Istria, Croatia and Slovenia
It’s very easy to focus on a specific country when planning a trip – you pick a country and work out what to see, visit, eat, drink and do. But Istria is a little different. The Istrian peninsula is shared between Croatia, Slovenia and Italy, and somehow feels like all of them and none of them at the same time.
Our plan was to explore the whole peninsula, taking in a little of each country, eating the local food, pottering around sleepy villages and playing cards in smoky mountaintop cafés.
The small coastal town of Rovinj in Croatia was our first stop, a picture-perfect terracotta roofed town jutting out into the Mediterranean. It was the end of September when we arrived, and the summer’s days had given way to autumn rain. We scuttled from bar to bar, restaurant to restaurant, sheltering from the afternoon storms and watching the water coursing down Rovinj’s cobbled streets towards the sea.
Inland from Rovinj, the northern section of Croatian Istria is an unexpectedly mystical place, scattered with medieval hilltop towns. Motovun is one of the most famous of these towns, and we parked near the bottom of the hill and hiked up the steep hill to find somewhere for some lunch. We found a place that looked good, Konoba Mondo, and sat at a table. Halfway through our lunch we realised there was a picture of the late Anthony Bourdain on the wall. That happens surprisingly often, I think we share a similar taste in restaurants. Good food, good price, a bit messy, unpretentious, delicious and local.
Speaking of local food, the Istria region is best known for its truffles. I’ve had my fair share of truffle flavoured foods over the years, and have never been overly fussed as they often seem a bit artificial and have an odd mushroom tang to them. But I’m pleased to report that actual truffles are considerably nicer. Every restaurant offered truffles in the food, on the food, by the food, near the food. We had truffle pasta, truffle beef, truffle slices, truffle shavings, truffle absolutely everything. And this isn’t a ploy to sound wealthy; truffles seem to flow like water in Istria. By the end of the trip we decided we were done with truffles for a while. The flavour is quite strong, and they do tend to make everything taste pretty similar.
We spent a couple of nights in the little fortified hilltop town of Buzet, where our hotel, Hotel Vela Vrata, had a magnificent view across the valley and the massive car parts manufacturing plant within it. Our hotel had a hot tub, and we sat there, bubbling away, listening to the sounds of the village outside. Next door to the hotel was a little bar, with a few high tables, and a gaggle of local old men who smoked like chimneys, cackling away late into the evening. We set up camp on a corner table, ordered some local wine and played Uno with a grubby pack of cards we’d found on a shelf. The wine was bad, our clothes reeked of stale smoke, and our hands were sticky from the cards. Everything you want from a little bar in the Istrian hills.
After Croatia we headed north across the border to the Slovenian town of Piran. Rovinj and Piran look quite similar; both stick out into the sea; both are lozenge-shaped and full of winding alleys of terracotta rooftops. And they are both a perfect place for a few days of pottering about, having coffees, long lunches and planning where you fancy going for dinner. And thankfully, by the time we arrived in Piran, the rain had gone, and the sun had decided to make an appearance.
However, Slovenia got weird when someone else who decided to make an appearance was Halle Berry. We had just arrived at our hotel to check in, and noticed piles of camera equipment dotted about, and a slightly breathless receptionist who told us that ‘Hollywood were filming in the square’. We dropped our bags in the room and were heading out to explore Piran, when Halle Berry popped out of a room just along the corridor, accompanied by a burly looking security guard. After some Googling and talking to locals, we found out she was shooting a Netflix film called The Union starring Mark Wahlberg and a whole host of minor movie stars. For the next few days, every time we stepped out of the hotel, we had to avoid Halle, dodge car chases and weave between producers and directors in their Very Important Lanyards. It certainly made for a different experience of Piran to what we’d expected.
From Piran we continued our road trip into the foothills of the Slovenian Alps, stopping in the little town of Most na Soci. We were on the way home after a day of exploring and needed a coffee, so we pulled up a map to work out the best place nearby for coffee. Ah, yes, Italy. We crossed over the border and stopped in the small town of Monfalcone for a double espresso before heading back south to Croatia, via the middle of Trieste during rush hour.
Our final stop before flying home was Pula, the largest city in Istria. The main thing we wanted to see was the Pula Arena, a Roman amphitheatre built over 2,000 years ago, and very similar in appearance, if a lot smaller, to the colosseum in Rome. Although the days of gladiators are long gone, the arena is still used to this day. Not long after we visited Pula, Arctic Monkeys and Dua Lipa have played in the Pula Arena, and I’m now very keen to go to a gig there – it must be odd to sit in the same seats that people used to watch men fighting lions and/or each other. Although you still get the latter at Arctic Monkeys gigs, if you’re lucky.
After exploring Pula, it was time to head back to the UK, relaxed, full of Istrian food, with new friends in Hollywood, and feeling generally very content indeed. And crucially, without a single truffle in our bags.
