Friday 15th Movember: Pola, Croatia

Located about eighty miles down the Istrian coast from Trieste, Pola, at the turn of the twentieth century, was the Austro-Hungarian Empire's main naval base. James Joyce lived here from 1904 in a flat opposite the Berlitz School where he taught English, right next to the photographer's studio where the portrait below was taken. Perhaps he met Guglielmo Fiorini, the photographer, in his studio at the Palazzo Stefano.

Joyce referred to Pola as a 'naval Siberia', complaining of the bitterly cold winter of 1904-5, and he and his wife Nora, newly pregnant, left for Trieste in the following March. I look at this portrait and like to imagine that it is of a colleague of James Joyce at that Croatian language school at the turn of the twentieth century.

Pola is now called Pula and is especially known these days for its mild climate, such are the effects of climate change...

Carte de visite with (and its extremely rare for these to be intact) protective sleeve, Pola, Croatia.