Since I had plenty of fun in Rovinj yesterday but wasn't able to stay long because of some stuff that had to be done at home, I returned today, to take my Wednesday Walk there. To avoid repetition, I visited different places in the city.
These colorful cuboids that look like something built with oversized legos are actually made of plastic fish crates. They are piled in this place on the outskirts of the city ...
... because there is a fish processing factory there.
The facility is part of the oldest fish processing company in Croatia. Is called Mirna d.d. Rovinj, and was established in 1877 when Rovinj was the most advanced and prosperous city on this peninsula.
My walk starts about a hundred meters from that factory, in a nice suburban neighborhood with a great view of the sea.
The garbage truck was slowly driving through the narrow street.
Two men were following the truck.
I watched that early morning action ...
... until they disappeared behind the bend, and then ...
... I continued towards the sea. A minute later I reached the first pile of empty fish crates
Behind them, the old town stood in all its glory.
I passed by those crates ...
... and continued along the road to see where will this direction take me.
I shot this beautiful pine tree on the side of the road covered with sparsely scattered suburban homes and plenty of green.
Soon I reached the opposite end of the fish processing area.
The forklift was transporting a pile of block pallets ...
... in front of the large hangar ...
... with a nicely illustrated advert on its facade. If you enlarge this enlargeable photograph you may notice a cartoonish walrus character in the left half of the picture. In the following shot, which is actually a low-resolution crop of the better photograph that will appear later in the post ...
... you can see the entire character. For kids growing up in Yugoslavia during the late 70' and 80', this walrus-sailor was almost like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck. It was a character of one of the rare animated TV commercials, and it looked almost like a real cartoon to me. It was well made and pretty charming. Furthermore, there weren't many cartoons during the normal working day on our serious, socialist television, so that commercial was a great bonus. The commercials were always announced with the big EPP letters on the screen. EPP was the abbreviation for EKONOMSKO PROPAGANDNI PROGRAM, which means, more or less ECONOMIC PROPAGANDA BROADCAST. Today, while preparing this post, I learned that it was a unique local term that had no parallel in the western capitalist world.
Didn't find anything about the old house in front of the hangar, but is surely been here for quite some time.
Here I caught two forklifts in action.
About a hundred meters further, I caught a glimpse of the small human figure in the pretty large window ...
... on the administrative building of the factory.
After spying for a couple of minutes or so ...
... I crossed the street ...
... and continued along the waterfront. The large trawling nets were spread on the floor for small reparations ...
... and the two-person crew of the medium-sized fishing boat was ready to leave the port.
When I took this portrait of the old town ...
... they were on their way ...
... towards the fishing area ...
... somewhere in the bay. I followed them with the camera for a minute or so, and then ...
... I continued my walk, passed very near to the old town, and after a kilometer or two ...
... I reached another historic factory ...
... the Darna liquor factory ...
... that's been here since 1925 ... as the writing on the facade clearly shows, so I had an easy job finding that information. No need for the Internet this time.
This is only the front building. There is more in the closed area behind it. After taking this shot ...
... I walked back to the waterfront and the fish processing industry. Here you can see the other side of the hangar ...
... and the old-fashioned, antique-like representation of the city combined with some vintage advert design. I like this stuff a lot. It's different enough to be interesting among the usual contemporarily designed adverts and is well made, so it's great to look at, not just strange or out of time.
Soon I passed by some imprisoned garbage cans.
Some hazardous waste is stored here, the writing says.
Here I'm passing by the historic buildings of the old factory.
This lovely house was photographed very near ...
... while a man and his cute small dog were passing by.
I took the same road to go back to the car, so I passed by the hangar again. A man was sweeping in front of it this time. The small, dark figure looked great in the large pale, uniformly lit area. I like moments like this when a minuscule detail gives power to the otherwise pretty dull photograph.
A bit further, on the other side of the road, I came across this lock and chain ...
... on the gate that leads to an old villa hidden in the dense, lush vegetation.
The funny thing was that there was no wall around the gate, so the lock was pretty useless unless there was some invisible energy barrier that I couldn't perceive.
These bizarre little details mean a lot to me. They give a nice surreal touch to my ordinary life.
When I reached the suburban neighborhood that was the starting point of this walk, and when I almost unlocked the car ...
... something told me that is too early to go. I mean, I was pretty tired, but there was something vaguely motivating in the freezing winter air. So I walked back to the sea ...
... and continued along the shore ...
... to the nearest beach.
There I came across the small beach bar that looks kind of strange and mysterious in winter.
A cool little car was parked near the summer shack ...
... and a cool little boat that invites the visitors to come back was stranded not far from there.
Here you can see the friend who was there with me. She entered the boat, and after these shots were taken ...
... we walked to the beach ...
... with the nice, wide view.
The small islet Banjol looked pretty surreal with the horizon made invisible by the mist and the mysterious blue stripe on the pale, ghostly sea.
Soon I noticed a fishing boat ...
... relatively close to the islet.
When I zoomed in ...
... and saw some details and the shape of the boat ...
... I was pretty sure that these are the same fishermen that were introduced earlier in this post.
Before walking back to my car, I decided to explore a bit the oldtimer parked by the beach bar.
A small dreamcatcher was hanging from the rear-view mirror.
After taking this shot, I walked to the car and then drove directly home. So the walk ends here, but ...
... but before ending the post, I have to show you two more photographs ...
... taken earlier, about 20 kilometers from Rovinj. I saw this white house that looked pretty cool in the dark blue morning, and I had to stop and take a shot or two.
AND THAT'S IT. HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE WALK. AS ALWAYS IN THESE POSTS ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK - THE END.