Rovinj: The Sheffield Zoology Field Trip in 1964. Part Four. A non-zoological family photographic coincidence

Having shown the photographs of the film set for ‘The Long Ships” in a previous post I wondered what had happened to the specially-constructed ‘viking’ buildings. I found a note online to the effect that they had fallen down. But where were they? I realised from looking on Google Earth that they could only have been at one site along the north bank of the Limski ‘fjord’ or channel and that was near its distal end and now the site of several modern restaurants. One, ‘The Viking’ gives a clue as to previous use of the land and was apparently started up by the caterer to the film crew.

My photograph from one of the buildings on the film set taken in March 1964

Current buildings on the site of the film set
From Funtuna website

    

That puzzle solved I then remembered that on returning in 1964 my father said he had seen the Limski ‘fjord’ while he was in the army and that he had taken a photograph which was in one of his albums. In Italy he bought a second-hand Welta Weltini 35 mm camera to replace his father-in-law’s Kodak Autographic he had asked to be sent out to him in North Africa. By looking at the other photographs printed in the same size and style, I found that he must have photographed Limski in summer 1945, after the German surrender but before returning for leave by rail to U.K. on 21 September. At that time he was stationed in Monfalcone near Trieste; Battery HQ was in the Solvay Factory.

My father's view of the Limski 'fiord' taken in 1945

   

After his death I scanned all his photographs and the postcards he had collected and labelled in a set of albums. As background I should say that my father saw a great deal of Italy. Particularly in the months after the war ended whenever a lorry was going anywhere, he was, as he put it, ‘on it’, since he was able to do the work he had to do in the evenings and very early mornings.

Last week I realised that he must have photographed Limski from a place not far away from my view from the film set and when I enlarged both photographs on screen I could see that the trees on a distance hillside had remained unchanged in 19 years. By drawing lines on Google Earth between the headlands shown in his photograph I realised he could have been on the road high above and to the north of the film set. I then looked at his next photograph which I hadn’t noticed before. It slowly dawned on me that the badly battered old buildings and quay in the second photograph, which must have been taken at the same time as the first during a lorry stop, were on the site of ‘The Long Ships’ film set from which I had taken my photograph down the Limski Channel nearly 19 years later.

My father's photograph looking down into what must have bseen the site of the film set

    

I confirmed this interpretation in a modern Google Earth view. The angle shape of the quay is identical, the site coincides with a bulge in the opposite bank and the layout of the roads that can be seen is the same. One other possible location a short distance westward, which can be seen with a protruding jetty in the 1964 photograph, I could discount. The coastline is not the same shape.

Location of the film set from where I took my photograph in 1964 and my calculation of where my father (RSP) was standing for his photographs in 1945

As above but enlarged and from the north

   

In my 1964 photograph from the top of a building in the ‘viking village’ the quay is obscured by the other buildings but you can see others in the party walking back through the ‘village street’ to the boat hidden on the left. On my father’s picture a stone wall can be made out on the left. I suspect that is the old wall that can be seen in my second photograph, of a ‘viking’ building tucked into the surrounding hillside.

It would seem that the old buildings seen by my father were either demolished before or in order for the film set to be constructed (filming was in 1963) and that the site, housing several restaurants, is now a major stopping place for tourist traffic passing down the Istrian Peninsula from the Italian border or on boat trips up the channel from Rovinj.

My father’s photographs were obviously taken in the late afternoon. The shot is to the west and has the obvious internal reflection of the the eight-bladed iris of the lens characteristic of a photograph taken into the sun. The lorry was 73 miles from Monfalcone at that point. Were they going to Pula (which he did visit) on this trip? Were they on the outward or homeward yourney? How long would a World War II army lorry take to do 73 miles?

Finally, this shot* of Trieste harbour with its scuttled ships taken from a moving vehicle on the way from or back to Monfalcone. There had, after all, been a war on.

*There is a similar but aerial shot shown on Getty Images (LIFE Picture Collection) taken in May 1946. The same or replacement fuel tanks and jetty can still be seen on Google Earth.