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| Lungomare, near Ika |
After learning that Jonah's soccer team only plays every OTHER weekend, we decided to hunt down a fish restaurant in a neighboring village that was highly recommended to us by our upstairs neighbors, Gino and Nada. Since we're right on the Adriatic, fish is a really integral part of the cuisine here, but I am afraid to buy it. At the daily fish market downtown, it's elbow-to-elbow, it's loud, it's smelly, it's not touristy (which is good!, but it does makes purchasing fish in an already tricky environment all the more difficult). A better cook than I would relish being able to buy and prepare ultra-fresh, bone-in, skin-on fish with the heads still on and the guts still in -- which is how they are all sold. But I am not that cook. So when we want fish, we have to get it in a restaurant.
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| Lovran, Croatia |
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| Waiting for the bus, Lovran |
The restaurant, Najade, to which we were headed is in Lovran. There is a 12km (6 1/2 miles, about) seaside promenade, called the Lungomare, and Lovran is at the end of it. To work up our appetites, we decided to walk from the resort town of Opatija all the way to Lovran, along this promenade, about 4 miles. The weather was cool, but not cold, and the views were all very misty and white. There were several parks in tiny fishing villages scattered along the route, and rocky beaches which Jonah and Lucy combed for seaglass. When we approached Lovran, we heard very loud music, and we encountered several adults in full carnival costume. Then we heard the bells and on the street above the lungomare, we saw bellringers heading to the next village after doing their thing in Lovran. We hit our arrival in this village with a carnivale parade and festival, and the streets were mobbed. We were elbow to elbow with the sheep men. We squeezed our way along the parade route to the restaurant, which was practically empty because everyone was partying in the streets, and we had the delicious fish dinner as planned. By the time we finished dinner and were waiting for the bus at the Lovran bus stop, the parade had ended and all the elaborate motorized parade floats were cruising down the street with sirens and loud music and yelling -- just like a secondary parade. Everyone was still in full celebration mode.
Unfortunately, my pictures from yesterday only hint at the atmosphere of the nighttime carnivale street celebration and the beautiful scenery along the lungomare. But we'll go back.
