Life is good here in Rijeka, no complaints from these happy campers. We awoke after a very peaceful night (we can recommend Villa Nora highly, it is very quiet, close to the bus and there is an excellent restaurant just around the corner that has great seafood pasta (I am still enjoying the garlic in my meal)). And besides the views are amazing – see pics of the apartment (villa) building and the views.

After a slow start (who has to hurry when the feet are still sore from the lakes walk yesterday, breakfast is in-house and we are on holidays!) we checked with our very helpful landlady re the bus option into town and found that the bus stop is just at the top of the road (near last night's supermarket) and the fare is a reasonable HKR (Croatian Kuna) 10 (about $2.20 in what feels like old money now that we have been away for nearly 2 weeks).

Into town and then the obligatory coffee in what turned out to be quite a central coffee spot where we had the chance to watch the world go by. At this time of the morning (around 10am) it felt as if most of the people partaking in coffee / other drinks with us seemed to be more locals than tourists, but this changed later in the day to be more touristy (so we thought). A notable part of time in this delightful spot (with full sun today, such that I had to seek shade a few times) was the university students enjoying end of 'year’ muck up days – which seemed to include groups in similar T-shirts marching along the central pedestrian area of Rijeka, making a lot of noise, showering each other in what looked like talcum powder, painting their faces and other bits with all sorts of marks and carrying what looked like water pistols / guns, supposedly to squirt each other.

Everyone around us seemed to take the carry-on in their stride (and we thought it was so good to see the city embracing this type of controlled display of youth) and not too many eyebrows were raised, and certainly no-one seemed annoyed by the pranks. Later in the day the city parks type of people were cleaning up after them and this seemed to be quite OK.

After fuelling up on coffee, JJ and I headed to the city market (something we have encountered in other places) but this one had excellent fruit and vegetables (the apricots called out to me – yum) and for JJ the strawberries had a certain appeal. I also found a very nice pair of jeans that I tried on behind a counter, but the good fit helped me make up my mind pretty quickly – I am happy to show them another time. JJ and I parted at this point and went our separate ways to explore the city area (armed with maps that we had obtained from the very helpful young lady in the information centre courtesy of the city’s free wifi).

I used my map to identify what I took to be the ‘must find’ spots around town and quickly found my way to the leaning tower – (which is adjacent to the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (which held no appeal for me) with no explanation at the spot but various bits of research tell me that it is the bell tower for the church and that it has undergone various bits of renovation over the years. Pic tells it all…

From there I made my way to the St Vitus’ Cathedral (see pic) which was open and seemed OK for me to head inside and share a contemplative time in the beautiful surroundings of what is quite a large church with many altars. Wiki tells me that in the Middle Ages, the Church was a small and one-sided, romanesque church dedicated to the patron saint and protector of Rijeka. When the Jusuits arrived Rijeka, the church as it is was founded in 1638. Now it is the Jusuit’s Church and as a rotunda it is apparently unusual – including its baroque statues inside, which presents quite an impressive front, particularly in its circular format. I found the inside very interesting and enjoyed my time there, which was apparently quite special as it was closed later when JJ tried to visit.

From there I headed uphill (to which my feet cried ‘no, do we have to? And please promise we wont go far – remember yesterday’) to the Maritime and History Museum which in itself was an impressive building. Most of the museum’s offerings related to Rijeka’s strong history as a port and ship building centre going back many, many years. The museum also included rooms that contained impressive furniture, I think, from the periods in which the French had a major influence over the area.

There were also two special collections – one relating to the city market (mentioned above) which runs each day from 6.00 – 2.00 pm and the exhibit included some interesting time lapse sequences of the market’s set up and pack down in a day) and another related to ‘defending the homeland’. As my original trip to the Balkans n 2014 was driven by an interest (long story – need red wine to explain but if you know it think of /listen to James Blunt’s song ‘No Bravery’ which comes from his time here in the United Nations Peacekeeping Force you will see what sparked my interest) in the 1900’s war and the breakup of Yugoslavia (If you are at all interested I commend to you a great series ‘the Breakup of Yugoslavia’ on YouTube) I was particularly interested in this exhibition. The way the that the breakup of Yugoslavia was well done, of course from a Croatian perspective but also with sensitivity given that the majority of the population of Rijeka at the time of the break-up was Serbian and there was a big involvement in the hostilities with the Yugoslavian army – particularly through compulsory conscription.

I then headed off to find a couple of other museums that were marked on the map – but they eluded me – not just poor map reading, one just wasn’t there. I did however see the example pictured and many other instances of the casual approach to parking the many many motorcycles (90% scooters) on the pavement adjacent to where the rider is going. Also many of the foot paths that are closed off to cars with bollards, seem to be the domain of scooters too. Other than the gazillion scooters in each of the towns / cities that we have visited, the bikes seem to be limited to the usual (few) boy racers and the serious tourers (mostly BMW 1200’s) kitted out with multiple, major bits of gear on them.

After that my feet just wouldn’t go any further and my body was in need of a sit-down so I headed back for my meeting point with JJ, who appeared soon after, and we enjoyed a drink/coffee before heading back to Villa Nora for a well-earned sit-down before dinner.

Fortunately there is a lovely restaurant quite handy to our accommodation, overlooking the Adriatic, from which we enjoyed seeing the sun set and the passers by enjoying their evening walk, including people of all ages, dogs on the beach doing doggy things and plenty of people sitting around as is done here very well. Thoroughly enjoyed the experience and took the opportunity to take pics of Villa Nora from different perspectives (see pics).

A happy day in Rijeka – moving on to Zagreb tomorrow…