Pula Favorites

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Fondest memory: On a Sunny Monday mornng the marketplace at Narodni Trg was buzzing. We came upon it about halfway up Ul Flanaticka and my insides did a little flip with excitement. I love markets, especially food markets and if a sunny morning is thrown in, then all's right with my world. This market takes place in a sylvan setting under huge trees that provide plenty of shade. We bought pistsachios and grapes and nibbled as we admired the produce. Where I live, chestnuts are either trodden underfoot or used as playthings by children, so I particularly liked seeing large trays of them for sale. The only thing I didn't like here looked like vacuum-wrapped cabbage. I saw those a lot in Istria and to a non-cabbage person they looked pretty gross.

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Favorite thing: The interior of the amphiteatre, the auditorium on stone steps, and a substantial part of under-structures on the west side of the building were not preserved, because the amphiteatre, which was neglected for centuries, served as a quarry for the material for churches and other buildings in Pula.

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Favorite thing: Gladiators fights were arranged in the amphiteatre for spectators from the widest layers of the Roman population.
Most of the gladiator-fighters were the slaves or the prisoners of war. The only criteria was if they were of big proportions, over average body strength or famous as a very brave fighters

Favorite thing: The central part of the amphiteatre is the fighting area, the so-called arena, and 67,90 meters by 41,60 meters in size. During games it was covered with sand in order to remove the traces of the blood of the fighters and slaughtered animals, hence ("harena"=sand) the name of the fighting area, and even the whole building.

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Favorite thing: The stone for the amphiteatre was brought by sea from a neighbouring quarry at Vinkuran.

Fondest memory: I still remember the times of the Film Festival in Arena, last week of July and the first week of August. Those were the days with lot of spectacles and amusements, especially the opening ceromonies.

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Favorite thing: At the time of its full function, the amphiteatre had twenty gates for the spectators.

Fondest memory: When I was a little kid I used the spend a lot of time inside of the amphitheatre in playing. The game we used to play was a very dangerous one; we play at catching up on the walls of the second and the third level. That kind of game demanded a lot of skill and speed.

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Favorite thing: In Roman times the amphiteatre was located on the main road, Via Flavia, which passed between the sea and the amphiteatre and led to Aquileia (near Trieste) and on to Italy.
Another important road passed immediately above it, leading to Nesactium and further toward Tarsatica (Rijeka) and the southeast.
It is highly probably thet the first, somewhat smaller, mphitheatre was built on the same spot by emperor Augustus at the very beginning of the 1st century in the process of the great renovation of Pula. It is supposed that parts of the building were of wood.

Favorite thing: As Split it looks lIke a roman city .....Really its not ahuge town and could be seen in a day ..but its charm make that you dont want to run away from there...all the coastline is really beautifull and in the south end there are extremely beautiful beaches