Chronicles of Leisure

After the disconcerting ride to Rab Town, only to be let out in the pouring rain, I started wondering what I was doing there, had thoughts of checking the high speed catamaran service back to Rijeka that evening, and getting the hell out of Croatia. The first tourist info. place I went to said that every private accomodation in town was booked. Wonderful. My Rough Guide mentioned one cool hotel in town, Hotel Istra, not controlled by the local hotel monopoly, so I got directions and walked over. Nice looking place, right on the harbor in the center of the town, no chance they will have a room for a walk in I am thinking. With as much confidence as possible for a guy who is soaking wet and strung out from a horrid bus ride, I ask for a single room for four nights. “No problem sir, the rate is equivalent to 50 Euros a night, will that be okay?” I do my best not to jump over the counter and hug the attractive desk clerk, and nod and smile yes, the journey here forgotten, Fortuna’s wheel once again rising. Soon the rain had ended, the clouds had broken, and from my room I was able to step out onto my balcony that I did not expect to have. Here’s the view

Rab town is a peninsula, the left side is the harbor, pictured here. At the tip of the peninsula is an old casle guarding the entrance, and in between the Hotel Istra and the castle was the old town, a series of tight cobblestoned alleys where all of the bars, restaurants and shops were squeezed in. Seems to be the way they do it here in Croatia. The entire right side of the peninsula is devoted to the Rab beach, which is actually a cement walkway winding along the entire length of the peninsula, with sporadic patches of sand and rock where you can plant yourself. Most people seem to just be laying on the concrete, I trekked up and down and actually found a patch of sand. Here is a shot from almost the end of the peninsula looking back

There is a sweet cafe about midway down the walkway that serves tasty calamari and cold draft beer, with all of the seats in the shade for a nice reprieve from the once again scorching sun and heat. Here are a few shots from the castle looking down at the beach.

Chceck out the guy doing his impersonation of Jesus on the water

Beautiful place, and I did not hear a single person speaking English while I was here, unless they were taking a food or drink order from me. Pretty funny being in a bar where everybody is screaming in Croatian, Italian or German, and then hearing them all in unison sing “finished with my woman ’cause she couldn’t help me with my mind” as Black Sabbath comes on the juke box. Rough Guide pointed me to a great little restaurant in a back alley that served a delicious, whole grilled whitefish, much better than the fish I had in Brac and Split. Good house wine and friendly waitresses, I ended up eating there the last two nights.

On the far side of the green peninsula in the picture above there was supposedly another beach, so the next day I jumped on the water taxi and headed over there. What a great ride, here is a shot of the castle at the tip of the peninsula as we headed out of the harbor

and another shot as we rounded the second peninsula

Frkanj beach is made up of a small dock, a cafe, and a patch of sand big enough to accomodate 10 people.

Once that area fills up, you can go either left or right and find a spot wherever you want, either in the shade under the trees, or on the rocks. I spotted a large boulder with a fairly flat surface and set up there for the afternoon. The view to the left from my boulder

and the view to the right

My cousin and I had picked up rubber swimming shoes in Brac, because a lot of the beaches there are stone, those came in pretty handy here as I navigated over boulders each time I went for a swim. The water was noticably colder as we were further north, GWS temperature as my cousin would say. Some fisherman had recently spotted a 4 meter great white in the waters near here, causing the tourist board to issue an advisory against swimming out too far. Despite there not having been a shark attack in Croatia since 1971, I opted for standing depth only. The water was cold enough that you only needed a few minutes to cool off anyways, no need to swim out too far I reasoned – especially with a 13 foot beast roaming the depths. Damn shark paranoia, taking flying lessons helped me overcome a slight fear of heights, perhaps a shark cage dive in South Africa in October? Not likely.

My favorite guy in Rab, the grumpy old water taxi captain.

This guy is back and forth all day, I don’t think he realizes what a great view he has from his office.

Four days in Rab came and went quickly, and I considered staying longer. I had bought a ticket for the high speed catamaran straight from Rab to Rijeka, leaving Sunday at 9:45 a.m. I woke up at 8 and stepped out on the balcony, it was cloudy, windy and rain was threatening. Time to go. Ninety minutes later I was down at the end of the marina by the castle as the boat pulled in, and as we all boarded the rain started to come down and the wind began to howl. I remember thinking to myself that these catamarans are designed to easily handle rough seas, right?