14 November 2008

Time enough for the korso

It became obvious that Rijeka is a port city as soon as we got off the train. The station was surrounded by a large series of silos, presumably storing grain from inland fields before it's loaded onto mediterranean ships. The city, surrounded on three sides by steep hills sparkling with lights, sits at the upper end of Kvarner Gulf along the eastern Adriatic Sea. The warm humid air filled our lungs thickly, a formal announcement that we had entered a new climate.

It seems that in all mediterranean countries, the evening korso, or promenade, is ritualized to the point that at least a few main pedestrian streets in the heart of any town fill with socializing strollers of all ages on any given evening. We had a few hours to kill before our ferry would be heading down the coast, 
so we joined them here for a while before grabbing a pizza and stopping for groceries for the 20-hour trip ahead of us. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The ferry looks huge but I assume it transports vehicles as well as people. Wy. hunter/party girl

Mark McEnery said...

Yeah, room for a lot of vehicles and trucks, but only a few were on board with us. I guess it's a lot more crowded in peak season.