FROM GRAVEYARD TO GRAVEYARD

All Saints' Day is near, so following the local tradition I visited the graves of my Grandparents buried in two different graveyards. Grandma and Grandpa from my mother's side aren't far from where I live, only four or five hundred meters, in the small town called Medulin.

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Medulin's cemetery was the first of the two graveyards I visited this morning. In this opening photograph, you can take a look at its graves, tombstones, flowers, lanterns, and the fairly big & new apartment buildings that have grown all around it in the last decade or so. The following shot ...

... shows a line of graves in the cemetery of Marchana. Grandparents from my father's side are buried there. Marchana is a fairly large village a little more than twenty kilometers north of my hometown.

At half past 9 AM, my car looked like a traveling flower shop.

I bought all these flowers, both real and artificial, in the only flower shop in Medulin. I mean, the place isn't exactly a flower shop. It's a small but well-equipped store that sells farm and garden supplies, and it has a small compartment dedicated to fresh and artificial flowers. At this time of the year, you can find everything needed for the seasonal grave maintenance there.

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In this photograph, you can see my car parked in the large parking lot in front of Medulin's cemetery and a friend who was there with me.

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When we placed the lanterns & flowers and finished all that had to be done around the graves, I went in search of interesting details that could enhance the post I envisioned there in the cemetery. At that point, I was sure only about the title, everything else was open. I photographed the grave shown in the above picture mostly becouse of the way in which was lit - half in sunshine, half in shade.

This is one of the very few remaining old tombstones of Medulin.

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Old portraits always easily catch my attention.

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Here you can see another one. I'm not an expert in military stuff, so I could be wrong, but I would say that the man is wearing an Italian historic uniform.

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The portrait is embedded in a tombstone assembled with old limestone parts and more recent parts made of dark granite.

Here you can see a floral ornament on another old tombstone.

Soon I noticed a fly on one of the pale, washed-out artificial roses on that old grave.

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I didn't have the macro lens with me but the fly was pretty big for a fly so I was able to take this pretty good close-up shot that, after a bit of cropping in Photoshop, ended up looking like a real macro.

I took a series of photographs while getting closer and closer to the fly. Half an hour ago, I decided to create a GIF out of them. In the case of this fly that was resting and sunbathing on the artificial flower, I can't tell you the name of the species. In the following photograph ...

... you can see the fly that was feeding on nectar provided by one of the real flowers that were decorating the neighboring grave. This is the Eristalis arbustorum, a species from the Syrphidae family.

This grave marked with a simple and very old tombstone was covered with big leaves of some plant that looked like something that wouldn't be out of place in my garden, among the zucchini and green radicchio. I like it, is lovely, green, and it stands out from the rest.

This small, petrified Madonna resembles a flower lady who offers artificial roses to whoever is passing by.

These are the portraits of my grandfather and my grandmother from my mother's side.

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Here you can take one last look at the Medulin's cemetery. It's time to leave and drive to Marchana.

Between Medulin and Marchana, at more or less the same distance from both lies the city of Pula.

Before reaching Marchana, I made a short stop on the outskirts of Pula, near the bus terminal in the neiberhood called Shiana.

There is a very good bakery near the terminal. I had to buy the fresh bread and a few other things there.

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Some trees in Shiana have put on the autumnal attire.

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Some architectural elements of the bus terminal are pretty cool and photogenic.

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This is the Bacillus rossius, commonly known as the Mediterranean stick insect.

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The walking stick was found and photographed on the lower part of the 25-meter tall church tower near the entrance to the cemetery of Marchana.

You can see the entire tower in this shot.

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A stick insect was the last thing I expected to find there at this time of the year.

This is the grave of my grandfather and grandmother from my father's side.
The photograph was taken when the maintenance work was finished. Some minutes earlier ...

... I photographed a spider on the grave.

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Can't tell you the name of the species but I'm sure that it belongs to the Lycosidae family.

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In this wide shot, you can take a good look at the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, the biggest building in Marchana.

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This is a memorial to some members of the local antifascist resistance who were killed during World War II. It was a communist resistance so you can see a star among the crosses that dominate the cemetery.

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AND THAT'S IT. THIS GRAVEYARD TOUR ENDS HERE. AS ALWAYS ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK.