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Day 8, Pula, Roman Arena: |
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Today we have planned to visit the market in the morning and later the tunnels and last the Roman Arena. Pula, to the market:
To visit the market needs to be done early, before lunch time. We leave our apartment and walk away, it's close to where we live, maybe 600 meter. The market:
Inside the market building we found the fish market. 
And the sassuages. 
Outside the building is the vegetables market. The cost is a little bit lower than in Sweden, but cheese is expensive. 
We got the idea to visit the archeological museum. It's placed almost on top of the hill in the central region of the city. Walk back to the Sergii gate. 
Up the street to the museum. 
When we come to the museum it was closed because of work. Walk down again and now we want to get to Zerostrasse, the tunnels. Zerostrasse:
One entrance to the tunnels, this one is closet but that we know already from yesterday. |
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We follow the city wall to the next gate. Here you can see how they have used earlier building blocks to built the defense wall. Two of the stones looks to be from a Roman statue. 
Back to the Porta Gamina gate, it was here we were last evening. Now the Zerostrasse museum is open. 
From here we can enter the tunnels. There are a lot of signs with information which is exiting to read. 
These tunnels were built in the begging of the 20th century as shelter rooms, here is the toilets, important of course. 
The sign in the roof say Station, we were fouled by this and thought the tram once used these tunnels. There were also a lot of information down here about the trams of Pula. Now we know that this wasn't the case, it were never any trams down here, only shelter rooms. There are two tunnels in a X shape. Each tunnel 7 km long. Above is another tunnel system. 
We follow the first tunnel to the end. 
Another tunnel has the direction to the Forum, that's the tunnel we came from. 
Along the tunnels there are small rooms. Not sure what they have been used for, hospital ? |
One more toilet, no need for us to visit it. 
Along the benches the citizen sat down during a bomb attack. It's room for 6000 people in these tunnels. 
The ground is not rock, more like clay. 
A new tunnel to walk through, later we had walked in all four tunnels. Then we took the elevator to the upper tunnel system. More information about Zerostrasse:
At the upper tunnel it was a story about a submarine that sunk outside Pula. Now we are finished with the tunnels and take the elevator up to the fortress. Earlier was here a prison. The fortress:
We start with a walk on top of the defense wall. 
From here we have a fabulous view over the old city and its surroundings. The yellow building is the Archeological Museum which was closed. In front of it a Amphitheatre, on the map it's called: the small Roman Theatre. A new stand has been build on top of the ancient stand. 
In Northeast is the Roman Arena in the background. |
Around the city on the hills there are a lot of fortresses. 
Uljanik shipyard, at the night the cranes are light up in colors. 
Canons of course, they protect the city. The fortress was built in 16th century by the Venetians. 
In the middle is a tower that we have to have a look from. 
It's narrow here, from the window we got our first glimpse of the views. 
Up from here we see that the ship Azanara Onward has anchored in the bay, that is the same ship that came to Zadar when we was there. 
The tower from outside. There was also a museum at the inner yard that we visited. More information about Pula Castle:
A narrow staircase take us down, before we g to the Roman Arena we need something to eat. |
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Back to the restaurant where we were last evening, the name of restaurant is Orfej. We talked to the waitress and she told us that her family own this restaurant, she, Kristina and her mother Gunilla who work in the kitchen. We celebrated this nice day with a pizza. 
The cathedral is just a few meter away. It was this one we saw up lighted in the evening yesterday. Roman Arena:
At last, could we enter the Roman Arena now ? We don't here any loud music and no long queue to the entrance. 
We paid 70 Kuna each for a ticket, about 10 Euro, and then we go up the staircase to enter the inside of the arena. 
What a wonderful arena, 2000 years old and still standing up, it has withstand earthquakes and wars. 
In the middle, the room for the VIP guests. Above here has been stands for us normal people. The upper part of the stand, could it have been made of wood, or ? 
What's left today are the stones, now wooden constructions. 
The VIP room, there are four of these around the arena. |
This ditch is covered, I don't know it's function. 
We look closer to the construction, above this is the VIP room. It looks like a door has been installed here, it's rails on the sides of the stone blocks. 
Climb up to the stand to get a better view. 
Imaging people and animals fighting here for there lives and that only to entertain the inhabitants of the city. 
The arena is built on a slope, at the other end they could use the ground for support to a stand made of stones. 
There are a lot of rooms under the stands, maybe the animals were held here. 
We walked around everywhere and examine the details. 
The staircase to the upper stands. |
This arena is one of the most well preserved in the world. And it's used even today for theatre and concerts. 
The arena could take more than 20'000 visitors. 
The complex system of rooms under the stands. 
The upper stand is in level with the ground. 
Follow the upper wall to where it connects to the lower part. 
The staircase up to the stand. 
Now we have seen it all and take the staircase down. 
A stone in the wall has some inscriptions, it's of later date. More information about Pula Arena:
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Take another staircase down towards the exit. 
We now came to a museum, we wasn't aware of that. 
The cloak system still intact. 
This museum is about the importance of trade of wine. This is a wine press. 
The mechanism that set force on the winepress. 
Wine barrels found here and around. This museum is placed under the arena. 
After we left the arena we took a short walk along the arena at the outside. 
The drainage system is still here and working. |
The square holes up there has hold wooden beams that support the sunscreen. 
A close up view how they had carved the stones to hold the wooden beam. What a great experience to visit this arena. 
After this long they we walked back to our apartment for a rest and a shower. 
Evening, we are not hungry after the pizza we eat earlier but thirsty. Looking for a restaurant or pub to sit. 
After a while we were back to the block next to our apartment. It's a big garden with exotic birds in the trees, strange sound coming from them. 
Finished the evening with a local beer, it's a polar bear on the bottle. More information about Pula:
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