Rovinj, Croatia: More on the Dalmatian Coast

As we were sailing towards Rovinj, Croatia, Florida Keys Guy kept referring to it as “Revenge”. This led me to call him the Dread Pirate Roberts (every time) and launch into quoting The Princess Bride. Admittedly, it doesn’t take much to quote that movie, as proven by my father-in-law who, while performing our wedding ceremony, launched into quotes from The Princess Bride of his own.

We arrived in Rovinj with no plan other than to walk around, which we did, for a long time. Rovinj is very close to Trieste and Venice, and the amount of Venetian glass to be found there is staggering. There is a farmers market, of sorts, right near the port, where local people buy vegetables and tourists buy honey and olive oil. I found it interesting that the vendors selling these items spoke about 5 languages. I found this out when they tried speaking to us first in German (what about my 5′ 4″ black-haired self says “I speak German”?) then Italian (makes a little more sense) and finally English. All fluent. OK, the English was fluent, I really couldn’t tell you about the others. But, it did make me feel like quite a slacker for only speaking menu Italian and Spanish, and for extremely limited menus, French.

As we were wandering around amidst the oodles of stores selling junk, we found a tiny, unassuming store selling all sorts of Venetian glass products. I can’t tell you any more, because I have bought many gifts there that will be given out throughout the year, and both my mother-in-law and sister-in-law read this blog. Sorry.

When you are on a ship with 202 passengers, you tend to see them everywhere. It is kind of a phenomenon. Say you are on a ship with 3,000 passengers. You have met a few, and recognize a few more, but as you are wandering around a port, you could be in line behind someone on your ship and not know it. Not on Seabourn. We recognized the vast majority of passengers, and crew for that matter, and saw them everywhere. When shopping in this really cute store, we ran into a couple that we had breakfast with a few days earlier. Later, I heard from someone else that couple saw that we were shopping and thought it must be a good store so they bought stuff there, too. That is a lot of influence to have on someone I just met.