A few weeks ago, my hometown was the home to an event that included many bikes, bikers, and plenty of heavy rock n'roll music that is rarely heard in public places nowadays. In my neiberhood, the bikes often sounded like distant thunder, but occasionally the rumbles were just outside my yard. Sometimes the engine's sound was accompanied by a Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, or Deep Purple song, which made the audio much more palatable.
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The official name of that summer gathering is The European Harley Owners Group Rally. This year it took place in Medulin, my hometown, and the nearby city of Pula, from the 12th to the 15th of June.
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I didn't visit the part of the rally located in Pula becouse I wasn't in the mood to drive the congested roads and search for a scarce and expensive parking place not too far from the center, but on the 13th of June, I thoroughly explored all that H.O.G. rally had to offer in Medulin, and ...
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... and I had a good time doing it.
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Here you can see a bunch of bikes parked on the square at the beginning of the seaside promenade. They are all Harley-Davidsons, I think.
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Only one Harley was parked by the sea, on the nearby promenade.
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Being alone in that place made that bike stand out from the crowd of similar ones. It looked kinda special without looking special at all. More extravagant Harleys got lost in the crowd, while this one stood proudly in the right place, at the right time. By the way, the time was half past noon, and ...
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... and it was damn hot in Medulin.
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All the bikers-related stuff was going on in the seaside part of the town, where the tourist infrastructure is more developed. Here you can see the bikes parked in a circle around the roundabout near the entrance to the biggest campsite in Medulin. The name of the place is Arena Medulin Campsite. It's a stretch of coastline where the water isn't very deep, and there are some nice sandy beaches in a few inlets.
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This shot shows the atmosphere under the old, tall pines of the Arena Medulin Campsite.
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The heart of the Medulin part of the European H.O.G. Rally was situated right there, under the trees.
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The place looked like a summer village in the forest. There were stands, little shops under the tents, stages for musicians, trailers that offered fast and not-so-fast food, and some places that were there to exhibit Harley-Davidson bikes and related technology.
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I visited the biker stuff two times that day.
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First, around noon, and then, after a few hours' pause to do some chores at home ...
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... late in the afternoon, a couple of hours before sunset.
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The temperature was pretty high, and the sun quite intense on that first, midday visit.
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After the seven hundred-meter-long walk from my house to the Arena Medulin Campsite, the refreshing shade under the trees in the "Harley-Davidson village" felt so rewarding.
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This is a scene from a shop that offered a wide variaty of colorful motorcycle helmets with cool designs.
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I don't have a motorcycle, but a helmet with some drawings on it still could be useful as a decorative object in a house.
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Different music was playing in different places across the biker village under the pines. In this shot, you can see a small, portable restaurant that was offering the local seafood. Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf was in my ears when the photograph was taken.
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I was trying to walk to the rhythm of Purple Haze by The Jimi Hendrix Experience until a few seconds before photographing this scene. I had to stop to take the shot.
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A bit later, the music changed to Hotel California by the Eagles.
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The Spy by The Doors was the soundtrack to this scene.
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I took this photograph in front of the fast food restaurant that was offering only sausages. The variaty of those sausages was quite impressive. Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd was coming from that place.
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As I photographed this place, which looked like a shop that sells spare parts, The Passenger by Iggy Pop was playing in the background.
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Here you can see a small stage on the other side of the "Harley village". Two guitarists were playing some cool electric blues. One of them was singing from time to time. The music sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't recognize the songs. When I visited the same place in the evening, other musicians were there, but more about that later.
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This photograph shows the billboard at the entrance of the campsite, and the billboard, among other things, shows the map of the place with biker rally-related spots colored red.
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I photographed this scene about twenty or thirty meters from the entrance shown in the previous shot, at the roundabout you saw earlier in the post. One of the short, narrow roads led from the roundabout to the bikers' area, closed for all other traffic except the Harley-Davidsons and some supply vehicles. Here you can see the two guys in charge of opening and closing that road when needed. They tried to make a bit of shade for themselves with a black umbrella. It was a damn hot and challenging day for those who had to stand there at the circular crossroad.
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Here you can see a group of bikers on that little seaside road.
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One of the places the aforementioned road led to was this circus-like thing. I'll tell you more about it later.
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This photograph proves that parasols and Harley-Davidsons look fairly good together. I took it near the sea ...
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... on the large parking lot in the harbor.
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One can see all kinds of vehicles in that area on ordinary days, but from the 12th to the 15th of June 2025, only the motorbikes of the European H.O.G. Rally were allowed to park there.
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This shot from the same parking lot shows a line of gray and blue motorbikes with a red one that stands out from the crowd.
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Here you can see a modern Harley-Davidson parked in the part of the parking lot that was still empty.
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These motorcycles were photographed about a hundred meters further, in a smaller parking area that serves as a pedestrian square on ordinary summer days.
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Here you can see a stretch of the seaside promenade and a lawn with some lovely palms. In the following triptych ...
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... the focus is on the Harley-Davidson pennants fluttering on the wire above the promenade.
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This shot shows the same lawn and the same palm trees, but from a slightly different angle.
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This slick, nicely decorated Harley-Davidson motor trike looks like a very comfortable machine, ideal for lazy leisure drives on hot summer days when one longs for a refreshing breeze.
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This is a detail from another parked motorcycle. A relatively ordinary helmet has somehow caught my attention this time.
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Here you can see a biker riding along the stretch of the road closed to non-biker traffic. One of the things waiting at the end of that road ...
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... was a relatively big concert stage. I mean, it was much bigger than the stage in the "Harley-Davidson Village" inside the campsite I showed you earlier in the post. The stage didn't look very good in the harsh midday sun, and no one was there to play, so I didn't photograph it. The only thing that stood out visually was this set of drums. The stage was assembled on a square at the end of the promenade. Across the road from that square is a parking lot, and on that parking lot ...
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... you could see this lovely portable building with a small circus tent on its top. It looks like a small circus, and in a way, that's what it is. Just like the stage, it was there only during the four days of the 31st. European H.O.G. Rally.
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The lovely, probably hand-made poster states that this is a Motor Circus, and I agree. It's an old-fashioned motodrome sideshow I saw only a few times as a kid.
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Reliving it again as an adult, in 2025, among all the modern, digital stuff around, was a warm, slightly surreal experience.
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When I checked the Internet a few minutes ago, I found out that the motodrome in question, the Fearless Devid, has quite a history.
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It's an authentic 1937 structure that is still working. One of only twenty of its kind.
This motodrome was built in the Netherlands in 1937.
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I first noticed the motodrome around noon, but I saw only its exterior back then.
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Only later, in the evening ...
... I decided to buy the ticket and see the show.
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In a few minutes before the show st