We had a big storm at 4am and got back to sleep around 5. It was very cloudy and cool so we woke up around 8.30am – very late for us.

It was still raining so we hung around the van until early afternoon when it cleared up. We jumped on our bikes and headed into Rovinj old town.

There was a lot of traffic going into Rovinj. The pedestrian areas were packed.

We saw some German tourists trying to hand feed a young seagull. We thought that was pretty stupid considering that seagulls are becoming pests grabbing food from people’s hands.

When we got to see the town – it was very spectacular.

We got past the major crowds around the eateries entering the old town area. The town used to be an island and the bridge would have been here.

We found Titi square named after the Yugoslav President. The clock tower is from the 12th century and had the emblem of the Lion of Saint Mark, representing the Venetian Republic.

The city gate is from 1679 and also has the Venetian lion and the Balbi family crest.

There were lots of interesting streets as we climbed up to the Basilica of St Euphemia.

There is quite a story about St Euphemia and her remains here in the church. She was killed in around 303AD by the Romans by putting her in the arena with lions. The lions didn’t want to kill her. It took a wild bear to do the job.

Her remains were then in Constantinople and mysteriously made their way to the sea in Rovinj. 2 fishermen were supposedly saved from a storm by her being there. Her large stone sarcophagus then sat on the beach and couldn’t be moved until a young boy came along and pulled it up to the top of the hill himself. There have been many miracles associated with her.

Anyway the stone sarcophagus and paintings are quite impressive.

The rest of the church with bell tower is large and imposing over the town.

We didn’t go up the bell tower as there were pictures of the rotten wooden steps on the way up that looked like they would crack under any pressure. I’m sure they have had a lot of people pay their money and then decide not to go up.

Out the front there was a commotion as a young girl had food snatched from her hand by a seagull that had drawn blood. Glenn’s view is that it had been trained by Germans to steal from Netherlanders. (Apologies to all German readers!)

There are large city walls below the church and an old lighthouse and WWII bunker – with a boy on top of it.

We continued around the town back to the Harbour.

The views from the pier are quite spectacular.

We wandered around the market area and found a communist era memorial to anti-fascism being used as a football pitch by young boys.

We then got back on our bikes and cycled back to the campsite. We got some consistent light rain so stayed inside nice and cosy listening to more Australian Hottest 100.