After driving around with a friend, about thirty kilometers, from my hometown through the city of Pula and then north along the inland road that passes by many small towns and villages ...
... I parked at the beginning of the narrow country lane ...
... that leads ... well, now I know where, but some hours ago when these photographs were taken, this was a mysterious little road for me, and every strange thing that one can imagine, seemed waiting at the end of that lane. Everything seemed fairly possible at the beginning of the walk.
I hiked through many places in this area but never walked this particular road.
Small oak trees still had plenty of autumnal leaves on their branches ...
... but many other shrubs and trees were completely barren.
Soon we came across this wild rose, a small shrub ...
... covered with colorful fruits.
There was frost on the ground, in the shade under the shrubs and trees.
Some minutes later ...
... we passed by this railway crossing sign.
I stop to photograph some beautiful small details decorated with frost ...
... on the shady side of the road ...
... when a man on the tractor passed by. He was transporting the farmyard manure, probably to some field not far from here.
A couple of minutes later, a bit further down the road, I photographed this little truck.
About fifty meters or so, we were passing by this slightly surreal, damaged & tilted railway crossing sign.
Another twenty, maybe thirty or forty, meters of slow, leisure walking ...
... and we reached the first houses. Tzukrichi it's a pretty small village. I heard about it, but this was my first encounter with this place.
Here you can take a look at some partially cleared property that was probably part of the surrounding woods not so long ago. Now it's only sparsely covered with oaks ...
... and some of those slender, isolated trees look pretty cool. From here I could see the railway, and very soon ...
... I saw a friend walking down the rails.
We were in the village called Tzukrichi ...
... in front of the railway station Jurshichi.
Jursichi is another, slightly larger village situated across the main road, a couple of kilometers from here. I knew that it has a small railway station, but it was quite a surprise to find that station in another village.
We had a great time exploring this quiet place.
The ticket booth looked closed for good.
The window was broken. The door looked good enough but wasn't in a proper place so it didn't function as a door. The interior was a weird mix of demolished and well-preserved stuff.
The place was almost completely devoid of sounds that could reveal the presence of people. A vague post-apocalyptic atmosphere was permeating the entire village.
Here you can take a look down the empty rails.
In this photograph, I zoomed on the distant things at the edge of the field of view.
At one point, when we decided to leave the station ...
... two little dogs appeared from somewhere.
They were barking a lot at first ...
... but very soon it became clear that these are some friendly little dogs.
They followed us for a while ...
... until we passed the place where the narrow country lane crosses the railroad.
This is an up-close look at the little pool of dirty water photographed on that crossing.
These two complementary bicycles were photographed near one of the houses at the edge of the village.
Here you can take a better, more up-close look at the white one.
A bit further on the way back to the car, I photographed this lovely patch of moss.
At the end of this walk, when we were ready to drive away, I noticed the parish church of the village Jurshichi. This pretty elegant piece of architecture was built in 1874.
AS ALWAYS IN THESE POSTS ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK.