We are spending the week in Pula, Croatia, a busy little beach town on the coast of the Adriatic. Our friends Julie and Siniša have family here, so we’ve been fortunate to be able to hang out with them as well.

The town is full of Roman stuff. There’s a beautiful amphitheater–the sixth largest in the world–a cool Roman arch put up by a woman, a theater, and a temple to Rome and Augustus. In addition, the town was supposedly settled by the Colchians back in the bronze age as they were pursuing Jason and Medea. Jason and Medea had, of course, just stolen the golden fleece from a dragon. So cool. I think I have myth and legend envy. There are so few origin stories in the States involving dragons.

The amphitheater is incredibly photogenic, so I have several pictures of it. We are going to see a performance in it on Friday.

Here’s the temple to Rome and Augustus. It’s right in the center of town and we’ve eaten in sight of it for the past two nights.

 

And here is the arch of the Sergii. A woman, Salvia Postuma, erected it to her family de sua pecunia – from/with her own money. There were probably statues of the family members on the the top.  It was situated along a gate, so everyone would pass it and remember them. Even now, you can see it’s quite busy. Salvia chose a good spot.

And the Roman theater from a distance. They’re still working on it.

Although the city is a bit light on non-Roman historical tourist spots, we did go to the Zerostrasse, which are the underground tunnels built by the Austro-Hungarians when Pula was their number one port city.  It was pretty strategically important during the Great War and again in WW2, when it was first occupied by Mussolini’s troops and then used by the Nazis as a base for their submarines. As a consequence, it was also heavily bombed during the war.

Garett and I are a pale people and very sunscreen-dependent, so we’ve only been to the beach once this week. But fortunately we were able to go with our friends, Siniša and Julie, which made it super fun.  Here they are. I’m not sure what’s going on with my hand, but it’s a good picture of everyone else.

 

The sunset is particularly nice here.

Last thing, I’ve noticed that far too many people are wearing a Yankees caps in Europe. Take a look at the picture below–they are selling like hotcakes! Ugh, it makes you want to puke, doesn’t it? All the money that flows from Europe to the Yankees and I bet most of these “supporters” don’t even know the rules of baseball! The Yankees are the worst. Go Cubs!