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| early 15th Century Wall, Krk Town |
From our apartment, we can see the island called Krk (is that a legal Scrabble word?) that we visited today. It's one of the few islands linked to the mainland by a bridge, so it was relatively easy to reach. We started out in the city of Krk and spent time walking the narrow cobblestone paths and then we took the kids to a playground that overlooked the length of the city wall buttressing the sea.
The restaurant at which we hoped to test out the Krk specialties (a special twisted pasta over lamb ragu) was closed, and that turned out to be the story of the day. In low season in other western European tourist spots, the restaurants and streets may be empty, but at least places are open. In the area we live, we are now realizing, low season means everything is closed except cafes and bars.
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| Road to Bashka |
Next we drove to a fishing village on the very southernmost tip of the island, Bashka, and experienced some of the frigid winds along the seaside promenade. On the way to the village, we stopped at an overlook which featured a statue of the first letter of the glagolitic script. The vista was pretty unparalleled, too, with the trees all stunted by the freezing cold bora winds that periodically sweep the island. In case you were tempted to race down an 18% grade on unfamiliar, winding roads with nothing between you and the whitecaps below, we found this very helpful sign for drivers to calm the nerves.
Since we were starving at this point and there was nothing available but Croatian beer and espresso, we decided to try our luck in a village known for its gastronomy -- Vrbnik.
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Vrbnik, Krk Island, Croatia |
The winding city walls were gorgeous, but the restaurant we hoped to try was closed for renovation, and on the way home, we were nearly killed by a worker on the second floor of a building who pushed a heavy ancient window frame with huge rusty hinges sticking out all over it ONTO the alley we were walking on. There was about 15 feet separating me and the kids and Adam and the other kid, and the window fell in the space between us. But this incident could have happened anywhere, right?
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Rudine, Krk Island, Croatia
Shaken, starving, and frustrated, we got bread, cheese, peanuts and chocolate from a tiny grocery store and headed to Rudine on the eastern side of the island. Although the cave we hoped to tour in Rudine was closed, we got to stretch or legs on some unbelievable karst topography (this means that the rock layer has come to the surface and is breaking up, so it's a lunar-looking landscape). We followed a couple herds of sheep on the way back to the main highway, so that leg of the trip was worthwhile, and we were home by sundown, and in our favorite Rijeka pizzeria by 7PM.
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outside Ciziki, Krk Island, Croatia
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Next we drove to a fishing village on the very southernmost tip of the island, Bashka, and experienced some of the frigid winds along the seaside promenade. On the way to the village, we stopped at an overlook which featured a statue of the first letter of the glagolitic script. The vista was pretty unparalleled, too, with the trees all stunted by the freezing cold bora winds that periodically sweep the island. In case you were tempted to race down an 18% grade on unfamiliar, winding roads with nothing between you and the whitecaps below, we found this very helpful sign for drivers to calm the nerves.
