My Croatian Adventure Begins in Pula

I had no idea what to expect when I came to Pula. I only picked Croatia because it had the cheapest plane flight from the UK and was out of the Schengen Zone. But this is now my new favorite country.

[button color=”blue” size=”medium” link=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/skyetravels/sets/72157654501207829″ icon=”fa-flickr” target=”true”]Photos of Pula[/button]

My adventure started in Pula, where I arrived from London at 9 AM. But let’s back up.

I found a ticket from London to Croatia for €50, plus €20 for my rediculously overweight backpack. Speaking of which, I weighted it at the coach station in London before I left. Just the main bag, not including the detachable day pack, weighs 22 kgs. The day pack is about half as heavy, so another 10 kgs. That’s nearly 70 lbs on my shoulders!!!

One thing I want to quickly point out that the price of my ticket was still that cheap less than a week before my flight. In fact, I only booked the flight less than two weeks early. Just goes to prove my advice in my post on finding cheap flights.

Getting to my flight was an adventure in itself. In hindsight, I missed out on amazing opportunity, as my host in London was only a few minutes away from the airport and I could easily have gotten a good night sleep, got up at 5 and caught my flight at 6. Instead, I had to be at the coach station to pick up my backpack before 10:30 PM when the luggage office closed. Then I waited at the coach station until 1 AM for the bus. The bus arrived at Gatwick at 2, and I then waited until 6 for the flight. I wasn’t too keen on getting some sleep at the airport since I missed my train in Florence after falling asleep on the platform. I did get a little sleep on the plane, but the flight is only about four hours long.

I arrived in the morning at 9 AM. I saw a sign that said that Pula was only 3 km away, so I chose to walk. The bus was only €4, or €3 for booking on line, but I’ve decided to walk any distance less than 5 km in my travels. So I headed out, hoping my new tablet would pick up internet in a new country. It finally did, and when I looked I was a km away from the airport…in the wrong direction! I was so tired I completely misread the sign to Pula. So 3 km turned into 5 km, which turned into 7 when I found my hostel was 2 km from the border of the city. Oh, and when we landed the temperature was 20°. Two hours later when I made it to my hostel it was 25°…and raining.

The hostel was incredibly impressive in its own right, and deserving of it’s own post, which I wrote here.

After I checked into the hostel and took a shower, I went out to grab a bite to eat, since I hadn’t eaten since dinner the previous day, nearly 24 hours earlier. The hostel staff recommended a place called Jupiter Pizzaria. So after I spent a couple hours exploring the town, seeing the fort on the hill, wandering around the streets and enjoying the beach, I went to get a pizza. What an incredible pizza. It was just as good as the pizzas I had eaten in Italy, if not better. And the best part was the huge pizza was only €7. Not only that, but it was enough food for both lunch and dinner!

After that I went back to the hostel where I promptly passed out. The lack of sleep finally caught up to me, along with walking too far in the heat after the wonderful weather in Scotland.

After I woke up I spent the rest of the day hanging out with the other travelers in the hostel and talking with Jasmina. I ended up playing a drinking game called 21 with a couple other friends. We didn’t have a big selection of drinks to pick from, but it was fun nonetheless.

The next day I got up early to go explore more of Pula. I walked all around the peninsula and seeing the resorts there. The buildings might have been run down, but who cares when you’re on beaches as beautiful as those you find in Croatia?

But as beautiful as Pula is, it isn’t the biggest town, and there isn’t really that much to see. So after another great talk with Jasmina (which wasn’t nearly long enough), I grabbed a bus to my next destination – Karlovac. And that’s what I’ll be writing about next.