Valdo - Pula

I'm sitting here in Pula, Croatia on Zoran's parents' balcony, overlooking downtown and the massive soccer stadium. Little brisk this morning, but sunny.
Pos: N 44.863570, E 13.851446

Back to Valdo for a moment. Saturday dawned to a fairly decent hangover. Definitely felt the countless bottles of Prosecco, not to mention the grappas - 3, maybe 4? that finished the night. Felt a little better after a walk to the store to pick up Bigoli and Bottarga. A solid breakfast (after all, we hadn't eaten in 12h), largely finished the recovery. We then set off to Bassano del Grappa because the blood alcohol levels were also dropping precipitously (well, some of our group, who will remain nameless to protect the guilty,  had already addressed the issue with a breakfast beer).
Bassano is a lovely old town with a popular, key feature - the Ponte del Vecchio. An ancient bridge that has been rebuilt numerous times over the centuries, the last time after WW2. In one of the towers is a bar that serves precisely one drink - as far as anyone knows, called a Rosso, which is a Nardini Amaro, with some seltzer and a lemon wedge. This is dispensed out of a tap by the hundreds. You grab one and the stand on the bridge and drink it. A very popular past time, esp at sunset, but appropriate for any time of day really.

We then set off to Asolo, a lovely village on a hilltop and had a Aperol spritz. Very much a cocktail of summer and indeed the temps reached nicely into the 80s.

Upon arriving back at the Riva we found that the local Ferrari club had come by for lunch and there were 16 of them parked all over the grounds. Wow. They did let one Lambo come along.

We settled in for lunch under the the birch. Home made bigoli with duck ragout, washed down by bucket of Prosecco. Aaaaahhhh.

After a nap and digesting precious little of lunch, we congreated to have another dinner - we mostly did skip the primi, except for the boys who probably figured they needed strength to lift all the Prosecco cases the next day. I largely behaved myself, since the next day I was riding.

The ride down to Pula was straight forward and boring. 250km of straight and empty highway, and a few villages. Slovenia had one hill with a few corners, but that was it for the excitement. By the time I got here, Mrs. Hruskar had a big meal prepared with lots of local sausage, meat, Tartufi , Strudel and a couple of bottles of local wine. We then went for a nice walk through town. Pula has an an astonishingly complete Roman arena. It's again being used for performances, which must be amazing.