There is something uniquely charming about Istria that distinguishes it from the rest of the Balkans, perhaps its Italianate towns atop gentle rolling hills reminiscent of Umbria or Tuscany, populated in part by Italian speakers who swear by their homebrewed grappa rather than rakija.
In retrospect we're glad that we squeezed this historic crossroad of Slavic and Latin (and to a lesser degree, Germanic) cultures into our Balkan itinerary, spending four days between Istria's azure coastline and its hill country of fortified medieval towns, quaint, underpopulated with relatively few visitors compared with Croatian heavyweights such as Dubrovnik and Split.
To foodies this is also one of the world's major producing regions for truffles, starting with summer black truffles in May and culminating with a major festival in November at the peak of white truffle season. The prospect of joining a countryside truffle hunt led by truffle hounds proved irresistible as we booked our apartment at the heart of truffle country in Motovun, in mid September when the seasons for black and white truffles just happen to intersect.
For the first time after visiting nearly 20 countries in Europe over the years, we rented a car for multiple days for this picturesque but hard-to-get-around region in Croatia. While coastal cities such as Pula and Rovinj were well-connected by highway buses, reaching the smaller inland towns would not be so convenient without a private vehicle.
It still wasn't easy. Croatian countryside roads turned out nervously narrow for our unfamiliar Audi A4, impeccable on highways but nerve-wrackingly tight on blind hairpin turns on the cliff side with another vehicle barreling in the opposite direction. Combined with a GPS that occasionally guided us to sketchy shortcuts through forested dirt roads, the ominous thought of barging into an uncleared minefield from the Yugoslav Wars -- which still exist in certain parts of Croatia -- came up more than once.
Hill Town #1 - Hum
It was a major sigh of relief as we arrived at our first Istrian hill town and our lunch stop, the pint-sized citadel of Hum with 15th century ramparts and a functional town gate still defending its surviving collection of stone houses and Venetian castle.
Self-proclaimed as the Smallest Town in the World with a permanent population of 21, Hum punches above its weight with multiple shops and wineries, several B&Bs in high season and one restaurant that turned out surprisingly but perhaps justifiably busy.
Restaurant Review: HUMSKA KONOBA (Hum) (Location Map)
Nearly every visitor would congregate here at lunchtime, and not just because of the reasonable prices Konoba Humska charges for their classic Istrian fare. We're in the middle of nowhere after all, and the next closest restaurant would be a 20 minutes drive down the winding dirt road into the valley.
A three course table d'hôte of soup, pasta and dessert cost a cheap 85 kuna (12 euros) and started with this traditional Manestra, the Istrian adaptation of Minestrone with the standard of beans, onions and tomatoes, and in this case loads of sweet corn.
As expected the pasta turned out to be the Istrian specialty of Fuži, a thick sheet noodle hand-rolled around a stick and served here with a chunky beef gulash in a robust wine sauce.
Our favorite was this simple and scrumptious dish of deep-fried Kroštule. My wife was right to stop me from ordering another set of table d'hôte as the portions were quite generous, and an extra dish of scrambled eggs with Istrian prsut was enough to compliment our lunch.
Meal for Two Persons
| Three Course Menu | 85 Kuna |
| Scrambled Eggs with Istrian Prsut and Mushrooms | 45 Kuna |
| Bread | 2 Kuna |
| Bottle of Sprite | 15 Kuna |
| Bottle of Water | 12 Kuna |
| TOTAL | 159 Kuna (CAD$32.4) |
Hill Town #2 - Motovun
The road towards our homebase of Motovun was smooth and straightforward until the final stretch beneath the town, where the approach from the north was closed for construction and we were forced onto a 20 minute diversion on a dirt road to the southern side of town.
Luckily our apartment rental included its own parking spot midway up the main switchback road, underneath a 100-year-old olive tree a couple minutes from the apartment. From our front steps it would be a 5 minute uphill hike to Motovun's townsquare and a 5 minute downhill walk to the supermarket at the bottom.
Like most buildings in Motovun, our rental apartment was a 500-year-old Venetian stone house with a bathroom on ground floor, kitchen and living room on second, and two bedrooms on the upper levels sharing possibly the airiest ceiling of any house we have ever rented.
Featured on Croatia's Tentative List for UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the hill town of Motovun -- or Montona for those old enough to remember the Fascist era -- has preserved much of its Italian character with its Renaissance town square and medieval ramparts adorned with the Winged Lion of Venice.
In the shadow of its 400-year-old catholic church is a large mural dedicated to the town's talismanic mascot, the gentle giant known as Veli Jože living in Motovun's forests and adored all over Istria.
Visitors could freely explore the laidback town until a few years back when the government decided to charge an entrance fee for a 300m section of the town walls for its easterly panorama of the Istrian hills. It does not stop visitors from walking underneath that same section of the town walls however, to a parking terrace on Barbican ulica offering essentially the same vista.
Our most memorable picture of the Istrian countryside was the veil of morning mist outside our bedroom window above these rolling hills. It was the most idyllic image that belied the past century of volatile relations between Italian- and Slavic-speaking populations here in Istria.
It is too easy for today's blissful tourists to ignore the past decades when Mussolini abolished all Croatian schools in a campaign of forced Italianization, followed by violent retaliations of the Yugoslav era when five out of six Italian-speaking Istrians moved away from their homeland, voluntarily or involuntarily.
Hill Town #3 - Grožnjan
These days Italian heritage is making a big comeback in Istria, epitomized by the picturesque town of Grožnjan, or Grisignana to its Italian-speaking majority of residents. Normally a short 18 km drive from Motovun, it became 30 km for us due to the aforementioned road constructions.
Arguably the most Italianate town in Istria with palaces and townsquares dating from the height of the Renaissance, Grožnjan functioned as the administrative centre for these hinterlands of Venetian Istria where Italian colonists settled around townships as opposed to Croat peasants in the open country.
The main square's 400-year-old arches has witnessed multiple rises and falls including a time before WWI when Grožnjan prospered as a major stop along the narrow guage railway to Trieste, exporting its quarried stones and olive oil to the rest of Austria-Hungary. It all ended in the 1930s with the dismantling of the rail line, followed by decades of impoverishment and emigration.
It was more than 50 years ago when the government reinvented the dying town as a colony of artists, now attracting dozens of domestic and international talents with an enviable collection of small galleries, a summer jazz festival and seasonal concerts along its charming cobblestone alleys and medieval squares.
With its Italian aesthetics and Bohemian vibe, Grožnjan would have made as good a homebase as Motovun for exploring Northern Istria, though Motovun is probably closer to the heart of truffle country for gourmands.
Hill Town #4 - Završje
For an idea of what Grožnjan would have become had the artists not taken over 50 years ago, we drove 20 minutes to the nearby village of Završje, the remnants of a medieval fiefdom of farmers and tanners built upon the ruins of an ancient Roman fort.
Once known as Piemonte d'Istria and connected to Grisignana/Grožnjan via the now-defunct narrow guage railway, Završje has been slowly reduced to a dilapidated collection of crumbling stone houses after the closure of its train station and mass emigration of its ethnic Italian population during the Istrian exodus.
The dozen remaining residents have managed to keep Završje from deteriorating into a ghost town with one seasonal cafe and an agroturizam operation on the hillside, ideal for a week of doing absolutely nothing except watching the local goatherder tend his flock of less than ten goats.
Surviving monuments include an 11th century castle with defensive ramparts and town gates bearing the family insignia of medieval rulers, plus several churches including the 16th century Blessed Virgin Mary that doubled as the village school nearly a century ago. Restoration funds from the EU is said to be earmarked for this hard-to-reach village in the heartland of Istria, so let's see what happens in a few years.
Hill Town #5 - Oprtalj
A further twenty minutes took us to our fifth hill town over two days. Situated across the Mirna valley from Motovun is the ancient walled town of Oprtalj/Portole, perched upon a small ridge just north of Livade where the famous truffle festival is held every November.
Featuring a handsome Venetian loggia from the town's Renaissance past, Oprtalj originated as a Roman fortress like Završje and came back under the influence of Rome when Italy annexed the region after WWI. Many Italians did leave with the Istrian exodus of the 1950s, though the langauge is still widely spoken especially now with Croatia's ascension to the EU.
Meanwhile descendants of the original Venetians remain key to the cultural fabric as the Istrian counties in both Croatia and Slovenia are officially bilingual, offering citizens the choice of speaking Italian in court in addition to Croatian here or Slovenian on the opposite side of the border, just 6 km north of Oprtalj.
We ended our long drive with a casual but amusingly Istrian dinner of Croatian cevapcici with Italian pizza, certainly far from the best of gastronomic offers at one of the Europe's capitals of truffles. Did I mention that we joined a truffle hunt led by a Motovun local with his two truffle hounds? Yes, that would be the subject of the next post.
IF YOU GO
The closest airports to the heartland of Istria are Pula and Trieste, both served by low-cost airlines such as EasyJet and Ryanair. From either airport, frequent highway buses cross national boundaries along the coast between Trieste, Koper, Porec, Rovinj and Pula. While it is possible to reach Motovun and Grožnjan by public buses, a rental car offers much time savings and the option to visit smaller towns such as Hum, Završje and Oprtalj.
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