Day 9 & 10: Rijeka

Wed 11 & Thu 12 September

Slept very patchily. Feel very bunged up.

Quick espresso at NoHo (learning to switch it up if they don’t have flat white/oat milk on the menu) then picked up — essentially — a Croatian sausage roll at Croatian Greggs (Mlinar).

Bus to Rijeka! Got to the bus station an hour early, but at least I had a seat in the shade, and a book, and the bus was on time. Woman next to me turned off my a/c at one point, because she was too cold. Arrived absolutely melting.

25 degrees in Rijeka, a city that seems to be largely under construction at present. Some gorgeous old buildings… but about one third of the necessary street crossings.

I navigated OK to my apartment, which is nice; a bit soulless but big and has everything you’d need except a USB socket. (Which is a stretch.) But the apartment building is terrifying and dark and old and the sort of place you arrive at and think oh god no I’ve made a huge error. Elevator is metal, clanking, from the very distant past, covered in cobwebs, practically hand-operated.

Washed some tops with what might have been dish soap, in the bathroom sink, so they have a chance of drying before I leave on Friday morning.

Went out for an explore and got mussels at Bistro Mornar as Nina recommended. Service quite surly. I think that’s the vibe here. White wine and view of the sea are both pretty nice, with the enjoyment of both interrupted only by people arriving at, or leaving, Mornar with some sort of complication (a child, a buggy, too many bags) and cars blocking the view.

Walked up and down and up and down to cover as much as possible while it was still sunny. Stopped on the pier for a Coke Zero. Took lots of pics of nice old buildings. Very sleepy. Feel really estranged from people.

OK, I have found another nice bar. Apotheca. One Nina recommended. Sweet white wine. A mum, gran and toddler have sat down next to me and she’s causing chaos (the toddler that is) with a roll of shiny wrapping paper. I’ve taken their Hendricks bottle table decoration on my table to save total carnage. She was loving playing with the bell round the neck of the fake cow at the ALE HOP shop across the road.

I have bought (boring but important) a little plug charger USB thing so I can charge my kindle and be able to read tomorrow. And to recharge my portable charger, which is helping me out right now. I feel a bit less stressed with battery and WiFi.

The wee girl has a huge glass of water and it’s Stressful. Should have worn my more opaque sunglasses.

Thanks to more WiFi and battery, I mainly played on my phone for a few hours.

Dinner. The “most popular pizza” is caramelised onions and prosciutto, apparently, so gotta do what I gotta do. This waiter also cheers up noticeably when I say “hvala”. Tourism is easy!

There’s a fountain here. A kid I saw with a stinky/questionable nappy earlier is point blank shooting another kid haha. Grow up, nappy boy.

Yes they have WiFi; yes the password has 2015 in it.

I’m getting (stealing?) the vibey tunes from the bar next door.

Some more wine after I finish my Popular Pizza.

Ooh, then Cafe Bard. Another Nina recommendation; a tiny pub playing old school rock and roll (by that I mean Blink 182 and The Killers and that one about Stacey’s mom)

Ema (nina’s best pal) wasn’t working, so might have to go back.

The next day I bravely got up and left the house before 12. It’s very rainy. Found the other bar Nina recommended (Fiorello) and asked for Sara, and she was there! And she’s making me her speciality “fish coffee” right now. ☕️

Soooo rainy.

Aw, we facetimed Nina 🥹 back in Ljubljana.

Walked around a bad shopping mall. Some of the worst stuff I’ve ever seen in my life. But felt strangely calm and tried to pick up as much ASMR from the punters looking at crap things as I possibly could.

Lunch at El Rio (Sara’s recommendation). Lots of snafu with the tables, so ended up in a not very good spot, but the burger and beer were tasty and probably what the doctor ordered. Certainly it’s what I ordered, although my waiter wasn’t always clear on that.

Pub, book, beer. Brolly, luckily.

Tried to visit a museum but it was closed, and I took that as a sign just to go back to my book in another pub.

Back to Bard, for a nice beer: Garden Milkshake IPA. (Still no Ema.)

SO MUCH RAIN.

Bang average pasta and prawns for dinner, where black stuff came out the prawn.

And I found the hair of either the waitress (who kept having to come outside with an umbrella to serve me), or the cook (who proudly showed off a gambas that was in her view totally fine and fresh, same as what I had, when I mentioned the gross black stuff.)

Still: quite fun to be the only person in what was essentially a greenhouse getting battered by the elements, eating dinner and sipping white wine.

Booked Split!