It is early afternoon, and the sun feels wonderful on my skin. I am sitting on my terrace and looking at the Mirna valley below. Beautiful is hardly the word. Divine is much more like it. Now that the tourist season is definitely over, there are no sounds around Motovun. And there is hardly any traffic on the road along the river. Depopulated since the Seventeenth Century, this part of central Istria is amazing to behold. Hilly and green, it looks like heaven itself. The houses in view are too few to spoil the serene picture. No wonder that this is where Roman soldiers used to end up in their retirement. Peace and quiet incarnated. The promised land for pensioners. Which is why I will never leave my house. Never ever. As well as why I feel ever-so-slightly ashamed that I tried to sell it several years ago on account of just a handful of execrable humans in the hilltown. Perish the thought. One day like this one is enough to stick to my promise indefinitely. In praise of the Roman soldiers, too.