Pula - Fights Ancient and Modern

As with so many Roman cities in Croatia, a wall surrounded Pula from Roman times into the Middle Ages. The Roman Arena I talked about last week sat outside that wall. Parts of the wall and some of its gates remain in a city that preserves many Roman artefacts.

Arch of the Sergii with (yellow) Joyce Berlitz Building

On our first morning we walked through the market to the Arch of the Sergii. Beside it, a wonderful breakfast of frittata on a sunny restaurant patio fortified us for the day ahead. Across from the patio an Irish pub commemorates the time James Joyce lived here as a 22-year-old English teacher for the Berlitz school. The Arch was built around 28 BCE with private funds and stood in front of the existing city gate. It boasts a number of carvings – the underside of the arch displays an eagle attacking an enemy of Rome, depicted by a snake.

Eagle versus Snake

Portions of the wall remain and a little to the north sit the Twin Gates providing a now modern entrance to the archaeological museum. By the time we got there it was hot and nearing midday so we headed to the site of the old Forum. This is the site of the Temple of Augustus, built during the his reign and considered one of the most complete Roman buildings outside of Italy. My friend and I set up for a photo of this building, in the harsh light of noon when a couple walked into frame and sat in the centre to devour their sandwiches. Other tourists are the bane of photographers everywhere and I usually ignore them, but these guys were almost posing… …and not in a good way.

The Twin Gates

So we retreated to the shade of a restaurant patio and ordered a litre of house wine and some lunch to go with it. Our sommelier friend Lili was impressed and asked the waiter where it was from.

‘It’s local.’

‘Well, it’s very good.’

With typical Croatian bluntness, he smiled: ‘I’ve got better.’

It was a lovely, long, slow lunch though.

Relief in the Temple

We rose and entered the Temple, now a museum, and found it surprisingly small: a Tardis in reverse, but housing some small Roman sculptures and reliefs.

I got up early the next morning to catch my Roman remains naked. One of the things that stood out on my early morning walk was the number of stores selling used goods, ‘second hand shops,’ and their quirky signs were written only in English. As I walked past the Cathedral I noticed a tombstone in the grass that commemorates the Vergarola Explosion of 1946 – the detonation of 9 tons of munitions on a nearby beach, being guarded by the British. Croatia had been governed by Fascist Italy during WWII and was in the process of transition to Communist Yugoslavia. At the time of the blast a swimming competition was underway: 70 or 80 were killed and more than 100 injured, many were young children. Beside the stone is a plaque remembering Dr. GeppinoMicheletti who, despite losing two sons in the explosion worked tirelessly treating the injured for long hours. No culprits were found but the explosion was considered to be an act of protest at the transition of Croatia.

Second Hand Store

In the evening there was a nationalist fight of a different kind: soccer (football) as Croatia met the Czech Republic in the UEFA Championship. Croatia had done well in the competition to that point and was expected to dominate this match. We walked down into the market and took our seats outside a bar. All of the streets leading off the market are pedestrianized and each bar had set up a flat screen display with seating in the street. We ordered our beers and settled in. The game went well for the first half with Croatia ahead 2 - 0. Then, inexplicably, the coach pulled Modric (pronounced Modrich), their star player who had controlled the play and things started to unravel. It turns out that management of the Croatian team is controversial and in a corner of the field a bunch of protesters suddenly threw flares onto the pitch. The pitch burned. The crowd we were amongst had been growing restless with the demise of Modric but now they were openly hostile. We ordered more beer.

Soccer in the Street

The action was stopped for 30 minutes or more, as the referee tried to sort it out, but the damage had been done and the Czech Republic tied the game. The fans plodded out of the bars and mumbled their way home…

All in all we’d watched many of the UEFA games during our time in Croatia; some in German, one in Italian, most in Croatian, but it didn’t seem to matter. Sports announcers all sound the same regardless of the words they use. And, for this game, it was as well we didn’t understand the Croatian colour commentary.

The Temple of Augustus