TWO SMALL TOWNS ON A COLD DECEMBER DAY

I was driving around today with a friend, from the late morning till the early afternoon. We spent a couple of hours on the road and visited two small towns.

This is the church tower in Vodnjan. Vodnjan is a town situated about twenty kilometers from where I live. The work on the tower began in 1815. Near the end of that year, the thing was 35 meters tall. And unfinished. It stayed that way for quite a few decades. Because of some financial and administrative problems, the tower was finished only in 1882, when it finally looked like you can see it today, and how the architect Antonio de Perris imagined it. The look of the tower was heavily inspired by the St Mark's Campanile in Venice. Its final height reached 64 meters.

I photographed the tower from the outskirts of town, where we stopped to buy some fruits from the fruit-selling truck that brought some delicious stuff from southern Dalmatia, the most southern coastal part of Croatia, about 600 kilometers from here.

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The highlight of this mobile shop is on tangerines that grow abundantly in the area around the delta of river Neretva, but they have some fantastic apples, lemons, dry figs, and various homemade marmalades as well.

While I was photographing the nearby street ...

... and various distant stuff around the large parking lot where the fruity truck was temporarily situated ...

... the friend brought plenty of apples and tangerines.

This photograph was taken from the car, on the way to Vodnjan.

For ten kilometers, from the city of Pula, we were driving behind this lovely yellow oldtimer, that was moving pretty slow - but was a joy to watch.

With this photograph, we are back in the parking lot on the outskirts of Vodnjan. These are the windows ...

... of the relatively large building across the street.

You already saw a trio and a bunch of windows in the previous two photographs. Here you can see how they look in a pair.

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Here you can take a look at the traffic on the road that leads out of Vodnjan.

This is a look through the fence at the Church of Madonna of Traversa, a lovely piece of architecture built in 1615 in the green, grassy area just outside the town

The car in this photograph was leaving town, and soon we were on that way too.

This photograph was taken from the car, on the way to the town called Svetvinchenat. But this isn't a look at the road from the direction that would be logical for this story. We aren't on the road arriving from Vodnjan, because at first we passed Svetvinchenat, drove about ten kilometers further without a clear destination in mind, and then returned when someone, don't remember who of us, said - hey, let's see that cool castle in Svetvinchenat.

The last couple of kilometers before the town we were driving behind a tractor that was transporting some dry forage. The tractor was moving very slow, but we weren't in a hurry - and the old machine was a joy to watch.

We entered the town's center from a small backstreet because the main road was closed for some works. This is the neighborhood in which we parked. The photograph was taken ...

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... from an elevated point with the nice view on that part of Svetvinchenat.

The day was pretty cold, but the atmosphere was sunny and serene in the quiet old town ...

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... it felt a bit warmer than it really was.

There was plenty to photograph just in that small fragment of town where we parked.

This is a detail from the old well that was introduced in one of the previous photographs. Three photographs from here, to be more precise.

This is a look at the nearby window.

This is the little street ...

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... that leads to the pretty spectacular main square. The restoration works are currently in progress on the most important historic buildings in town.

The facade of the Parish Church of Annunciation from the early 16th century was mostly hidden from view, but the protective construction looked cool in its own way.

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Not far from the church, just across the square ...

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... the workers were busy around another historic building ...

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... the castle Morosini-Grimani. This Venetian stronghold was first built in the first decades of the 13th century but was mostly destroyed through centuries with plenty of wars and skirmishes. The shape and size that we see today dates from the year 1589, but many older elements are incorporated into the massive building.

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Soon we left the center ...

... and I took a few more shots on the way back to the car.

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As we drove away, the laundry on a leash was waving goodbye.

As always in these posts on HIVE, the photographs are my work - THE END.