About a year ago, on the 5th of April 2024, for reasons I can't recall anymore, I spent some time driving around the rural area near Pazin, a small city situated right in the center of Istria.
At some point, I stopped by the side of the road not far from the village of Zabrežani and took all the photographs you'll see in today's post.
There was a church ...
... and a cemetery behind it.
It looked like a good opportunity for a bit of casual exploring that could lead to a mildly interesting post one day in the more or less near future.
The Church of two saints, the one called John and the one called Paul, was built quite a few years ago, in 1635. That's all I can tell you about it. No other official information have I found on the Internet.
In this photograph, I zoomed in on the small bell tower to bring the bells closer to my inquisitive eyes. There was this interesting thing I didn't notice right there while taking the shot, only later at home, when I enlarged the picture on the computer screen. The two bells are unexpectedly different. There is an obvious difference in size, a slight difference in shape, and a considerable difference in decorative details that requires a good eye and a bit of exploring.
Here you can see the church's main entrance. The heavy wooden door was closed and locked, so I couldn't enter, but ...
... but there was enough space between the bars of the windows to get a few sneaky shots of the lovely interior.
The statues on the altar were detailed and colorful like oversized versions of Dungeons & Dragons figurines.
I zoomed in even more in this shot, so you can take a better look at the intricate details of the clothing our Christian heroes were wearing for the occasion. In the following photograph ...
... the focus is on the outside again.
Here you can see a magic window with a flying dove caught in its enchanted glass.
The bars are there to prevent the bird's escape in case the enchantment gets broken somehow.
In another of those Gothic windows, you can see a reflection of the nearby trees.
This is the most photogenic of those trees that grow around the church.
I saw quite a few more ordinary but still beautiful trees there.
The sparse foliage on their branches was in the winter mood ...
... while down on the ground...
... you could see the flowers signaling the change of the season.
Here you can see a lichen growing among the fallen leaves.
The trunks of some trees were heavily covered with a different type of lichen.
The ivy was also climbing the trunks.
In this shot, the focus is on the church again, while in the following one ...
... I zoomed in on the pretty big cross on its facade.
This lovely Madonna ...
... was patiently posing ...
... on one of the many headstones ...
... in the graveyard behind the church.
I photographed four slightly different Mothers of the same God there among the graves.
This is the third one.
The fourth Mother looked a bit like a guru teaching a congregation of lamps how to meditate.
The expression on her petrified face was calm and confident.
Graveyards always have a nice variaty of interesting stuff for a post like this one.
This artificial sunflower has certainly seen better days.
Its disheveled look made it stand out from the rest of the plastic flora in the graveyard.
The red roses in this artificial bouquet still look pretty fresh.
You can see a wide variaty of floral arrangements in this shot. Some flowers in the picture are real, others are made of various types of colorful plastic. You can try to find the real ones if you wish to have a bit of gamification in the blogs you read.
This coniferous arrangement is always ready for Christmas.
It's a lovely piece of decoration that works equally good in graveyards, restaurants, festive ballrooms, and all kinds of private homes.
The main characters of this photograph are four white roses, each with a slightly different personality.
You may wonder why the heck I'm talking about these mundane, mass-produced objects like they were living things or even persons. Well, in the absence of living people, the flowers and statues tend to get weirdly alive in my mind.
If you have a scientific name for this condition, I'll be happy to hear it.
Here you can see another group of nicely decorated graves.
The old portraits make an interesting photo exhibition that can be seen any day of the year.
Only a few portraits were in color.
In the foreground of this photograph, you can see the stairs ...
... that lead in and out of the cemetery.
The graves are situated on an elevated mound surrounded by a simple, grayish wall.
In this shot, you can see a friend who was there with me walking toward a small building that looks like some kind of chapel.
Here, you can take a better look at that same thing situated near the church.
The advert on its facade, framed like a painting, informs the passerby about the funeral home situated in Pazin.
You can call their employees at any time of the day or night.
This place probably hosts the dead in the moments before the funeral procession.
This pretty large info-board ...
... explains the massacre of local civilians in 1943.
And that's it. Life goes on. Death is also always here.
AS ALWAYS, HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK.