Made it to Rovinj, Croatia by Sunset

I apologized for not having a chance to update my blog; life has been super busy with a toddler and a baby and a record-setting number of weddings that I had photographed this year (all postponed from the past two years due to the pandemic). Now that I finished editing my last wedding of the year, I can finally spend time editing the photos we took during our two trips (any guess of where?) and writing trip reports to share with you! Just recently, I had an Instagram follower asked me if I still write blog posts and can’t wait for it! I hear you and thank you very much for your support!

After all these years of wanting to go to the Dolomites in Italy, we finally made it in early July! We originally booked Indonesia and Japan but since Japan wasn’t open for tourists at that time, we changed to Europe instead. Back in April, I snapped an excellent deal from Boston to Venice via Amsterdam on KLM business class using only 79500 Flying Blue miles + $440 USD for both of us one way. Coming back, only economy was available for 57000 Flying Blue miles + $290 USD for both of us. With 25% Chase point bonus transfer to Flying Blue, we spent only 109,200 Chase points!

It was our first time flying on a lie-flat seat so I was super excited. Service on board was excellent with a starter drink once we were seated.

The space was so comfortable and look at the size of that screen, it was a joy to catch up with movies….I haven’t watched a drama for almost half a year now, can you believe it? I was that crazy busy 🙁

I love KLM’s amenity kit bag, the design is very nice and something that I would definitely carry around with me!

The food was like fine dining…both the quality and the time it took to serve those courses. The salt and pepper shaker is super cute and fits to the Holland theme! The shrimp was crunchy and tasty, I wish it has more than one.

For my main course choice, I chose the tajine which reminded me of Morocco. The meat was tender and I like the spiciness of it.

By the time we finished the main course, it was already 11 PM and I was falling asleep that I skipped dessert. I pushed the button for the seat to be completely lie-flat and slept like a baby; it was the most comfortable sleep I had on a plane so far! However, I woke up in the middle once because it was so hot, I wished they kept the cabin cool. Then, it felt so quick that the flight attendant came by and started breakfast! I was like, I’ll have breakfast later. She said we’ll be landing in an hour. Oh my, time flew by so fast, it was the fastest 7 hours flight I ever had! I love a hot breakfast that made my tummy feel so good to start the day. The egg and cheese were good.

Once we landed, the flight attendant carried a try of ceramic houses for us to choose from, it is KLM’s tradition to give out the ceramic house (filled with gin) for business class customers and they release a new one each anniversary, how cool is that? We love to collect houses so it was perfect!

I was prepared for a nightmare transit through Amsterdam after reading all the news about their operational meltdowns so I planned a 6 hours layover for delays and queues. Surprisingly, we landed early, with no wait at immigration, and as we were transiting, we didn’t have to go through the crazy security check; that was the long queue. I knew there was an earlier flight to Venice so I checked the departure board and we went to that gate to try our luck. The lady at the gate was nice enough to make phone calls and changed our flight to this earlier flight 🙂

During the short flight, we had this salmon salad meal in this beautifully designed box!

We were spoiled! Instead of arriving in Venice at 5 PM, we got there by 3 PM. We got the rental car and drove to Rovinj, Croatia with a stop at DarsGo across the border to Slovenia. In Slovenia, you need to purchase a vignette (1-week costs €14, cheap compared to paying tolls) to drive on its highways. The toll from Venice was already €11.10 and then to Rovinj was 38 HKR or €5.14. The drive was supposed to be 2 hours 40 minutes, we were using Waze and it went crazy when we temporarily lost data when crossing the border from Italy to Slovenia. I felt something was not right so I pulled up Google Maps (I downloaded it before we left home) to check and wasted 30 minutes getting back on track. So lessons learned, stick with Google Maps and download the map in case of no data in Europe! T-Mobile has recently made an improvement to provide faster speed, just enough to load maps, when traveling aboard and high-speed data in selected countries like Germany all for free!

We made it to Hotel Delfin in Rovinj finally, pulled over as there is no parking lot…urg…the description on Booking.com said it has private parking! I walked to the reception desk to ask where we can park, and she said to give the key to one of the guys at the hotel restaurant and he’ll park for us. Not too convenient but alright. Right after we dropped off our luggage in the room, we headed out to the old town while there is still sunlight. It was less than a 10-minute walk, straight and easy. We went to Taverna De Amicis for dinner and luckily we got there early that we were able to get a table without reservation!

We were seated outside on the stairs which reminded me of Dubrovnik. As Rovinj is right on the coast, we ordered seafood starting with mussels; we each got a bowl and finished with ease LOL!

The mussels were fresh and cooked perfectly. The white sauce was average. Oh yea, Fanta Orange is a must in Europe!

I also ordered a seafood soup, it was good but lacked shrimp taste. Can never ever get that same fish soup that we had in Santorini years ago 🙁

My seafood spaghetti was descent, once again, and lacked that heavy shrimp taste. I wonder why this side of the sea doesn’t have those big Mediterranian shrimps!

The grilled cuttlefish is a must in Rovinj, so good!

The waiter was surprised that we were able to finish all those food LOL. The bill was 680 HKR ~$90 USD; Rovinj is more expensive compared to other parts of Croatia as it’s so close to Italy and Slovenia!

Afterward, we quickly walk out to the pier to watch the sunset over the colorful and beautiful Rovinj old town. People were heading to the same direction as well.