Today I slept in until about 7:30. I woke up to the sun shining in to my dorm room curtain. This was a nice hostel with privacy curtains on each bed. I grabbed my phone and started looking for things to do and places to eat. I decided I would do the free walking tour of Pula from 10-12, and before that get some food at a local fish market. The hostel was centrally located in Pula. 2 blocks from the Pula Arena, 2 blocks from the fish market, a 10 minute bike ride from some amazing beaches. 

When I got to the fish market, It seemed like a real local spot. It was a whole floor of a building filled with seafood stands with fish and shellfish on ice. I looked around at the prices, thinking things were reasonably priced, but then I looked closer and saw that the prices were for a kilogram, not a pound. This seafood was less than half what I would expect to pay in the states! I got a 1/2 kilo of mussels for 2.50 and a 1/2 kilo of tuna steak for 10 Euros. I also stopped at a local market on the way back to the hostel and got some fixings for the proteins I bought. 

When I got to the hostel, I used the kitchen to cook up my mussels for breakfast. I made a simple dish of gnocchi with Avjar sauce and steamed mussels. I also had some local stuffed olives and fruit on the side. It was delicious.

By the time I cleaned up my dishes, it was almost time to leave for the walking tour. I packed my bag for the day and headed out to the town center. We met at the Temple of Augustus, a 2000 year old Roman temple in the middle of Pula, part of which is used today as the city hall. Apparently the Roman Emperor Augustus built this temple to impress a woman he was in love with.

The tour guide was very knowledgeable about local history, and the tour was a lot more history heavy than I anticipated. It reminded me of being in a highscool APUSH lecture. It was kind of fun getting a Croatian history lesson from a local. She walked through the 3000 year history of Pula: from it's initial settlement from the Histri tribe, to the occupation of the Romans, to the Occupation of the Venetians, to the occupation of Austria, to the occupation of Italy, to the formation of Yugoslavia, and then croatian Independence in the early 1990s. Croatia is also a recent member of the European Union / Schengen area. She commented that many Croats are unhappy about the adoption of the Euro because prices for goods went up, but salaries stayed the same. Convenient for us tourists, bad for locals.

She also mentioned that much of Pula had been bombed during WWII. Pula had been caught on the wrong side of the war, under the oppressive regime of Mussolini. Legend has it that Mussolini gave one speech in Pula, where he displayed racial prejudice and hatred against the local Slavic people. One local slapped him in the face after the speech, and Mussolini never returned to the city.

Unlike Rome, Pula retained much more of its ancient Roman infrastructure during the dark ages. It is estimated that during the dark ages, only 700 people lived in Pula, meaning that a lot less pillaging and repurposing of building materials occured. As a result, the Pula Arena is one of the most well preserved Roman Amphitheatres today.

After the tour, I tipped the tour guide and went on about my day. It was approaching lunch time, so I went to the farmers market to buy some more goods. I bought some local produce: a quarter of a watermelon, and a bunch of grapes. Side note: seedless fruit does not seem to be popular in croatia. Not at farmers markets, and not in super markets. Seeded water melon and seeded grapes remain the only options here. I personally don't mind.

I went back to the hostel again and cooked up my tuna steak, with some local fruit on the side. Again, delicious. This tuna was different from the Ahi I was used to at home. Much fattier and more tender. Maybe it was Bluefin? I'm not sure.

I went on google maps and found a popular cliff jumping spot on the edge of town and decided to check that out after dinner. I rode my rented hostel bike to the beach and there discovered a giant party hangout. Tons of tourists (mostly Germans) were hanging out on the cliffsides, and jumping into the crystal clear Adriatic. It was amazing. I jumped from two spots: One spot was from the overhang of a sea cave. Probably about 25 feet. The water was very deep and I never hit the bottom. It was a bit sketchy just from the number of swimmers and kayakers in the water below. I did it once, and moved on to the next jump.

The second jump was higher, probably close to 35 feet. After watching several overweight men jump, and seeing them not touch the bottom, I determined I would probably be fine. When I jumped, it felt like I was free falling for a long time. I made the mistake of looking down at the water when I was falling, and when I landed, the water hit my throat and chin with quite some force. Not enough to knock the wind out of me, but enough to shake me up a bit. I realized from the force of the impact that the jump was high enough to injure you if you messed up and belly flopped. I made that jump a one-and-done as well. 

After climbing back up the cliffs, I rode my bike to the nearby wakeboarding park. I wanted to try cable tow wakeboarding for a third time. I bought a 2 hour ticket, and grabbed a board. This park was easier to get up at than the one in Austria. I quickly made a couple laps around the park, but the wind had started to pick up. Before long, the wind chop was so bad, it was difficult to turn around the sharp bends of the cable tow line. After only and hour, I packed it up and got some food at the nearby beach bar.

I then rode my bike back to the hostel where I ate the remainder of the watermelon and other fruit I had bought at the farmers market. While I was eating in the kitchen, I chatted with two people: one guy from New Zealand, and one guy from the UK. As I was laying in bed figuring out what I would do for the last hour of daylight, my bunkmate below me said he was going to grab some food and asked if I wanted to join. I had nothing better to do, so I said yes. We walked around the Arena together before grabbing dinner at a street food place. He was a civil engineer from Trondheim, Norway. He had a couple months of time off as he was inbetween jobs, a similar situation as myself. We swapped stories about Norway, and I told him how I spent two weeks cycling from Oslo to Kristiansand. He asked if I had tried lutefisk (a norwegian fermented fish prepared with lye), and I said "oh, is that the fish that is supposed to taste like vomit?". Apparently he really liked lutefisk and found my comment offensive. He assured me I must have been thinking of the Swedish version. One of these days I will actually have to try it myself.

After getting back, I passed out and went to sleep. I had to be up at 5:45 the next morning to catch a ferry to Venice.