I was walking around in Cres the other day when I saw a poster advertising “4th Annual Sheep Exhibition” in Orlec. I had not heard of this event previously, but now that I have, I was not going to miss it. The poster promised tasting of sheep delicacies and “Harmonijada” (Accordian-fest) in the evening hours. It invited us to come and be entertained and I was instantly interested.
Orlec is the first town up the hill from Cres. We decided to take the regular bus line to get there which was all we needed to get Trevor interested in the trip.
Trevor in the bus
The twenty minute bus ride was so exciting, Trev fell asleep. He missed seeing the Renault 4 on the right
I might or might have not been to Orlec previously but I had no expectations of it except to see some abandoned houses and a few old ladies stubbornly holding onto their routines and evading their children’s attempts to put them into nursing homes. Well, I was to have my prejudices of small island villages overturned! Orlec seemed to be booming. Maybe it is the vacationers that make it busy in the summer, but there were more newly renovated houses than houses falling into disrepair.
Orlec
Orlec seems to be the magnet for the few Renault 4 cars remaining in the world. I think I saw at least three. The town also seems to support agricultural community of sorts. Sheep, a horse, some veggie gardens and a kiwi tree were to be spotted.
Sheep
Kiwi
The sheep exhibition was small but vibrant. There were 10 sheep pens with four sheep each competing for the best specimen. There was to be a a sheep shearing with traditional (non-motorized) scissors, but we missed it because we had to catch the last bus back to Cres.
Trevor was quite tired and a bit weary of sheep so we got some jams, honey and rakija (grappa) at the stands, had a nice meal of tripe and roast lamb and headed home.
Tripe was actually very tasty though it is the kind of meal I would have on very few occasions this being the second time in my life that I tried it.
The first time I had tripe was in a fancy New York restaurant and then it was beef, rather than lamb. I was talking to my great uncle, zio Peppi, about it a few years ago and he told me how, when he was younger, you could only find tripe in small hole-in-the-wall-working-man’s eateries.
Hey, Chris disappeared from here and now he’s in your blog!
Bojki, molim jos malo ovakvih lijepih slika i pre-zanimljivih clanaka. Tripe je moja nona kuhala povremeno; kuhinja pri tome smrdi i uz sirom otvoren prozor, ali okus je na kraju odlican. (Isto vrijedi i za bakalar i za karfiol…).
Steta da niste imali priliku vidjeti sisanje ovaca velikim skarama — moja nona je radila sve od pranja, cesljanja i farbanja tek osisane vune pa do carapa i dzempera, ali sisla ovce nije. Skare su zbilja velike, ovce nisu bas mirne, iako im zavezu noge, i dobra je sansa da se ovca upikne.
Uzivajte!