Today I drove ninety kilometers north of my hometown ...
... to take a long walk through and around the village that goes by the name of Sovinjak.
Sova means Owl in my language, so the name of this place can be translated as Owlville or Owltown. Or something like that. It definitively has a lot to do with Owls.
The first mental image created in my mind when I hear or read this word, Sovinjak, is a chicken coop filled with owls.
In written sources, Sovinjak was first mentioned in 1195 ...
... as a feudal castle that doesn't exist anymore. The village was slowly developing around the castle. Currently, you can see quite a few beautiful abandoned houses made of stone.
I like these ivy-covered ruins very much.
When there's no roof above it, a wide variety of plants can grow on the ground between the old, decaying walls.
In the foreground of this photograph, you can see the Lunaria annua flowers.
The yellow flowers in this shot belong to the Chelidonium majus plant.
Here you can take a look through one of the windows that still have bars.
When this photograph was taken, I was leaving the aforementioned ruin ...
... directed towards the edge of town. Here you can see a pair of houses on one property there. The bigger one is old and made of stone, the smaller, brick one, is still a work in progress.
Sovinjak is situated on one of the many hills in this inland area ...
... so you can see plenty of surrounding landscape from here.
In the 15th century, a protective wall was built around the village. At this point, the castle was abandoned for more than a century.
In 1508 the small fortified town became part of the Venetian republic.
Here you can see one of the most beautiful old houses in the center of Sovinjak.
When it comes to this village in general, I was able to find only some basic, very vague, generic information on the Internet, so there is practically nothing I can say or write about many cool details that I photographed today. Fortunately, this building had a bit of data written on its facade. If you enlarge the photograph, you may notice the date when it was built and the name of the owner engraved in the stone.
Above that elegant work in stone from the first years of the 20th century, there is the word Tito written in red paint, added in the first days after World War II. After taking this series of shots ...
... I turned my camera towards the church across the street.
The Parish Church of St. George is the biggest building in Sovinjak.
Here you can see a detail of the tower. The big bell and some elements of the old mechanism around it.
The church as we see it today was built in 1927 in the place of an older church from 1556. The church tower was built in 1557 and it hasn't changed.
In this photograph, you can see a construction site near the church. A pretty large new house or an apartment building is being built there ...
... and from a certain angle ...
... it looks like the church itself is made of bricks and only the old tower is made of stone.
Not far from the construction site ...
... I stopped to photograph the Euphorbia lathyris spurge ...
... and the water accumulated between the leaves of that plant.
This photograph was taken on the lawn behind the church. In the following shot ...
... you can take a look at the landscape ...
... that can be seen from there.
The clouds were slowly floating across the sky ...
... and their shadows were crawling across the hills and valleys.
At one point ...
... I noticed this small village surrounded by lush vegetation ...
... so I zoomed in to take a better look at the details.
Here you can take a better look at the daisies of the lawn on which I was standing.
The most photogenic ruin that I found today in Sovinjak ...
... was photographed on the opposite end of the village.
I passed by the World War II memorial ...
... and across the path bordered with dry stone wall ...
... that led me to this beautiful ruin ...
... surrounded and covered with a wide variety of plants.
Iris plants were growing on one of the walls. Their blue flowers provided an elegant decoration.
Not far from there, on the small blue flowers of the Ajuga reptans ...
... I found the Iphiclides podalirius butterfly. This species is commonly known as the Scarce Swallowtail.
I took plenty of photographs around the aforementioned ruin ...
... because each angle revealed something slightly different ...
... and the amount of cool, photogenic details ...
... was quite overwhelming.
The surrounding landscape looked great as well.
Here I zoomed in to take a better look at one of the distant villages scattered across the neighboring hills.
The shifting clouds were constantly changing the ambient light.
When I photographed the same village again, five or ten minutes later, the atmosphere was slightly darker. My orientation & geography skills aren't great, so I can't tell you which village is this.
In the orchard near the ruins of the old homestead, I found an interesting man-made or at least man-improved hole in the ground that looked like a small cistern.
After taking this shot ...
... I walked back towards the center of Sovinjak.
Passed by the house with the only palm in the village ...
... and stopped by the small church from the 16th century.
This is the Chapel of St. Roch.
The door was locked.
But the windows had only bars, no glass or wooden blinds, so I was able to take a look at the gloomy interior ...
... and photograph the wall paintings made by Domenicus Utinensis, an artist from Udine in Italy, in 1571.
This white cat was photographed in the yard of one of the houses near the church.
A minute later, I noticed a bit of white fur hidden among leaves and flowers.
Another white cat was sleeping in the flower pot.
Before continuing towards the center, I photographed this isolated house near the edge of the hill.
Here I'm passing by some pretty big old houses ...
... with an interesting passage in between them.
First I stopped to photograph the orchids ...
... in the window ...
... and then I walked under the arch of the passage.
Here I photographed the old wooden doors ...
... and zoomed in to take a better look at the rusted handle.
Here you can see a detail from the building's front facade.
Before continuing my walk, I noticed this religious artwork.
I passed by another relatively large building ...
... and some smaller old houses that looked abandoned ...
... before reaching the parish church ...
... and the square in the center of Sovinjak.
After photographing the buildings around me ...
... I used the zoom of my camera ...
... to take a better look at the distant landscape ...
... that was visible from here, and then ...
... after taking a few more wide shots ...
... from the square ...
... it was time to change direction ...
... and enter one of the short narrow streets...
... that lead in the small neighborhood behind the square.
Here I photographed more houses ...
... and more details ...
... on and around those houses.
Before reaching the car that was parked nearby ...
... I stopped to photograph this dark cat.
Here I zoomed in a bit more.
I took these four shots while standing near the opened left front door of my car.
Here you can see the same landscape photographed through the branches of the Rhus typhina trees. After taking this trio of photographs, it was time to go home, so I drove away ...
... but less than a kilometer from the village ...
... I stopped again ...
... near this makeshift picnic place ...
... with the great scenic view.
As I was photographing the hills ...
... and small villages ...
... the sky above me was getting bright and blue.
When I decided to continue my journey back home ...
... the weather was still partially cloudy ...
... but definitively brighter than before.
AND THAT'S IT. AS ALWAYS IN THESE POSTS ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK - THE END.