping for a better world. I think some people would consider hope a luxury or, maybe, naive but I don’t know what else we can have, where else we can start, if not with hope. Jane Goodall said “hope is what enables us to keep going in the face of adversity. It is what we desire to happen, but we must be prepared to work hard to make it so.” and that’s what I’m keeping in mind as I try to find my way back to hope. I thought I would start my practice of growing my hope by sharing these feelings with you- I know you probably feel the same way too.
I’m grateful to Rovinj, and the beautiful places around it, for giving me a moment to breathe. For holding me in the narrow streets between their picturesque homes, under their lazy laundry gently blowing in the breeze, floating in the salty sea. Now I have this moment of tranquility to take with me around the world, and through my life, that I can hold dear when things feel hard-what a gift. Wherever in the world you are, as we all try to grow our hope for a better future, I hope you can find a moment of peace to hold on to, too.
sunset from the top of the hill in Rovinj
This week, we’ll be splitting our time between Split, Croatia and Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. So much has changed in this region in just my lifetime alone. We’re looking forward to learning more about the complex history of the area and meeting the resilient people here.
Bok! Ciao!
-Amelia
In the spirit of building hope together: our funny, creative, kind friends Mark and Emily lost so much in the flooding from Hurricane Helene, including Mark’s home. If you’re able to help, please click here to help them rebuild.
Miles I walked this week: 51.7
Hats with American Sports teams logos: 29
For More beautiful pictures, click here!
