Rovinj

Rovinj (Rovigno in Italian — one of the few officially bilingual Croatian towns) is the pearl of Istria and one of the most beautiful Old Towns on the entire Adriatic. On the west coast of the Istrian peninsula, just 90 km south of Trieste (Italy) and 220 km from Venice, it long belonged to the Republic of Venice (1283-1797) — a heritage still perfectly legible in its architecture, food, culture and even its language (the rovignese dialect, a mix of Venetian and Croatian, is endangered but still spoken by a few elders).

The Old Town sits on a former island joined to the mainland in 1763 by filling in the channel — a compact, harmonious silhouette perched on a limestone promontory, crowned by the bell tower of St Euphemia's Basilica (Sveta Eufemija), 57 metres high, topped by a copper weathervane depicting the patron saint — a smaller copy of St Mark's campanile in Venice. The cobbled alleys spiral up to the Baroque basilica (18th century) that houses the sarcophagus of St Euphemia, which miraculously arrived at Rovinj in AD 800 from Constantinople (according to legend, the stone sarcophagus floated all the way to Rovinj). From the top, the panoramic view of the Adriatic Sea and the Rovinj archipelago (Crveni Otok, Sveta Katarina) is one of Croatia's most iconic.

Around Rovinj, the Istrian hinterland holds some of Europe's most charming landscapes — rolling hills planted with olive trees and vineyards, hilltop villages in pale stone (Motovun, Grožnjan, Hum — "the smallest town in the world" with 30 inhabitants), home of the Istrian white truffle (October-December, equivalent quality to Alba in Italy but at half the price). The Lim Fjord (Limski kanal), an 11 km marine canal to the north, is a remarkable natural site (oyster and mussel farming, historic shellfish industry). Five kilometres south, the Punta Corrente forest reserve (Zlatni Rt park) offers 90 hectares of pine forest, hiking trails and swimming in coves.