Third Day : Biking along the Punta Corrente

Our third day after a late check- out at the Lone , our luggage at the desk, we go off to rent bikes to explore the Punta Corrente Bike path which forms a loop through the forest.  That's the green part in the picture below. 

This is my first glimpse of the Adriatic Sea and I am besotted.  This morning the water is agitated after a small squall.  It looks more natural than our part of the Mediterranean and I like that ...who wouldn't?

 But first things first, we are hungry and Jeanne knows just the place.

A basic trattoria along the sea but not touristy. 

And no wonder the locals are here as this simple meal of fresh tuna in artichoke /tomato sauce with chard and potatoes was around 50 kuna or eight euros.  Fortunately, Jeanne knows that some of the fancier sea front restaurants are serving frozen fish!  Can't say I'm surprised.  I have seen that in Nice all too often especially for this price.

  We each order a glass of house white wine which is a good table wine.  

I found this online from a Croatian calling himself Splitpersonality as he lives in the city of Split :

All Croatian restaurants have house red and white, which will certainly be the best-buy option, as it's usually the only one purchasable by the glass. 90% of them will in fact have the same red and the same white (red Plavac and white Pošip or Malvazija).   If you know what to look for, £2.50-3 is a perfectly reasonable price for a very drinkable, if entirely ordinary, supermarket wine.   

Very, very simply: Croatian law divides wine into three categories: "stolno" (table, i.e crap), "kvalitetno" (quality) and "vrhunsko" (supreme.) The middle category is the one where you want to hunt down  discounts, and so spend £2.50 or less, or around 20 Croatian kuna, on something that would cost twice or more. The word "kvalitetno" or one of the other two words I wrote will be easily visible on the label.

And he is talking about 2.50 pounds for the bottle!

Here is my closest shot of the Old Town of Rovinj where we will be staying tonight.

And this is how it extends along the sea to finally touch the peninsula where we are headed.

We rent our bikes for about 6 euros for three hours and plunge into a wooded area along the sea.

We come upon one after the other of inviting coves with not many bathers.

Then up the hill to rougher terrain to turn the point and Voila, climbers practicing their skills are on every cliff.

This is an alarming sight until I realize that he is being safely guided from below.

Our boy on the cliff carefully chooses his footing.

               You can relax now... he is almost as far as he wants to go before repelling back down to his instructor.... or is it his dad? They say climbers should start young!

We finally decided to swim in this spot as there is both sun and shade and even a lounge chair if you care to pay the attendant a few kuna for the day.  We rest our bikes and plunge in.  The beach is shallow, clean and inviting.

This inlet that we discovered a bit later, had sand....but not much shade.

And just as we are thinking how rugged we are, we turn the corner to this quite urbain cafe.  There are many snack bars along the way but this is the fanciest we saw.  If I lived here I would come for Sunday lunch.  

The last beach photo before heading back to turn in the bikes, grab a bite to eat,  wait for the attendent  with the car and luggage and on to the old town and our 2 night accommodation there.

 This is where my ancient cell phone (which is the laughing stock amongst all of my friends), comes in handy when other greater, snazzier phones weren't ready and able.   What a team, what a day and it's not over !