The 15th of January was a cold and cloudy day.
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In this opening photograph, you can take a look down one of the colorful streets in the old town of the small coastal city called Rovinj.
I spent the whole morning there.
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This post will lead you through the streets, squares, and promenades ...
... of the old Rovinj.
This lovely bipolar place is sunny and full of tourists during the summer and the exact opposite of that in January.
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In these two shots, you can see two of the typical narrow streets that lead uphill ...
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... to the church above the compact urban area of the old town.
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The area around the church was partially fenced and off-limits to the public ...
... because of some archeological excavations around the large building.
Here you can see the smaller, lateral entrance of the church. In the following photograph ...
... the focus is on the fragments of some interesting decorations engraved in stone and incorporated into the lateral facade.
Here I zoomed in on the seagull that was resting on the wall built around the large yard or square in front of the church.
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Here I zoomed out a bit ...
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... so you can see the wider scene. The seagull, the pigeons, and two friends who were there with me. When the following photograph was taken ...
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... the pigeons have flown away.
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This portrait was taken a minute before the seagull flew away.
The view from the top of the hill on which the church is situated offers plenty of distant details to photograph.
The name of this islet is Banjol.
I was able to see many neighborhoods and buildings that stood out in them ...
... But there isn't much I can tell you about them.
I mean, there is nothing I can tell you here.
I can only show you what I saw through the lens of my camera.
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When this photograph was taken ...
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... I was walking downhill ...
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... from the church to the sea.
I photographed some street lamps along the way. Here you can see one of them.
In this photograph, the friends who were there with me are in front of the camera again. With no birds around, this time.
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You can see another coastal street lamp here. The thing that protects the light bulbs and other parts made of glass, is open like a bird cage.
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In this shot, I caught the boat that was passing by.
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Here I caught two people that were walking through the scene unaware that someone is ready to put them in the post on HIVE with no hesitation.
I was passing by the stretch of the massive old wall in this photograph.
Here you can see one of the buildings on the island across the bay.
It's a hotel. Both the island and the hotel are named Saint Catherine.
In the foreground of this photograph, you can see the branches of the big old pine that provides plenty of refreshing shade on hot summer days.
I almost reached the first houses in the town below the church when this photograph was taken.
In this shot, the focus is on the friends who were there with me but you can see a bit of the scenery as well. In the following photograph ...
... the journey continues in the same direction.
The terraces of some restaurants in this part of Rovinj are situated on rocks very close to the sea ...
... so you can easily jump in the sea and go for a swim after lunch or dinner.
The buildings of the old town are seen from the beach near the restaurant in this shot.
The tide was pretty high.
I like this part of the town very much.
The architecture is beautiful and the water is clear and clean.
I continued across the coastal rocks ...
... and soon noticed this very interesting church.
The Chapel of the Holy Cross is a fairly small temple ...
... built in 1592 ...
... very close to the sea.
Here you can see a beautiful stone jar in the corner of the terrace.
This is the bell on the roof.
The view from the terrace is wide and great. You can see the sea and the island of Saint Catherine.
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I like this building and the place in which was built very, very much. One of my favorite churches in Istra.
This is the chimney of one of the buildings across the street. In the following photograph ...
... here you can take a look down that old narrow street. In the following photograph ...
... you can take another look at the same thing, for a change.
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Here you can see the Banjol islet again. From a different, much lower angle this time. A small fishing boat was passing by enhancing the shot.
Here you can see more buildings that I photographed on my way to the harbor.
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I had a nice variety of colors and details at my disposal while photographing those buildings.
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I don't know what to tell you here. More buildings - that's it. In the following photograph ...
... you can see the same thing from a slightly different angle.
Here I got a bit closer. Closer to the same group of buildings.
A bit further I photographed this interesting door that leads to one of the many restaurants closed until summer.
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I was approaching the seaside promenade here.
You can see more buildings in this photograph, while in the following one ...
... you can admire the fluffy cat I encountered in front of one of the buildings near the sea.
You already saw this building in one of the previous photographs, in the third one from here, I think. The building is the same but the composition is different. You'll see it again soon, from a different angle.
In this photograph, I zoomed in to show you some distant stuff on the other side of the harbor.
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Do you remember this building? This is its final appearance in this post.
Here you can see two mop heads ...
... hanging on one of the laundry lines above the street.
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Here you can see a new bunch of buildings and an interesting small detail in front of them. In the following photograph ...
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... I came closer to that detail and I zoomed in on it a bit too. It's a scooter. Haven't seen many scooters of this type before.
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Soon I arrived at the pretty large square near the sea. In the café of the building shown in this photograph ...
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... three musicians were providing the background music for this segment of the post.
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It sounded relaxing, but not vapid like lounge music sometimes can be. If I had to guess, I'll say that it was something from an old movie.
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On the waterfront, on the opposite side of the square ...
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... an old man was feeding the pigeons.
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The quiet music from the café was even quieter here, but still present in the salty air, and it was fitting the scene perfectly.
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It was a great moment. Probably the highlight of my Rovinj experience on the 15th of January ...
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... so I took plenty of photographs.
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Not far from there, in the central part of the square ...
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... the small groups of rare and precious winter tourists were listening to their guides.
I photographed this scooter parked in front of a small store on the square, and then ...
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... the man who rides the scooter came out of the tobacco & newspapers shop and entered the scene. There was a bit of glitter on his helmet and on the front of the scooter as well. The man and the scooter both looked cool.
After leaving the place called Marshal Tito Square ...
... I continued my walk by the sea.
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At one point a loud group of seagulls appeared in the sky above the harbor.
Here you can see a waterfront building that stood out from the rest because it was enveloped in a protective net and scaffolding. In the following photograph ...
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... the focus is on the streetlamp near that building. It looked cool in that environment.
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The old town looks beautiful from the harbor when the sea is in the frame.
Here you can see a bunch of exotic decorative plants in front of a closed café.
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In this photograph, the focus is on the yellow flower in its foreground. The word focus is used figuratively here. Everything in this wide shot is sharp and in focus, but the Euryops pectinatus plant covered with flowers is the main protagonist.
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Here you can take another look at the buildings across the harbor. The tower of the church introduced earlier in the post is very prominent in this shot.
Here you can see a bunch of windows with gray wooden shutters. The facade of the building is earthy orange. And that says it all.
I like that combination of colors, that's why I photographed those pretty ordinary windows. I mean, they are typical and ordinary here in Rovinj, maybe in some other place, they wouldn't be as ordinary. And then, even if they are ordinary everywhere on earth, I'm pretty sure that there are planets out there on which these windows would be quite exceptional.
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In this photograph, I'm closer to the places I showed you earlier.
I was passing by one of the last waterfront palaces on that side of the harbor when this photograph was taken. The scene is framed by the arch of the porch that creates a nice shady passageway in the hot summer and gives shelter from the rain in autumn and winter.
Here you can see a much smaller passageway that leads to the labyrinth of narrow streets deeper into the old town.
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This elongated square that looks like a fairly large street is called Giovanni Pignaton square.
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Here you can see another group of buildings in that part of the old town. In the following photograph ...
... the focus is on the cash machine and the obituaries displayed on one of those buildings.
In this photograph, I'm walking uphill again.
Through the narrow streets.
Back to the church on the top of the hill.
I can't tell you much in this part of the post ...
... just show you what I saw along the way.
In some places, the flower pots were hanging under the windows and the plants were growing there ...
... in other ...
... the weeds were growing directly on the wall. Here you can see the Cymbalaria muralis plant.
Here you can see a portrait of a flowerpot on the old rusted facade.
The flowerpot shown in this photograph is fairly modern and the facade is relatively new.
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This place looks like a small square surrounded by old buildings. I like the abundance of details in the scene.
In this photograph, I zoomed in on one of the windows of one of the buildings shown in the previous shot. The panties and the flag displayed near each other looked very cool.
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A bit further up the road, I came across this decorative combination of plants and a ram skull in and around the window. The ram skull always makes me think of Skeletor from the Masters of the Universe cartoon. He had one on his dark magic staff.
After taking this portrait of a friend on the stairs ...
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... I came across this lovely globe. You can easily explore the planet in this place.
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Here you can see more old buildings ...
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... and one more street view I photographed on the way to the top.
I'm approaching the biggest church in town in this shot.
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In the following photograph ...
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... I'm there, in front of it.
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The baroque Church of Saint Euphemia was built in the period from 1725 to 1736. The front facade as we can see it today was added in 1883. There was an older medieval church before this one in the same place, and before that medieval one, there was an early Christian basilica. The sixty meters tall bell tower as we see it today was defined in the period from 1654 to 1687.
AND THAT'S IT. THE POST ENDS HERE. HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE TOUR. AS ALWAYS ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK.
