Motored to Motovun

Tuesday May 15.  We slept in this morning then headed out to Motovun.  This is a hilltop city that was first established in the 9th century and saw its booms a busts over the years.  About 40 years ago it was rather abandoned when artists began moving in and it is booming today.  Seems like a trend we also have in Colorado. When touring the city we found a park, go figure, and the kids just had to try out the foreign equipment.  While there we met a Motovunian mother who also happened to be the town dentist, we learned a lot about the city and the area and talked about the states as well.

  This dog is one of a handful that we saw penned up near the very top of this town.  Our new best Motovunian dentist friend explained that this dog and others like it are trained to detect truffles in the wild.   Truffles are big business here and they are quite literally worth their weight in gold.  We were advised by her not to try any of the packaged truffles, that we could only have them fresh and only during the harvest season the last few months of the year, so we will be returning.  We did try some truffle cheese and you really get a sense of how rich they are.  I liken truffle hunting to gold fever, however as our local friend described, the truffles can come up at any time even if your dogs have passed over them a hundred times, one day they just release their scent.  Truffles are sold in a market that is free from government taxation.  This professional said that there is great fear in Croatia that when They become part of the EU then they will come under heavy taxation and regulation in all their markets incuding the truffle market.  It is easy to sense how proud these people are and how many of them hold their sovereignty dear.

 

It was too windy and cold to swim today.  I think even if we were bold enough the waves would have scraped us up on the rocks.  However, we ran into a few of the local boys down there who mustered up just enough courage to get in and swim around a bit.  I am pretty sure they were showing off for the blonde haired, blue eyed girls.  These boys were big and boisterous and we had a lot of fun trying to communicate with them.  One of them called himself the 'fish maestre' he was teaching the girls how real men fish and his dad was the captain of many ships.

You can see all of our pics by checking the links towards the top right of this page.

Note, not all the pics to date are up, need faster Internet.