postcard 54: manifestation on point✨
Behind the scenes at the olive oil mill
There’s a sign on our favorite bakery marking it now closed on Sundays—another casualty of off-season. There’s a conciliation prize across the street, though. I haltingly ask for a kilogram of bright orange mandarinas and the woman behind the table is delighted by my attempt at Croatian. As I count out my change, she digs through the back of her van, overflowing with fruit, and pulls out a perfect specimen. The oils mist visibly in the morning light as she peels it for me to taste. Croatian mandarinas have ruined all other citrus for me. It’s perfectly sweet and just a hint tart, no seeds or pith. We peel more as we drive, the vineyards now gold and purple out the window.
The sun plays peek-a-boo with the clouds as we set off down the Parenzana, a trail that runs from Italy to Croatia along the lines of an old railroad. We’re just hiking a section of it today, the leaves starting to turn yellow in a tunnel around us. Our favorite hilltop town, Motovun is visible in the distance when we come to a break in the trees.
I found a photo of a viaduct in some marketing for the trail and I think I’ve narrowed down the location on satellite view, but we’re wandering blindly. The trail meanders through bucolic woodland and deep gouges cut in the rock, water trickling down their sides leaving the walls fuzzy with moss. And then, all of a sudden there it is, bending into the distance and plunging deep down into a gorge below. Hazelnut, predictably, tries to chase a lizard over the edge as we’re leaning over to take photos.
A group of bikers passes us going the opposite direction and a friendly dog wearing a GPS collar breaks from running alongside them to say hello to Hazelnut. He falls into stride with us, despite our best efforts to get him to follow the bikers, but he refuses and we’ve got a new friend. Half a mile down the road we spy a group of truffle hunters, dressed in camo and armed, and he lopes over to them. The woods are full of men and their dogs, a second man with a gun never far away. Whether to scare off pigs or jackals or rival truffle hunters, I’m not sure. Though we’re on what’s supposed to be a non-motorized path, their trucks, full of kennels, pass us every so often. It’s white truffle season and we’re in the heart of Croatia’s oak forests, the perfect place to find the precious fungi. We pass a picnic shelter where they’re grilling cevapi, the smell wafting through the woods.
The trail is absolutely flat and we’ve covered four miles before we know it. I don't think we're going to make it all the way to the next town with a winery we’d earmarked, so we stop and have lunch on a rock outcropping on the side of the path. Topher’s been carrying a bottle of olive oil in his waterbottle pocket to drizzle on the sandwiches we’ve packed. We’ve gotten our Sunday sammies down to an art.
There’s a rumble in the distance and all of a sudden a parade of off-road vehicles passes us. Samurai’s and old Soviet Ladas. Even a handful of Jeeps. It’s some sort of event, the cars bearing numbered stickers, and we watch for a good half hour as the trail gets clogged with diesel fumes. Some of the drivers can’t be more than 10, their little heads straining to see over the steering wheel. Finally, after at least a hundred cars have passed, we venture back onto the trail. A pair of bikers passes, making engine revving noises, to our amusement.
We’ve clocked 9 miles by the time we make it back to the car and we’re exhausted, but also need to stock up on olive oil before the harvest clears the shelves for several weeks. Already we’ve seen pickers in the groves and I’ve been emailing every producer I know of with a mill, asking for a quick peek at the process to no avail. It's the busiest time of year.
The stand on the side of the road at our favorite farm is dark and empty, but the gates are open. We’re admittedly a little desperate and take it as a sign to drive in. Logically, I know there’s only a slim chance they’re actually open on a Sunday, but the sign says “shop” with a little arrow pointing down a drive that winds through fruit trees, lined by dormant lavender bushes.
When we get to the facility, it's thrumming with activity. Olives are being unloaded from vans, machinery is running loudly and I hover near a doorway, heartbeats from turning away when I man comes out and asks in English how he can help us.
“Would it be possible to buy olive oil here?” I squeak.
He tells us they’re in the middle of the harvest and the new oil isn’t ready yet, but in the same breath he asks if we’ve ever seen olive oil being made. Topher and I exchange an excited glance as I answer in the negative.
We’re led through a bay filled with shiny machinery and he shows us baskets of olives, explaining the right time to harvest and how the different machines work cleaning, sorting and finally crushing the fruit. We walk into the room where the oil is separated from the pulp and there’s plastic jugs filled with fresh oil, opaque and vibrantly green. The smell is overwhelmingly lovely. Spicy and overpowering. It will be a few weeks before the oil is ready to use. He shows us behind the scenes where they package and offers us the last few bottles from the 2023 harvest.
As we step outside we tell him we live in Pula and his non-stop barrage of information turns to Croatian politics. He’s the owner, as I’ve guessed by now, but this is his hobby. He describes himself as an “engineer” but it’s obvious by his statements that he’s a well connected business man. He tells us about the corruption of the politicians, their ties to the KGB and how he’s started his own “think tank”. He was a POW in the Homeland War, taken out of university to fight. We talk about taxes and the switch to the euro, price fixing and American political parties. He’s very knowledgeable, though we don’t get many words in edgewise. He ends with a wave, telling us he wants us to understand the place we live and we leave two hours later.
We laugh to ourselves the whole way home about the sheer serendipity of the moment. At home, Topher starts Googling while I make dinner and he calls me over with a start. The man said something about testifying at the trial that put the last prime minister in prison and Topher was curious. He found our new friend’s photo at the trial and we quickly learn he’s far more than an “engineer”. This might be the most influential man in the country. He was asked to be both the mayor of Zagreb and the PM, refusing both positions. He’s on the board of the biggest gasoline company in Croatia, the head of a new political party running on anti-corruption and, indeed, put the old PM behind bars. His comments about journalists falling off balconies and being threatened by the secretary of the interior make more sense now. He’s one of the most important people in Croatia and he took us on a tour of his hobby olive farm, slapping his uncles on the back, wearing jeans. If that’s not the best way to describe Croatians, I don’t know what is.
The water is perfectly still, it's surface like a mirror as we wander along the rocks, peering down at schools of sardines, their bellies flashing silver in the sun. I peer out into the distance, like I always do on clear days, and bemoan the lack of dolphins. It’s been months since we’ve spotted them. Hazelnut goes for a dip and we climb the rocks instead of the trail. Without crashing waves, it’s like a staircase leading straight to the water. Suddenly, I spy movement in the distance and we scramble to an overlook.
My manifestation skills are on point this week, Topher observes as we watch a pod of dolphins. We sit there for an hour, delighted as they move closer. It’s so quiet we can hear them breech and there’s a baby, jumping in time with his mom, twin fins cresting the still water. It’s absolutely magical.
My favorite thing about our strangely furnished apartment is the historical photos of Pula in the entryway. As we’ve gotten to know our city, we’ve figured out where most of them were taken, though the streets look different now. I snap a few pictures of them on my phone and we head into town with our film camera, recreating as many as we can. Hazelnut and I stand on the street corner for perspective while Topher compares the viewfinder to my phone, moving left or right an inch or two until he takes the perfect shot. I wouldn’t have the patience for this, so instead Hazelnut and I wander and chase pigeons. We drink coffee in the square and take our time going to the market. Every moment now feels infused with meaning and I want to stretch them out as long as possible. The clock striking 12 each day, sending me inside and back to America metaphorically is too jarring. All I want is to wander in the sunlight, soaking, soaking, soaking it all in.
-Mikaela