We travel to expand our souls. Whether it be because of the beauty of God’s creation, the encounter with different cultures and customs, or examples of kindness from total strangers, travel makes our souls grow. Some moments are spectacular for this enlargement, and we had one of those tonight.

Croatia has a national folk tradition of men’s a cappella singing. We briefly heard a group singing in the square in Zagreb the first day we were in Croatia, but tonight was very special for us. On a tip from our guidebook, we got to hear the Motovun group practicing in their church, here on a soft evening in the twilight. It was just a practice, not a show or a concert, and it was still magical. The harmonies were tight and often in four or more parts, and the dynamics of the songs moved fluidly. The melody lines were usually slow moving, which added to the swelling and ebbing of the music. All of this happened in a church with great acoustics – the final notes would hang in the air for a couple of seconds after the singers were done. We got to hear six or seven songs over ninety minutes, what with the group’s going over parts of the songs and having one break for the singers. We sat quietly at the back of the church and tasted a very small part of the divine. What an amazing night.

We did do some other things today as well. We explored the Istrian Peninsula, which for us was by car, covering several hill towns and the beautiful coastal old town of Rovinj. We got launched today around 9:00, with the goal of seeing some of the other hill towns in the area. We managed to get to:

– Buje – Buje is a large hill town that is more about working people than tourists. We wandered the town for about thirty or forty-five minutes, seeing a square with a good vantage point of the Adriatic Sea, an old defensive tower, and an old church and its graveyard.

After Buje, I got whimsical and followed signs to a sculpture garden. We found it, and the sculptures were interesting, but the setting was intriguing. The sculptures were set up in the middle of nowhere, next to a (at the time) closed café. Someone had still been taking time to mow the grass, and there was a large stage area next to the garden with a few dozen stored chairs up at the front of the stage. I have no idea what the story is behind all of this.

– Groznjan – Groznjan was a delight. It is a small hill town with a labyrinth of small cobblestone streets. We enjoyed wandering around them with glances into the many stores selling art of various kinds (mostly glass). I grabbed a hot chocolate to drink on a small square, and we finished the visit with fresh donut holes eaten next to the main church.

– Zavrsje – Zavrsje is a small and mostly deserted hill town, with some of its homes caving in. Only about forty people live in it now, down from the pre-WWII high of a few hundred. We walked up the main street and came back around the edge of town on the main new road.

– Oprtalj – Oprtalj has a nice and functioning main section facing the road that passes along it, but we got back into the back sections of town, and again some of the buildings were caving in. Oprtalj was very near a scenic pull-off of the road that had a commanding view of Motovun.

We saw cats of all kinds in all of the hill towns – they seem to be everywhere. As cat people, we are rather fond of that.

We headed back to Motovun, where I decided to beat the hottest part of the day with a siesta – a nice midday nap. It worked, too – by the time we were ready for the evening around 5:00, it was much cooler than it had been at 3:00.

We hopped back in the car and drove an hour south to the old town section of Rovinj. Rovinj used to be a small island only a few feet from the mainland, and it had two sets of walls. What that means for today is that the interior of the old town is wonderfully claustrophobic feeling, with random lanes winding through multistory buildings, all leading uphill to the Church of St. Euphemia. St. Euphemia was a Christian martyr around 320, and the church is supposed to have her body in a tomb behind an altar (you can see the tomb, which is certainly very old).

We wandered the harbor front, and into the maze of streets, up to the church, and then back down to the Adriatic Sea again, even going down to the rocks that border the swimming area. Mer was hungry after our no-lunch afternoon, so we swung by a bakery for a small cheese roll for her to munch on the hour-long drive back home.

We drove back to Motovun, where we once again got take-out pizza with the hopes of eating it in the square where we could hear a klappa singing group. We did, and then we moved inside the church, and you know the rest.