Rijeka

There is something about this Rijeka. Not as attractive for tourists as the other cities down there, but old and antique, port town rich in history, shabby apartment blocks from turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, lot of garbage laying around, green venetian window shades and laughter of seagulls in the back, few monuments from Roman times, medieval declining tower, baroque church here and there, brutalist 70s architecture in between, several good second hand bookstores and a language that looks and sounds like mine and Italian on top of it. And they speak Italian there, shop assistants, vegetable vendors, bus drivers. Oh, and I was there when I was 8, my dad told me when I came back.