Opatija

Our next destination was Rovinj, which is on the Istrian peninsula. To get there, we had to take the bus to Bled, train from Bled into Croatia, and finally a bus to Rovinj. So, we sensibly decided to break up the trip and spend the night in Opatija, Croatia, before taking the final bus trip. Opatija is just outside Rijeka, which is the major transportation hub for the region. According to the guidebook, it's more interesting than Rijeka, so we decided to spend the night there rather than in Rijeka. Unfortunately, neither the guidebook nor the train schedule mentioned that the train actually stops 5 km from the actual town of Opatija. There was pretty much nothing there when we got off the train. A station employee tried to call a cab for us and then drove us into town when no cabs were willing to come. (Nice, but not that nice - he still asked us for money when he dropped us off.)

We stayed at the Hotel Opatija. The place looks like it used to be very posh, but now it's more like the dictionary definition of "faded grandeur". It's classic - the paint is cracked, the carpet is faded, etc. Here it is from a distance.



And, here's our room.



The town is pretty, but it has a certain English resort town feel to it, probably because it's so close to the main city in the area. It reminds me of the time I went to Scarborough. It seems like it's popular for people who want to get away, but don't want to go very far to do it. It's much less depressing than an actual English resort, though.

We stumbled into something pretty amusing for dinner, though. We chose a restaurant that must be pretty popular for English speakers. At least, pretty much everyone there when we were there was either American or English. They had an upright piano in the restaurant, about 4 feet from our table. About 20 minutes after we got there, a guy sat down at it and started playing. For the rest of the time we were there (and after) he played American and British music, starting with "Blowing in the Wind", with a little bit of John Lennon, and a whole lot of Louis Armstrong. He would change his voice to imitate the original singer, which was pretty funny for the Louis Armstrong stuff (I'm guessing the pianist was German or Scandinavian, but I'm not sure). He also did some John Denver, as well as (my person highlight of the night) "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond. Everybody in the room was singing along. (Did I mention that we were the youngest people in the room by 20 years or so?) Finally, after we left we discovered that the guy at the next table had bought a flower for every woman in the room from the roving Gypsy flower seller.