Today I drove about eighty kilometers north of my hometown, to the area around the picturesque old town called Motovun.
It was a great day for photographing the landscape because the weather was nicely unstable.
Mostly cloudy ...
... but with many shades and nuances.
Like many times before, it all started with a quick shopping in Pula, the city about ten kilometers from where I live. After visiting a shopping mall there, I decided to drive ten more kilometers to Vodnjan. This photograph was taken on the outskirts of that town where I bought fresh strawberries from the mobile farmer's market in the parking lot.
Across the parking lot, there is a railroad and a small train station with a plexiglass shelter that makes it look like a bus stop. Two people were entering the train that arrived a minute before I drove away.
After Vodnjan, as the clouds were getting thicker, I decided to continue northwards.
The next stop was in the hills ...
... five or six kilometers from Motovun.
It was raining last night ...
... and the unpaved roads had plenty of puddles.
I passed by this little barbecue place ...
... and continued rambling around, surrounded by shrubs and trees.
Here you can see the lovely flower ...
... of the Malus sylvestris tree ...
... that often looks more like a shrub. This plant is commonly known as the Wild apple or Forest apple.
Here you can take another look at the landscape and a plant that I wasn't able to identify in the foreground.
A bit later, I stumbled upon a strange, fenced place ...
... that looked like some kind of small cemetery.
The gate wasn't closed, so I entered ...
... as a bit of sunlight passed through the small clearance in the layer of clouds, making things slightly more colorful for a minute or two.
The change was especially visible on the flowers ...
... and shiny droplets scattered on the leaves.
When I took a better look at the headstones and old, monochrome portraits ...
... I noticed that all the names were Italian and the people all died on the same day, the 10th of May 1945.
Later, at home, after a bit of researching on the Internet, I found out that this is an unofficial World War II memorial built on private property. The young people from Motovun and surroundings who were executed here in the first days after the end of the war were officially declared fascists. Maybe they were. Maybe not. Many people of Italian nationality were killed without much investigation, with the ethnic cleansing in mind, just like many Slovenian and Croatian people were killed the same way during the occupation, accused of collaborating with the partisans or in the actions of ethnic cleansing of the opposite kind. This peninsula in the first weeks after the war definitively wasn't a peaceful place. Acts of generic revenge and shady killings were quite common.
The clouds soon returned to their place subduing the light again.
I took one last look at the landscape. Sat in my car ...
... and continued towards Motovun.
This photograph was taken some minutes later ...
... on the slope of the hill with a great view of the old town.
I planned to take a couple of quick shots ...
... and then continue the journey ...
... but the landscape looked fantastic ...
... and the light was constantly changing ...
... so I decided to stay longer ...
... and catch the subtle changes in the overall atmosphere.
The clouds were slowly crawling across the sky ...
... creating shifting stripes of shade ...
... down on the hills ...
... and valleys around Motovun.
Although the landscape was the same, each new moment brought something cool to photograph.
Here you can see a stripe of vivid green surrounded by darker vegetation.
Here I noticed a small village in between shadow and light ...
... so I zoomed in, and then ...
... and then I zoomed in a bit more 😀 because liked the scene very much.
After taking this wider shot, I drove away. The following scene ...
... was photographed fifteen or twenty kilometers northwest of Motovun.
I mean, more like a couple of kilometers north and then the rest west. Something like that.
In the long, narrow valley of the river called Mirna.
I parked at the side of the road ...
... and took a couple of photographs before continuing this road trip.
The next stop was five or six kilometers further.
On the hill this time.
From here I had a great view of the valley ...
... so I started searching for details and compositions ...
... through the zoom of my camera.
At this point, the weather was mostly sunny ...
... although the sparse clouds were still present in the sky ...
... casting patches of shadows ...
... down on the scenery.
As the clouds were slowly moving ...
... their shadows were traveling too.
Here you can see the iconic rock incorporated into the hill across the valley. It looks a bit like the remains of some ancient sculpture eroded through centuries. In the following shot ...
... you can take a look at the vegetation on the crest of the hill.
Some shrubs or small trees were still wearing the winter foliage.
Here, the focus is on the valley again.
I took only one more shot ...
... before entering the car and continuing uphill.
Only a couple of kilometers further, I stopped again ...
... because I saw a ghost in the field.
I mean, it was a simple scarecrow ...
... but it looked like a ghost. Well, from a certain angle, at least.
This cluster of flowers ...
... was photographed across the road. On the pretty big Orchis purpurea orchid.
AND THAT'S IT. AFTER THIS FLORAL ENCOUNTER, I DROVE STRAIGHT HOME. AS ALWAYS IN THESE TRIPS ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK - THE END.