Life Eaters

Today we packed our bags, loaded up into our rental car, and drove to our next location, Plitvice National Park in central Croatia. Our day can be divided up into three distinct, glorious stops.

1) in the morning, after coffee #1, we went down the street and found an amazing “secret garden” location along the rocks lining Rovinj’s border. It’s easy to miss, but if you pay attention as you walk down one of the narrow streets, you would pass a small archway squeezed in-between two buildings that opens up to a glorious patio of rocks along the water’s edge dotted with cushions and pillows for lounging in the sun, sipping a cappuccino or a glass of prossecco, and watching the sailboats pass by headed out to sea. The owners of this magnificent oasis are a brother and sister team, Jasmin and Jasmina. The brother runs the bar on the sea side and sister runs a cute gallery upstairs on the alley side. We really, really wanted to sit there all day, but our schedule dictated that we pack it up and hit the road to our next home.

2) We had several hours of driving ahead of us to get to our next stop. We opted to take the longer route along the coastline to enjoy the drive a little more. The roads were in great shape and the drive at times was not unlike some of the winding roads in California along highway 1. We decided to stop for lunch in a small town along the way and just drove around until we found something that looked decent. We stopped at a place that looked questionable at first. When we walked in, things started looking up when we saw that the seating area was a covered patio overlooking the sea. Our waiter was Mario (who lived just up the hill with the chef). We ordered a plate of muscles and the “fish for two in the oven”. What came out 30 minutes later was some of the most glorious face-on fish ever! It was a whole sea bass basted in some sort of magical broth stewed with potatoes, onion, mussels, squid and other tasty morsels. The mussels were streamers in a white wine garlic sauce. This was certainly the best seafood we’ve had so far on our trip, and the fact that we stumbled upon it randomly makes it even more magical.

3) the rest of our drive included two hours up and down a very narrow, winding road over a mountain. One particularly beautiful stretch was a narrow road about the width of one car winding through prairie-like tall grass high enough that we couldn’t see around corners. It was slow going but well worth the time for the “scenic” route. Our final stop was “grabovac tourist park” where we has reserved a modern style “mobile home”. This was basically a cabin in a campground, but it was brand new and clean and pretty cool. It was so new that I think we actually may have been the first people to stay in it. We got ourselves settled in and prepared for our next day at Plitvice National Park.