More photos of Bale


Castle in town, or more of a fortified house

City Hall or the Municipal

Street scene

Buildings with ancient Rolex


Lion of the Venetians. If the book is open it is a time of peace in the Republic. If the book is closed Venice is at war. If the Lion is holding an apple, that means he is reading a Kindle on his MacBook. I might have made up that last one.


Inside the Castle, now filled with little shops and restaurants...and my wife


This Church and Tower were inside what was the Castle complex. Church has been rebuilt numerous times.

I notice that your trip is 30 days so are you adding time on your own at the beginning of your trip and/or end of your trip? We are DIY travelers, too, but we might consider a tour group sometime if I don't have the desire or time to plan our own trip. So it's interesting to hear what you think of your tour and to see your photos.

Hi Karen - We came over 5 days early, 3 in Zagreb and 2 in Ljubljana. Our tour is 14 days although the last day is pretty much breakfast and then done. We are really enjoying our tour and feel it has been good value. I'm so behind on my Trip Report! We are in Dubrovnik right now and then 3 days in Montenegro, 4 days on the island of Hvar and 2 days in Trogir to unwind before coming home. It's been wonderful so far, but we've had a lot rain.

It’s been good to get a ‘tour’ trip report, are there any annoyances you’d like to share?

I agree with Adelaidean that it's good to get a "tour" trip report. My husband and I are in our 70's. I do all the planning and he does all the driving. But there may come a time when sometimes we might want someone else to do the planning and driving.

That's too bad about the rain. I recently read about lots of rain and flooding in the Czech Republic, too. We visited Croatia, Montenegro, and Slovenia in September 2019, and we had glorious weather for our entire trip. Warm, sunny, and very summer like. Other than 2 overcast days at Plitvice, we had sun every day. Not a drop of rain. Our friends, OTOH, who traveled to the same places in April/May of that year had cold weather and rain in Slovenia. I hope the weather will improve for you.

We haven't really had any annoyances per se. Given that we generally travel on our own, the only annoyance is that we aren't in control of our schedule. So some mornings we are meeting at 8AM to hit the road. That being said, the places we have been seeing are more than enough to offset our early morning blues. Also sometimes we've had to drive for a ways, so being on the bus and trying to catch a wink or two has been OK.
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Pula - Busy day although our drives have been pretty short. First we stopped at an olive oil producer. On a Thailand trip we took a number of years ago, we stopped at a lot of places that had things to sell. I guess you could say that about our first stop, but we had a tasting first and discussed olive oil. I did not know this, but there is a deep, dark secret about olive oil and it is that most of the olive oil we use, has very little actual olive oil. If you are paying $9 for a bottle of olive oil it is probably mostly canola or some other kind. So between Spain and Italy there is a little racket going on with the oil. Our guy told us about a book that detailed it and I think the guy had to go into hiding!

Pula was an ancient Roman seaport at the bottom of the Istrian Peninsula. It was ruled by the Byzantines, Venetians and finally the Hapsburgs. The port would have been filled with the Austro-Hungarian warships. It also has the 6th biggest Roman Amphitheater and one of the best preserved. Once you are in you can run all over and channel your inner Errol Flynn or Russell Crowe if you are not into black and white movies. Also there are no annoying Italian museum guards shouting, No Photos! You know who you are Gina

First view of the Amphitheater from across the street. Number One rule, don't call it a coliseum, only Rome has that, but in this you get to roam at will


Inside! The white column in the middle of the photo was were the emperor would chill


My what big columns you have...


Temple of Augustus in Old Town. Partially destroyed in the war but rebuilt in 1946


Gate of Hercules on the outskirts of the Old town.


Oh..yeah...they also have an ancient mosaic, which is down this non-descript street, barely marked, but it does have a gate around it

Rovinj - After lunch on our own in Pula, we headed back toward Bale and on to Rovinj. Rick Steves says Rovinj is one of his favorite towns and I can see why. We had the afternoon to ourselves, this town has changed hands many time, Venetian and then maybe Ottoman. To cover their bets, the Balbi Arch has one of each on either side. It feels very Italian here and indeed your pretty close to Italy.


This may be one of the first things you see as you enter the town from the parking lot. It is the Yugoslav - Era Monument. This is Tito era. There seems to be mixed reviews about Tito in this area, some people think it was better in the old days. Just like your stoner friends who say, Vinyl was better, man


Seaside, very Italian looking. The tower for the church of St. Euphemia in the background.


Nice little harbor to park your Criss Craft


The Balbi Arch... you don't like my looks? Check out the other side.


The other side!


City hall tower with the little boy statue at Tito Square


Starting the walk up Grisia Street which is filled with shops


Cool old building!


Heading out of town? Make sure you have gas and ice cream.

Lovely pictures. Thank you for sharing. I also have a question about your tour. We are Rick Steves fans in terms of enjoying his shows and sometimes using his guidebooks (although we have found that "Rick Steves recommended" places can be overrun with other tourists). I am wondering what the age range was on your tour and how much walking there is as opposed to driving to specific places? Like Karen, my husband and I are on our 70s. We always plan our own trips. While we have taken day tours while in a city (e.g. a day long wine tour to the Douro River Valley while in Porto), we have not gone on any multi-day organized tours. I can see the benefits of leaving everything - especially moving baggage - to someone else, but wonder about the organized activities. And did you eat every meal with the group?
Thank you!

Hi Joduhl - The age of the group predominately was retired. We are 70 and 72. I found that the benefits of the tour were seeing a lot of places without worrying about driving. As you probably know Europe has pretty tiny streets and hotels don't always provide parking, so for me that was a big deal. As for moving luggage, you are on your own getting it to the bus from your room, it will be delivered to the next hotel, but then you have to take it your room. Rick recommends one roller carrying on bag and maybe a small back pack. We did not eat every meal together. Each hotel we stayed at provided a gut-busting buffet for breakfast. Again, you have probably experienced this. I am taking a statin for cholesterol and my wife had to hide my pills inside a piece of cheese to get me to take them. We had some lunches together, generally really fantastic. We had one at a winery way out in the country in Slovenia and it was fantastic. We had a number of dinners together, provided, but not all. In general I was very happy with the food. Right now we are on our own for the next 12 days, but we really felt good about deciding to do a Rick tour. Already looking at the next one.

Joduhl - I realized I didn't answer one of your questions about walking. There was quite a bit of walking, mostly on the guided tours. For instance, in Pula we had a local guide and she spent about 2 1/2 hours with us. Of that we were sitting at the start in the Roman arena but she also then walked us through Old Town. Also in Dubrovnik, we had a 2 hour tour and there a lot of stairs in Dubrovnik. On occasion we did two stops in one day. Pula and Rovinj for example, but when we got to Rovinj we were on our own so you could go at your own pace. I'll address this in a later post, but there seems to be a boat load of steps on this area. Even Zagreb and Ljubljana, which we did somewhat on our own have a lot of steps.

The bus rides varied, somedays we were on the bus for 2 - 3 hours total and a few times, we were on for 5 -6 hours but it was broken up with stops for a site or lunch.

I love the differences between Zagreb, Ljubljana, and Pula. All worthwhile stops. And I'm especially attracted to see those pocket museums of Zagreb. So far so great.

Tdiddy12, thank you for all the details you provided in your last 2 posts. I like the way you planned your trip: you arrived early before the tour began, then you did the tour, and you are now on your own for the next 12 days. That sounds like a good balance of a guided tour and DIY. BTW, did you go to Plitvice Lakes NP with Rick's tour? I don't seem to recall you mentioned it, but perhaps I missed a few posts.

Plitvice Lakes coming up soon! On our way to Plitvice Lakes we stopped at Opatija. This town was a resort area in the late 19th century. Members of the Hapsburgs used to party here. It was the Riviera for Easter of Central Europe. The buildings here are still magnificent with a more Baroque style. We spent a couple of hours walking on the water front and through Angiolina Park and topped it off with a cafe and strudel.



Opatija has a "Hollywood" stars Walk of Fame for famous Croatians. Goran was actually the only one I knew from his tennis days.


One of the fancy old palaces of the Rich, now turned into a fancy hotel...probably for the Rich.


Villa Angiolina which now houses the Croatian Museum of Tourism. In of all places, Angiolina Park. Gotta find out who this Angiolina is!


There is a walkway called the Lungomare that runs along the beach or actually ocean, not a lot of beach. There are however many pools along the sea that are filled with the water from the sea. There are ladders off the concrete so people can jump in and swim. We saw this area for children that really looked fun.

This is a statue called Greeting to the Sea and stands pretty close to the end of the walk

I agree, Zagreb seemed a little more of a working town, but we didn't get to see a lot of the museums because of damage from the earthquake. Ljubljana was just so clean and fairy tale like to me, even with the graffiti. And then Pula was also a bit grittier because it's a port city, but it sure has a lot to offer.

Thanks for answering my questions. I appreciate it and I'm continuing to enjoy your report.

As above, thanks for your responses, tours might be in my future but I tend to cringe when I see tour groups and think to myself that I’d hate that. I did do a day tour in June, and it was great to have the transport arranged, but I didn’t like the (necessary for a tour) time restraints. So weighing up pros and cons for that “one day” time.

Adelaide - I know exactly how you feel. We've only really done two tours, one in Thailand I mentioned above and this one. In both cases it was because we were going to new areas and not sure about the terrain. The Thailand one was so-so. Nice guide but you spent a 1/2 hour at some real cool ruins and then an hour at a shopping mail for a "rest break".

The Rick Steves tour was definitely better. We were worried about two things, how was it going to be hanging out with 28 people, in our case, and how was the food? In both cases it was great. Loved the people, everyday we switched places on the bus so we were talking with different people. Mostly couples on the tour. The food was really good. Like I said breakfast in the morning at hotel then generally a lunch or dinner each day. I think Rick Steves handled the time restraints well. In Pula for instance, we might have spent just under an hour in the Roman arena and I could have spent all day just hanging out. In Split however, we had two evenings and one whole afternoon to see the town which was sufficient. There are definitely pros and cons. I think the only way I could do a tour would be to add on before and after as we are doing. For example, it's about 9AM, I'm on the balcony of our apartment in Kotor, staring directly at a giant MSC tour ship and watching the tenders take people into town. So I know these people have been up since 7 to get breakfast, cleaned up and "cattle car" into town. I'm going to find a cup of coffee, read, kick back and try to work on my Trip Report!

Tdiddy12 are you staying in Maritimo apartments?

Great report, thank you so much for posting.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply.