It happened in 2024. The year of my most intense absence and inactivity here on Hive. The weather was cold but mostly sunny at the end of January when the photographs for this post were taken.
I had to do some work in the city, the city of Pula, of course, on the 22nd of January, and when everything was done, I was ready to go for a relaxed walk somewhere in the suburbs.
I chose a rather unattractive place, the neiberhood of Vidikovatz.
The block buildings in Vidikovatz are pretty high and large, typical public housing from the sixties and seventies. I mean, this is high and monumental for a small city like Pula; in bigger cities, such buildings dwarf anything that one can see here in Vidikovatz.
Vidikovatz means "the viewpoint" in my language. From the top of the hill on which the neiberhood was built, especially if you are high on the balcony of one of those block buildings, you can see a good chunk of the city and the surrounding landscape.
The old name of this area, used in the Austro-Hungarian period, was Monte Paradiso. In Italian, the second official language of the city, that means, more or less, "the paradise hill"
It was regarded as a fancy place, mainly becouse of the wide, beautiful view.
Nowadays, when you find yourself surrounded by buildings that resemble man-made termite mounds, it feels like a lost paradise.
The time of elegance is long gone, but if you are looking through the lens of the camera ...
... you can still find beauty in the geometrical patterns provided by modern architecture.
It's easy to create neat, effective compositions with all these squares and boxes.
Everything can look the same at first sight ...
... but if you zoom in a bit ...
... you'll find some lovely little differences ...
... in this sea of windows and balconies.
Especially if you are exploring the neiberhood on a clear winter day when many people hang their freshly washed clothes to dry in the sun.
In this photograph, most of the laundry is still in the shade, but the sun rays will reach it very soon.
Two very mundane pieces of laundry, a towel and a cleaning rag, can look almost like two cartoon characters with a certain dose of unexpected personality, talking to each other to kill time in the boring suburbia while hanging on the same line.
Photography can help bring things to life sometimes.
This is the local grocery store.
It resembles a bunker or a fortress. In this and the following photograph ...
... the focus is on the large metal door that leads to the storage area of the store. At some point, while I was very suspiciously sniffing and photographing around ...
... a truck arrived, and someone opened the door from the inside. On one of the parking lots not far from the store ...
... I met a lovely little bird that looked very at home among the concrete and asphalt.
This is the European robin (Erithacus rubecula).
Ten minutes later, I photographed another truck near the grocery store.
In the following photograph ...
... you can take a look at the top of the church tower.
Like most other buildings in the neighborhood...
... the Church of St. Paul is a modernist building, built in 1968, an iconic year of the last century.
Here, you can see a very quadrangular modernist version of the more decoratively shaped windows of the old churches.
Although the decorativity of any design is quite relative. Things made purely with functionality in mind will, sooner or later, become part of a new aesthetic code, a new way to experience beauty.
When I entered ...
... I saw a large and beautifully intricate representation of the Christmas nativity.
I spent almost an hour alone in the silence of the church ...
... busy exploring the overwhelming amount of small details that made the scene look so impressive ...
... and, since many of its parts were moving ...
... I had to take many series of consecutive shots well-suited for later animation ...
... to give you a good idea about how it felt being there once I get ready to make a post about it.
It was amazing.
My inner child was delighted.
Although, I never saw anything like this, as a child.
I can easily imagine myself at seven years old, crying and screaming for someone to buy me the whole thing for my next birthday.
All those figurines ...
... of ancient people and their animals ...
... the shacks, the bridges, and an entire castle ...
... all that stuff looked like a perfect set of toys, outshined only by the colorful, crazy world of He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe.
This highly functional windmill was one of my favorites.
The cave with the Baby Jesus can be perceived as a Christian equivalent of the Castle Grayskull, it's absolutely magnificent.
It was also beautifully lit for the occasion.
In some places, the lights were flickering slightly. That made things feel even more alive.
Look at this little vineyard. Isn't that cool?
I was transported somewhere very far from the suburban neighborhood ...
... while standing there, in the church ...
... built in its center.
I'm an atheist, you know, but I can easily get into the poetic aspects of any religion, into the arts & crafts that gravitate around sacral themes and imagery.
You can see the line of benches and the simple altar in this shot.
This elegant Mother of God was posed on a high pedestal.
I haven't seen this many chairs in one place for quite some time.
Some cool and dark modern art inspired by the Bible was displayed on the wall.
Here, I used the flash and a longer exposure to get a brighter look at the benches and the altar.
In this shot, you can see the same chairs shown a bit earlier in the post, but from a slightly different angle, an angle that makes quite a few of them look light blue or white instead of brown.
This is the same room, but it was photographed from a different angle. You can see some Catholic characters that aren't present in previous shots.
And that's all about the Church of St. Paul for today.
It's time to go out.
Once back in the secular part of the neiberhood, I noticed this cute panel near the entrance to the kindergarten called "penguin". It's quite original. I think. I never saw a penguin themed kindergarten before. And it makes sense. When you see Emperor penguins in some documentaries, their colonies look like a huge kindergarten.
There is always something cool to discover and photograph, even in the most boring parts of the city. In the following photograph ...
... at yet another large building of Vidikovatz. The grocery store is in the foreground.
These smaller buildings of a very different kind ...
... mark the edge of the neiberhood, and the end of this post.
AS ALWAYS, HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPS AND THE GIFs ARE MY WORK.