Wednesday, 8^th June, 11; Limski Kanal.

We are entering the beautiful and deep drowned river valley or “Ria” of Limski; a strange Polish sounding name for a very Istrian place. It is a major tourist attraction on account of its natural beauty but inaccessible by land. It is long and winding, about nine kilometers from the coast to the highest navigable point. There is little sign of human habitation, just mixed deciduous forest coming right down to the shore with little or no inter-tidal zone. Its beauty lies in its depth and in some places, its sheer limestone cliffs, and the fact that it is pristine forest, unspoiled by human presence. There are some mussel farms and ever-present day-tripper cruises plying their way at too fast a speed along the narrow waterway.

At one point, about halfway along the ria, a large tourist cruiser decides to turn to go back and, without any thought to us, starts to turn right across our path. They are entirely in the wrong on many counts, we are on their starboard side which gives us right-of-way, to name just one. None-the-less they continue, only to reverse at the very last moment as if they were playing “chicken” with us. They shout abuse and gesticulate wildly. It is clear that their captain had either no knowledge of the rules of the sea or chooses to willfully ignore them.

We launch our tender and spend half an hour with the kayaks having fun; it is still a bit too chilly to swim without a wet suits. By five o’clock it is getting chilly and the sun has gone, so we carry on to Rovinj; it will be our final port of call in Croatia.

Thursday, June 9, 2011; Rovinj and Motovun.

Today, we hire a car and drive inland to visit one of Istria’s ancient hill towns, Motovun. The day starts wet and rainy, hardly an auspicious day for filming. After about an hour we crest the top of a mountain pass and see a green valley laid out before us; it that splits into two to form a “Y”. It is a patchwork of well-tended agricultural fields, mixed forest and isolated farm buildings. In the middle of the valley stands a tall hill atop of which lies our destination. It looks like the background to a 14^th C Italian painting. The church on top of the hill surrounded by low houses and a city wall; a winding path rising up to the town gate with cypress tress standing sentinel along the route. The sky is dark and brooding, thunder and rain threaten. We stop to admire the scene from our vantage point, Timot managing to shoot a time-lapse sequence of the clouds scudding overhead. Rain fills the distant valley and threatens to come our way but breaks in the cloud lend patches of sunlight to illuminate the scene.

We drive on to Motovun, a typical 15^th C Venetian town. The lions of St Mark are depicted in a number of places but always with the gospel of St Mark closed – a sign that Venice was not at peace when the image was carved. The town is full of eager German tourist, some Italian is still spoken; older people remember the period between the wars when Istria reverted to Italy. Every road sign is in German, Italian and Croatian.

There isn’t much to film as every potential shot is marred by modern signs, umbrellas, ice cream stands, souvenir shops and the like. There is an austere town square with a typical early venetian well-head at its center and opposite a pretty 17^th C church. It is closed but we sneak inside to find three girls painstakingly restoring a late 18^th C fresco that has been recently revealed under 19^th C over-painting. Looking at the images, I am not sure the result will be worth the trouble and expense. The best part is the view from the ramparts over the valley below.

Timot calls to me urgently and I hurry towards him. He is filming a swift lying on the gravel not moving but clearly alive. I go to it, pick it up and it is alive and trembling. I release it into the air and in flies away with no signs of injury. We wonder what led it to fall to earth? I can only presume that it was a young bird not yet confident of flight and that, once grounded, it cannot re-launch itself. Swifts only land on cables or ledges and never on the ground – now I know why.

On our way back, we drive through lovely countryside with wild flowers and butterflies along the verges and in the fields. We stop to shoot some great film of marbled white butterflies, shimmering burnet moths and great green grasshoppers glistening and bright on yellow, blue and white flowers.

We pass through the village of Oportji, a smaller village on a hill. As the sun has now come out, Timot wants another shot from the edge of the village. We drive down a lane no wider than our car along a rough stone path and park outside a rather grand gate to a walled garden. As we are chatting outside the house, an older lady comes to the gate and asks us who we are. She speaks perfect educated English with a trace of a German accent. She is dressed for gardening in old clothes, a pair of secateurs in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She asks us in for a drink or a cup of tea. Intrigued, we accept.

It transpires that she is recently widowed. Her husband was a Scotsman but she was brought up in Austria before the war. The two of them bought this property as a ruin and restored it but shortly after the completion of the project, he died. We quickly discovered that we had many friends in common both in England, America and Austria. Her brother in law is Rory McEwen, the accomplished artist, we even have an example of his work at home. Timot is amazed that we can discover someone in the middle of nowhere who knows friends of ours – we are quite surprised too.