The Istrian kažun

One of my favourite cycling routes is along the road which runs from Križ Lindarski to Žminj. I like it because it’s quiet and scenic – and not too hilly. It passes through patches of forest and along freshly tilled fields.

Along the way I pass a kažun, a small stone structure which is typical to Istria. Found on the edges of fields, kažuns used to be used for shelter during rainstorms when people were out working their land.

This kažun I photographed is found close to the road in the village of Katun Lindarski, on the road to Žminj.

Kažuns are typically cylinder-shaped with low open doorways and are made of dry stone walls, which means no mortar was used to hold the stones together. This technique was also used to build dry stone walls which separate fields – sometimes kažuns are built into stone walls.

Apparently these small stone shelters date back to the Roman Empire, and similar structures can be found in other parts of southern Europe. There are many examples of kažun still found scattered around Istria and they’re a common sight on country roads. The fact that many are still standing is proof that they were remarkably well-built.

Miniature kažuns are a popular souvenir.

The ghost town of Dvigrad

Following my previous posts on the charming Istrian hill-top towns of Oprtalj and Završje, today I’m taking you to Dvigrad.

Maybe I should call this series ‘Istrian ghost towns of times past’ because these old, dilapidated medieval towns seem to have more resident cats than people! But Dvigrad is a true ghost town because it has no inhabitants all at. Dvigrad is completely abandoned, and like other Istrian ‘ghost towns’ I’ve featured here, it is also going through a restoration process.

Dvigrad (which literally means ‘two towns’) was ravaged by the bubonic plague in the 17^th century during which most of its 700 inhabitants died. The town was eventually abandoned by its last three remaining families in the early 18^th century.

Today only the stone ruins of Dvigrad remain in a beautifully scenic and peaceful setting on a hillside rising 150 metres above sea level. The ruins are visible from the Kanfanar-Rovinj road as well as from the Ipsilon highway. Dvigrad is located very close to Kanfanar and easily reachable from Rovinj. When I visited in November, some parts of the town were inaccessible due to the ongoing restoration work. 

Take a walk through the ghost town of Dvigrad…

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Our house – the renovation work

At the end of March we finally moved into our little house! Well, part of our house – the upper floor to be exact – where we will live while work continues on the ground floor.

I already wrote about all the time and patience it took to buy this house. Renovating a house also requires big doses of patience and almost always takes more time than expected.

Whenever I asked the contractor (or majstor as he’s called in Croatian) how things were coming along, I would always get the same answer: 'Pomalo' (slowly). This was not exactly the answer I wanted to hear, especially since we were eager to move in as quickly as possible. But since pomalo is a standard answer to many questions here, (including How are you? How’s your job going? and even How’s your mother?), I wouldn’t take his answer too literally, and eventually just stopped asking.

The first step of the renovation process was to completely demolish the interior walls and floors of the house. Once this was complete, only the skeleton of the structure remained: the four stone walls, the windows and doors, and the roof.

The next task was to dig up the floor. Traditionally, the ground floor of Istrian houses was used as a stable while the upper floor was reserved for living quarters. For this reason, the ceiling of the lower floor where animals were kept was often quite low. So in order to have a reasonable ceiling height, we had to lower the floor by 70 centimetres. Since the village is mostly built on natural rock, this was a very long and painstaking task. It took workers two months to drill and break into the rock, break it up into pieces, and haul it away in 15 truckloads!

Breaking up the rock!

I won’t describe the reconstruction and renovation work in detail here, but I would like to share a few of the original details of this typical Istrian stone house which we would like to preserve. For example, we’ve kept the stone doorway which separates the two rooms making up the ground floor, though the wall dividing the two rooms had to be completely rebuilt. Where possible, we’ll keep the stone walls exposed on the ground floor, along with the little stone niches built into the walls. The remnants of the huge rocks the house was built on are also visible as vestiges of the original structure.

Can you see the big rock?

There’s still a lot of work to do, and I won’t dare try to guess how long it will take. But it’s wonderful to finally be living here.

Some necessary 'ingredients' for the construction process.

The South Indian cat however, was not at all happy about the move. She expressed her annoyance by not letting let us sleep the first three nights! We kept her indoors as much as possible so she’d get used to her new home, but she managed to slip away one day from the veranda. We found her the next day at the house we had been living in before the move, about 200 metres away. She misses the big garden and clover fields she used to explore, but soon she’ll have a whole village to discover, as soon as she figures out this is home.

It’s asparagus season!

You know it’s really spring in Istria when the wild asparagus appears.

One month ago a neighbour told me he was going to pick asparagus. “Is it already asparagus season?” I asked, surprised, since the weather was still cool and not very spring-like. He replied that he had already found a few spears of wild asparagus in the woods.

Wild asparagus is a delicacy here. The stalks are much thinner than the kind you find in supermarkets, and the taste is a lot sharper. They’re delicious – and full of vitamins and antioxidants, like all plant foods.

A few days later, I saw bunches of wild asparagus for sale at the Pazin market and couldn’t resist buying some. I asked the woman selling them where she had picked them, since they were still hard to find in this area. They came from the Istrian coast.

As soon as I got home I chopped them up and cooked them for lunch but I was a little disappointed. Some parts were too hard and fibrous, and they didn’t seem to have as strong a taste as the wild asparagus I had eaten before.

“They probably have too much water because of all the rain,” my aunt speculated – hence the less-pronounced flavour. And the hard parts? I was doing it all wrong. She told me how to prepare wild asparagus: “You don’t cut asparagus – you have to snap the heads off and then keep snapping off small pieces until they don’t ‘snap’ anymore. Then keep the hard, rubbery pieces to make soup.” She also told me not to cook them for too long – to preserve as much flavour and vitamins as possible. Also, it’s best to cook them as soon as possible by blanching them in boiling water for 2-3 minutes. They can then be frozen.

Now that the weather has finally warmed up and the days are sunny, wild asparagus is much easier to find. My father showed me what the plant looks like and I was thrilled to spot my first asparagus spears poking out of the ground. Wearing gloves is a good idea because the asparagus plant is prickly. The dark purple or deep green asparagus spears grow underneath or near the long prickly branches of the plant, and sometimes right next to it. Another variety of wild asparagus called bljušt (didn’t find the English name) is also abundant at this time of year. Very similar to asparagus, the tops are usually bent and the stalks a dark purple colour.

The forest where I found my asparagus

The next time I cooked asparagus I got it right, and I prepared the asparagus I had picked myself. This time I was not disappointed: they had that distinctive strong flavour – and there were no rubbery bits! Popular ways to eat wild asparagus and bljušt are scrambled with eggs, in risotto or with pasta. Then of course the rubbery bits are used to make a delicious soup. Wild asparagus is also delicious with a little bit of Istrian olive oil. I also love eating the thin young shoots raw, immediately after picking them!

How do you like to eat asparagus? Do you have a favourite recipe? If so, please share it here!

1st day of Spring

Just when the rainy winter days seemed like they would never end, Spring is finally here. After a damp – but relatively mild – winter, the Bura finally arrived and blew away the rain clouds, bringing clear skies and sunny weather.

There’s nothing like those first heady days of Spring and the invigorating feeling of the sun’s warmth. All of a sudden the first flowers started pushing through the earth and new buds appeared on the trees. The sunny weather has brought everyone out to their fields where they’re busy tilling the earth and preparing it for planting. The days grow longer with each day and we finally have over 12 hours of sunshine each day and no longer wake up in the dark.

Welcome Spring!

Buds of the Chestnut tree

Flowers of the Rosemary bush

Daffodils - the first flowers of Spring

French words used in Croatian

Since moving to Croatia, I’ve been trying to increase my Croatian vocabulary. I have never studied Croatian, so it is not a language I master.

Because of my circumstances, I speak three languages on a daily basis: French with my Belgian husband, English with my father and Croatian with everyone else. (And sometimes a few words of Kannada to the South Indian cat!)

To be more accurate, I speak mostly the Istrian dialect because that’s the language which is spoken around here, and the one we had spoken at home in Canada during my childhood. So proper, formal Croatian is like a foreign language to me.

By keeping my eyes and ears open, I have come across many French words which are used in contemporary Croatian. Since I’m a language buff, I’ve come up with a list of the words I’ve heard or read which come from French. Of course these words are not spelled the French way, but have been transliterated using the Croatian alphabet. Since Croatian is a phonetic language, words are written exactly as they’re pronounced, with each letter pronounced and no silent letters.

Of course, the fact that Croatian is peppered with some French vocabulary does not mean that Croatian is similar to French, or that French is understood here. Pas du tout! Croatian is a Slavic language, while French is one of the 'Romance' or Latin languages. Are these French words the legacy of Napolean’s short rule over parts of Croatia? Not sure. But most languages have borrowed words here and there from many different languages.

I’m including my list below. It’s not exhaustive, so if you know of others, feel free to let me know!

Croatian word - French word - Meaning

Ambalaža – Emballage – Packaging

Trikotaža – Tricotage – Knitting

Etaža – Etage – Floor / Storey

Ormar – Armoire –  Cupboard

Plafon – Plafond – Ceiling

Teren – Terrain – Terrain / Ground / Field

Ekran – Ecran – Screen

Šansona – Chanson – Song

Šansa – Chance                  

Ekipa – Equipe – Team

Fotilja – Fauteuil – Armchair

Bordura – Bordure – Border (decorative)

Feljton – Feuilleton – Newspaper supplement (In contemporary French: soap opera)

Atelje – Atelier – Studio

Gaf – Gaffe

Garaž – Garage

Degutantan – Dégoutant – Disgusting

Avion – Avion – Airplane

Trotoar – Trottoir – Sidewalk / Pavement

Klošar – Clochard – Tramp / Vagabond

Plaža – Plage – Beach

Matineja – Matinée

Klišej – Cliché

Dekolte – Décolleté – Cleavage

Balon – Ballon – Balloon

Garsonjera – Garçonière – Studio / Bachelor Apartment

Dežuran – De jour – On duty

Šofer  – Chauffeur

Rešo – Réchaud – Hot plate

Bombon – Bonbon – Candy

Bife – Buffet                         

Angažman – Engagement                        

Šarm – Charme – Charm

Krupje – Croupier                    

Žeton – Jeton – Chip / Token

Tref – Treffle – Club

Karo – Carreau – Diamond

Pik – Pique – Spade

Žanr – Genre

Žongler – Jongleur – Juggler

Žargon – Jargon                       

Šampinjon – Champignon – Mushroom

Debil – Débile – Moron

Kamion – Camion – Truck

Lavabo – Lavabo – Sink

Retrovizor – Rétroviseur – Rearview mirror

Far – Phare – Headlight

Tiraž – Tirage – Circulation (of a publication)

Divan – Divan – Sofa

Plakar – Placard – Closet

Balkon – Balcon – Balcony

Šik – Chic

Sifon – Siphon

Broš – Broche – Brooch 

Fotomontaž – Photomontage         

Reportaž – Reportage – Documentary / Coverage

Šokantno – Choquant – Shocking

Terasa – Terasse – Terrace

Šef – Chef – Boss

Asamblaž – Assemblage – Assembly

Pejorativ – Péjoratif – Pejorative

Vandalizam – Vandalisme – Vandalism

Portret – Portrait

Režiser – Régisseur – Director / Steward

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The Rijeka Carnival

It’s hard to ignore it’s carnival time in Croatia. Stores have been selling dress-up costumes and celebrations and masked parades are taking place in many towns and cities.

It’s carnival time in many parts of Europe, especially in Catholic countries. This time running up to Lent is a time for merry-making before the 40 days preceding Easter which is supposed to be a period of fasting and all things holy and pious.

Yesterday I headed to Rijeka to witness Croatia’s biggest carnival, the Riječki Karneval. Two weeks of festivities were concluded with a grand carnival parade which proved to be a riot of colour and noise.

Here I share a few images I captured which I think communicate the spirit of the carnival celebrations…