I spent most of the 29th of December 2022 driving around the peninsula. It was my birthday, two friends were in the car with me, and that aimless drive was some kind of celebration. Two days ago, through Liketu, I published a bunch of photographs taken in the central part of Istra, from one of the hills around the small city of Pazin. Today, I'm about to show you the rest.
Rabatz is a resort town on the eastern coast of the peninsula. In this opening shot, I zoomed in to take a good look at the neighborhood on the hill ...
... while standing on the beach.
These aren't the first shots I took on that occasion in Rabatz.
The shooting started half an hour earlier ...
... when I parked the car near the complex of three fairly big hotels situated in the same large building.
The massive hotel thing was first built in the sixties. "In the period from 1961 to 1971" according to Wikipedia. In the eighties, from 1978 to 1989 more precisely, the hotels were reconstructed. Changed a bit and modernized. Their current look dates from that period, I suppose.
From a photographer's perspective, the terraces create lovely patterns, but it doesn't seem that can offer much privacy to the guests. The building is an architectural ode to mass tourism, and quite surprisingly, I like the visual style of this massive human anthill.
It looks a bit like a giant cruise ship stranded in a small valley surrounded by hills and coastal slopes. It doesn't take much imagination to visualize this thing as a tourist-friendly ark floating on the exceptionally high tide provided by global warming.
Since I appreciate the visual appeal of this type of architecture, there was plenty for me to explore along the long front facade. Simple geometries of doors, windows & guardrails looked surprisingly inspiring when isolated from the rest with a bit of zooming.
The difference between the hotel and the much smaller apartment buildings on the hill was also a nice theme to show through a photograph.
After taking this shot, it was time to explore the beach.
The path to the sea was leading through an interesting campsite.
Unlike in the southern coastal area around my hometown and the city of Pula, where the pines provide the shade for the summer crowds, here that important seasonal job is done by the olive trees.
The olives in the camp are beautifully twisted and deformed in many different ways. Like organic sculptures with twigs and foliage.
In this case, what remains of a thick branch became a little table. A place where one can put down a bottle of beer or a refreshing cocktail while chatting with friends.
Here you can take a good look at the mobile homes and the hotel behind them.
At one point, while approaching the beach, I spotted a small vivid detail surrounded by a sea of dark green foliage.
Here I zoomed in a bit more so you can take a better look at the only deciduous tree on that evergreen slope.
When I reached the beach, a gentle rain started falling ...
... so I didn't take many photographs there. The rain was fine for walking around but wasn't healthy for my camera.
We walked back to the hotels, and surprisingly, it wasn't raining there. The clouds were slowly rolling across the sky, occasionally letting a bit of direct sunlight pass through.
If you compare this photograph with the previous one, you'll get an idea about the look of the scene in the changing light.
Here you can take a better look at the decorative plants in front of the hotel.
This shrub produced a bunch of lovely flowers. In the following photograph ...
... you can see a portrait of one of those flowers. We were near the car at this point.
It was time to leave Rabatz behind and continue the birthday trip.
After an hour or two of driving around and talking & joking in the car parked by the side of the road while the rain was falling outside and the music from the stereo was providing the soundtrack, we stopped for a couple of minutes on the bus stop of some small roadside village not far from Rabatz. Ten or twenty kilometers from there.
When it comes to the name of the village, I can't tell you that. Not because it is a secret. I just don't remember seeing the roadsign with the name back then, at the end of 2022, so I don't see much sense in searching for it through the labyrinths of my memory.
The rain wasn't falling there, so I got out of the car ...
... to photograph the hills around the village and the low clouds around their crests.
As the mist was slowly and partially clearing, I noticed something that looked like a house in construction on the top of the hill.
When I zoomed in, it looked like visible scaffolding around the invisible building. Or like scaffolding around a piece of nothing.
I still can't tell you what this is. But it looks cool in the fog.
This is Plomin. An old little town on one of the hills about ten kilometers from Rabatz. Not far from the town ...
... down in the valley, there is a coal-fired power station built in 1969 that is also called Plomin.
Here you can take a look at the rocks on the top of one of the higher hills, across the road from Plomin. A gentle rain was falling while I was rapidly photographing Plomin and the surroundings, but soon the rain turned from gentle to a shower, so I gave up the shooting.
A minute later, we were on the road again.
The birthday drive continued, and we stopped near the city of Pazin where I took the photographs published in Liketu two days ago, but this post ends here.
AS ALWAYS HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK.