Stancija 1904

Monday 23 September

We are at an agri-tourist estate inland from Rovinj (and in fact very near where we had the coffee the other day at the railway station at Kanfanar on the way to Rovinj) - this is in the tiny town of Smoljanci with the railway running past the estate on the other side of the hedge!!

So, continuing our theme of a relaxing holiday, we are enjoying a pivo (= beer) for My Friend - reclining on outdoor sofa (!) and a couple of glasses of Croatian Chardonnay (for me) under the trees in the lovely garden.

Another lovely day - 23 deg C.

We had gone for a stroll along the harbour in Novigrad before breakfast, remarking to each other what an easy place it is to get around; walking along the waterfront on the promenade; cycling (mum &and kids passed us enroute to school); exercises by the sea for a group who seemed to emerge from a nearby hotel complex; and for the less vertically-challenged, the attractions of the local cafe bar by some wizzened locals for whom a coffee and the paper was more the way to go.

But the prize goes to ... the guy lying on his reclining sofa surrounded by water, smoking a cigar and reading the paper - man, was he sucking it up! (My Friend said to emphasize that this is NOT My Friend!).

We had a coffee - and read the paper (who are WE to make value judgements!) - in a café by the sea, in the sun, under an umbrella. Eat your hearts out!

As I keep saying: nice place, Novigrad.

So then we drove onto this Stancija place. Middle of nowhere. Stopped again at Sv. Lovrec. Definitely still the best coffee in Croatia thus far. I did comment yesterday (enroute to Grožgnan) that there is not much else here bar the café. But there IS more!

We turned off the road on a whim after our coffee andfound the most delightful castello undergoing restoration.

Onward we went to Kanfanar, and then by stopping for a train at the railway crossing and asking a little old Croatian woman the way to Stancija, we found this place. Apparently, there is a castle nearby which we'll go and investigate later - 3rd train has just trundled past, by the way.

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Finishing this on Tuesday 24 September ...

We drove about 3 to 4 kms up the road to Svetvinčenat with its lovely medieval castle. Spent an hour wandering around. So peaceful - apart from a couple of locals, we were the only people there!

And then returned to Stancija to cook our home-made pizza from the provisions we'd bought earlier in the day. Yum.