I woke up a couple of times during the night, but it’d been a good sleep. I felt a lot better, so perhaps i wasn’t getting a cold after all. This would be our last full day in Croatia - we’d got a four hour journey to Pula, and then tomorrow we’d be on our way to Slovenia.

The road out of Grabovac was winding and long, until we reached our first stop at a service station. Most people bought food, though I just bought a cookie. It was a bit dry, but good.

From there on, even after our second stop, we were on the highway all the way to Pula. It was a mind numbing journey, but that’s what it takes to get some places. To enjoy travel, you have to accept the journey to get there.

Once again, our rooms in Pula were far nicer than most of the ones we’d had in the first week. In fact, I think it safe to say the rooms here were probably the nicest of the trip. The difference had been that places we’d been previously were places where it was possible to put the money into the community - here it wasn’t really possible and so the travel company had to use bigger places like this.

Towards the end of the afternoon, we joined the others and Vlad for a tour of the city. Ten minutes from the hotel we’d arrived at the Pula Arena - an old Roman amphitheatre that is in excellent condition.

This one is a lot smaller than the Colosseum in Rome, but the outside walls are nearly complete. One section has been restored though as it was in danger of collapse - if it went, then the rest of it likely would. So, they restored it in order to preserve the whole thing.

Inside we could see that there are plenty of stone seats still preserved, and a number of the interior walls. At the time we visited there was a stage set up for something called the ‘Dimensions Festival’ - they even did a sound check whilst Vlad was trying to tell us some history. Once he’d been able to say what he wanted to, we were free to wander for a while.

When we met back up we went down under the amphitheatre to a permanent exhibition with many amphoras of different shapes and sizes. It was explained to use that their contents would be identifiable by their shape, and there’d be a mark on them to show who made them. I guess it’s like ancient product branding. Maybe civilisation hasn’t changed that much.

Completing this tour, we left the arena and walked through the old town so Vlad could point out restaurants he recommended, and so he could tell us about two of the arches. There’s not that much to see really other than the Temple of Augustus. Vlad was however able to lead us to where some ancient mosaics had been discovered after what little bombing Pula had experienced. This mosaic was almost complete, and very detailed - so it’s good they found it in order to preserve it for today.

As we’d only snacked during the day, we decided on having dinner early. We ate at Pomodoro’s and we all went for something Italian. Whereas a lot of the Dalmatian Coast was influenced heavily by occupying Venetians, Pula was an Italian city. It wasn’t until after the second world war that it returned to Croatian control as part of Yugoslavia.

What this means for the city is that everything is a mixture of Croatian and Italian - all street signs are in both languages. We could certainly see the influence based upon what restaurants were available.

After food we went looking for more sights to see, and found the Venetian Fortress at the top of a hill. We weren’t sure at first, but it turned out it was worth the price. From inside you can go up on the walls and see around the city; but from a tower you can get an even better view - particularly of the amphitheatre.

Inside the fortress there also a couple of buildings which at the time were home to exhibitions. One wasn’t that interesting for me - it was on Croatian boxing; but the other was on their involvement in the second world war and was far more interesting.

The main industry of this town appears to be shipbuilding, so when we walked from the fortress to the quayside it meant we could pass ships that were under construction. There was a massive tanker and a cruise liner sitting just out of the water.

The sun was setting though, so we headed back to the hotel with a few stops along the way. Our last day in Croatia was at an end - when next we closed our eyes we would be in Slovenia for the end of our tour. So far we’d barely spoken to this new group - maybe that would change in Bled. I wasn't holding my breath…