Fall Carbon County ATV ride

Day 7: We got up, checked out, and payed for our underground parking place which totaled oh... 47 eurors for the 3 nights we were there. OUCH. But then were on our way to.. Croatia! The drive itself was not supposed to take longer than about 3 hours but with traffic around the coast and border control, was probably closer to 4. We rolled in around 1, sighing with the stress of again trying to find a parking place but lucked out when we discovered our airBnb apartment was literally RIGHT NEXT to a parking garage that was about 15 dollars for the day. DONE. The apartment here was a very cool loft style with the main living area, small kitchen, and bathroom below and the bed upstairs in the open air loft. It was very light from floor to ceiling windows and had the BIGGEST SHOWER we saw in all our trip to Europe. Seriously it was huge. The overall style of the place screamed Ikea but it was very comfortable and tidy and our host was very friendly and professional! The other best part about the place was how close it was to everything we wanted to see. Easily within 10 minutes walk.

And lo and behold, the Colosseum was less than 2 minutes walking!



After relaxing/ recovering from the drive for a bit, we headed out into the Midday heat (which was quite hot!) and down to the wharf. I had put it in the GPS but was sort of wandering just in the direction and then BAM there it was. A massive Colosseum! It was in amazing condition and since I never got to go in the ROME one, we paid the entrance fee to go in the Pula arena. Sadly they didn't have any of the Gladiator areas still in existence but they did have a pretty cool stage set up that had me wishing I had booked tickets for a concert while we were there. Just outside the arena we bought some cheap pizza by the slice and coke for lunch.

Setting up for the concert with that huge stage! So cool! 

Then we happened upon the Hercules Gate on our way up the hill to the Kastel fort... just by complete Happenstance. 

Again we paid the entrance fee here, cause why not it all seemed relatively cheap in comparison to the other places we'd been. There was a cool exhibit on Croatian resistance during WWII occupation and a tower that had awesome views of the arena and coast.. but otherwise not much else going on in there. (Check out the Colosseum! so close to the water!)

Another stage... Pula does concerts EVERYWHERE

Just outside however was an old Roman Amphitheater literally in Ruins that you could just walk around and explore. No fee or supervision or anything. We explored every nook and cranny of that place just loving the feeling of standing in a place that felt so authentically old without the touch ups and renovations. 

We then decided to wait out the rest of the heat of the day in the apartment so we headed back the 5 minutes to our place where we could clean up and get ready for dinner. For dinner we went to a fish market restaurant that all in all, was one of the fanciest we ate at! (though still not as expensive as Venice) Braden got a steak that had cheese in it! Which was pretty good. And I got the only seafood of my entire trip (I know.. fail) fish. Still have nooo idea what kind of fish I ate or if I ate it correctly, lol but once you got over the creepiness of having it's head and eyes still on staring at you.. it was quite delicious. lol Then we spent 10 minutes walking around searching for the "Triumphal Arch" which according to the GPS was in the same square as the Fish market. Eventually though we gave up since it obviously wasnt there and we were losing daylight.

So we plugged in the Temple of Augustus and headed that way and by happenstance just ended up in the square where the Triumphal Arch actually was! It was so hilarious we both busted out laughing that we just happened upon it afterall. The square was pretty big and had a pretty good band playing in the center. We snapped a couple photos with the arch and then continued on our way to the Temple

We passed several more live musicians who were all actually REALLY good and a bunch of fun shops as well. Our favorites were these wacky candy shops (that were almost entirely gummy candies and peep like marshmellow candies) and all had the same theme: Pirates of the Carribbean. Yep! SOO Random but hilarious. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the shops since they request you NOT to take photos but we did go in one and bought like 15 bucks worth of candy! haha
We soon found the temple of Augustus and decided we didn't care enough to pay the entrance fee there.. as you could kind of peek through the door and it was just a center statue but the outside looked like a mini Pantheon so that was cool.

Then we took our candy and headed back the the Triumphal square where we listened to the band for close to 30-40 minutes. I fell in love with their music almost instantly so on our way out I bought all 3 of their CDs. (at about 60 bucks! which is more than I've paid for music in forever. lol) They are called the Wishing Well and are from Melbourne, Australia. Here is a link to their website where you can listen to some samples. soo good. sooo soo good! http://thewishingwellband.com/

Then it was just another 5 minute walk (if that) back to our apartment which we maneuvered without even a GPS! (I was really starting to learn my way around there) We watched a bit more of the Olympics (turned out to be the match where Slovenia beat Poland at Handball so that was fun to cheer on one of our new favorite countries at a sport we literally knew nothing about) and then headed to bed. Another great city!