Before leaving Pula, I took a short walk to see the Pula Arena, the ancient Roman Amphitheatre just a few minutes away from the Riviera Hotel…
In recent days, I felt a very strong urge to get my ride through Europe completed as soon as was possible…
I am not quite sure why this is… I have enjoyed some of the best rides of my life on the continent, but increasingly, thoughts of the difficult ride I need to make through the Middle East, had intruded on my enjoyment of this final part of my European journey…
Even though I have visited many historical sites in recent weeks, and to be truthful, had just about had my fill of them, the Pula Arena was just too big to be ignored…!!
It is one of only six of the largest surviving Roman Arenas in the world… A large section of it was draped in a canvas cover, where workers continue to restore parts of the crumbling limestone from which the arena is built…  This is considered to be the best preserved ancient monument in Croatia.
I walked around the entire Arena, avoiding the crowds of tourists that had arrived in buses just as I was walking up to this massive structure… I stayed on the outside of it, looking through the arches and taking photos as I went… The queue to get into the centre of it was strung out for more than a hundred metres, and I decided that I wouldn’t bother lining up to buy a ticket…
I was already kitted up and ready to ride, and spending an hour or more standing in a queue was not an option I was willing to consider…
The arena once seated over 20 000 people, who came here to watch gladiators fight to the death… Contests between prisoners sentenced to death and wild animals also took place here… A series of underground tunnels through which the animals were let into the arena are still intact…
Today the Arena is still used for rock concerts and theatre productions, but seating is limited to about 5000 people, keeping the public off the walls and upper passageways where people once watched the activities from…
The list of artists that have “played†the Arena are impressive; Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, Sting, Elton John, Anastacia, Eros Ramazzoti, Zucchero, Michael Bolton and Norah Jones among others…
It is a very impressive structure, and even though it took up what I saw to be valuable riding time, I was glad that I took the time to check it out…
©GBWT 2010
Wow can just imagine how those concerts must have sounded in this amphitheatre!
Can’t agree with you more C, Ron your pics are absolutely fab, if anything you could publish a book of photographs alone but your story would most definatley compliment the deal.
Agreed – some awesome pics. This was definitely worth a stop.