by zemch

The sky is as blue as I had expected. There are puffy, marshmallow clouds hanging over the mountains in the distance, and it’s hard to tell where mountains end and white stuff begins. At least it does not look like rain.

I take a sip from the beer-bottle and try to decide if I want to keep sitting here at the beach bar, listening to Italian pop songs and watch the waves inching up the pebbly beach; or if I want to discard beer bottle and flip-flops and do what I came here for: swimming in the Adriatic. The water is so clear, it’s not convincing to someone used to the slushy grey Irish Sea pestering Howth Head. Looks like a trick to me.

But then the local ladies seem to enjoy it, bobbing up and down in the water up to their hips, their skin already fried deep brown by months and months of Croatian sun.

I may even take the beer with me, sitting and sipping in the warm waters of this stoney bay in the south of Istria, like the biggest and most translucent bathtub in the world.