A Postcard From Pula 🇭🇷

Some of my favourite travel stories stem from chance meetings with strangers. This story it would seem is no exception!

Pula is a Croatian port city - perhaps not as full of historical sites the scale of Dubrovnik, but complete with its amphitheatre, castle and winding streets of the Old Town - it does have a certain charm.

My new hostel roomie, Noa, from Australia, arrange to to meet Shaelyn (from Canada) for food and drinks in the evening, via the Hostelworld app. Shaelyn has rounded up a couple of friends from her hostel out of town - the more the merrier I say!

The Hostelworld App is a superb resource for solo travellers to connect with like minded people: an opportunity to meet up for food/ drinks/ sightseeing etc. People of all ages and backgrounds can come together over beers and find common ground.

For someone who struggles with the overwhelming choice of places to eat and drink , having recommendations from others and suggestions in the mix to consider is a God send! Noa has recommended Aggripina Street Food as being a great budget option.

Dinner is spent stuffing our faces full of the the tastiest tacos and glugging back cocktails, hiding from the late afternoon sun under a parasol. For someone who boasts an excellent chilli tolerance threshold, the scorpion chilli sauce perhaps may have been a step too far (perhaps I can blame it on the 35 degree heat but maybe I have bitten off more than I can chew as they say🌶️).

After dinner we head to the supermarket to grab some beers and meet up with our Scottish buddy Sorley from the hostel.

As the colourful sun is beginning to set in the background, it's a mad dash to find somewhere picturesque to sit and enjoy the beers - it seems all the locals have the same idea! We decide on the 'temple' steps, just a short stroll from the port.

With the sun setting behind the cranes in the port, Pula echoes with the sounds of laughter and bottle caps pinging open, as we regail each other with travel stories, trade random facts and have heart to hearts about love and life.

We convince one of the group to follow her heart and take a chance on a chap she has a thing for back home. It's decided that good old fashioned pen and paper is her weapon of choice.

A postcard from Pula is on its way home as we speak and I hope, as I always do, with the wonderful travel friends I've made along my own journey, that we will once again cross paths in another country, so I can learn the outcome!

The fleeting moments we share with strangers are the ones that influence a million outcomes and change the trajectory of our lives: we are a bit like mini collisions, ricocheting against one another, sometimes changing course and sometimes continuing along the same path.

Gosh that was a bit profound.

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