Picture perfect

Imagine this (if you will – just work with me)
It’s 7 o’clock at night, the temperature has dropped to about 25 degrees, you ate your main meal mid afternoon when you finished work so you don’t have to think about a big evening meal, maybe a snack, some cheese, bread, you have maybe done some work in the garden, maybe worked with the olives, and now you have time to take an evening walk.

So, dressed in your tidy clothes, you gather your wife, your children, your parents maybe, and you wander into town to stroll the riva. The rest of town is there doing the same thing, wandering from one end of the town to the other. You stop for a gelato, or a coffee, or share a pizza with friends.

I am bewitched by this ritual each evening. People are strolling, not rushing – chatting. All you hear is ‘ciao’or 'dobar dan' as people are greeted.

I’ve just been into town to be part of it – first I went down to the rowing club because I had said that I would be there tonight but knew that the boys would only be running because there is a slight sea breeze, then wandered around Sv Petar and back down into town.

The young rowing coach was walking with his new baby in a pram, and he explained that he was going to look at the postman because this baby has such blue eyes…one of the women who was with us on the mountain last weekend stopped her car in the middle of the street to say ‘ciao’…one of the ladies from my yoga class was walking with her daughter and stopped to talk, and another lady from the shoe shop on the trg introduced me to her son. And this is just after two months – imagine if you have lived here all your life.

There are teenage girls rollerblading, and teenage boys watching them – two grandmothers (‘bakas’ here) sitting with their granddaughters, quietly chatting as the girls eat icecreams together.

It’s all rather lovely, rather relaxed. I guess the beautiful weather helps, as does the lovely view of the sea. And the good gelato. And coffee.