Peninsula of Tranquility, Sea and Wine

The Istrian malvasia grape and lapping waves. That sweet-sour taste and soothing melody that my senses still feel…

By Vanja Savić
Photo by Milan Melka

A month after returning from vacation, pictures of Pula, Poreč, inland of Istra, Rovinj and Brioni are still fresh in my memory. I can’t even remember all the sorts of fish we tasted, but I know they were all swimming in good wine. In white malvasia, red teran and the dessert Mornjan muscat, while two of us enjoyed swimming in the clear and refreshing salt water, reposing on rocky, pebbly beaches, the sights wandered over seashores covered with thick woods, the towns we left behind and the touch of sky and water, far away on horizon.

Pula hadn’t hosted us for a long time. The bus took us through the main street; we caught a glimpse of the Arena and continued on by highway to Poreč, years ago the most popular summer resort in Istria. We arrived to the waterfront of the harbour bordered with breakwaters and the islet Saint Nicholas in the late afternoon.

Sunlight was slowly fading in the sea underneath Early Christian Euphrasius, the seat of the Bishopric of Istria, so that strolling through three streets of the "town of mosaics" lasted slightly longer because of the large number of strollers. We walked through the crowd to catch up with a tourist group while Poreč’s poet Drago Orlić introduced us to the basic history and architecture of the two-thousand-year-old town. I understood he was speaking about the period under Venetian rule and about ships that departed from here on their merchant sea routes bound for the East, and lands of ice cream and spices. He spoke about the insolent and rich Diocletian who quarreled with the patricians of the Roman Senate and built its own palace in Split, he mentioned Napoleon and the Turkish invasion.

For all that time, Parentium ruled Istria. It is not quite clear why only Poreč enjoyed that legislative status, because during history Pula had always been a great and major imperial city. Perhaps because the Benedictines began with the conversion of the population of Istria to Christianity just here, in the Basilica of Euphrasius, built in the 6th century by Justinian in an attempt to restore the unity of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires. The mosaics we saw in the church belong to the most beautiful ones in Byzantine art. The basilica is dedicated to the Ascension and the compound comprises the parish church, sacristy, baptistery, belfry and the bishop’s palace. This we perceived as we should have only the next morning when the narrow streets around the Oval and Pentagonal Bell Towers from the Middle Ages were empty. Only a few rare residents passed through the Roman pavements resting from the invasion of tourists and their all night entertainment.

On an excursion to the inland of the peninsula, we studied to the most miniscule details the wine and gastronomic cards of Istria. Having repeatedly crossed the Mirna River Valley we arrived to the Mornjan Kras, before the Meadow Wood where truffles are being gathered. For this most precious sort of delicacy, specially trained dogs are employed; their find is sold for one thousand Euros per kilogram of truffles. With local pasta, the Istrian "fuži" served with melted cheese and truffles, we tasted our first wine drops at noon that day. Just ten kilometres from the sea, vineyards grow malvasia, teran and muscat grapes that give a special taste to the autochthonous sorts of wines. Wine continued to flow through our veins flooding the white codfish paste, shells – coquilles Saint-Jacques and the sea bream cooked in the earthen pot until early evening when, driving along a 12-kilometer long Lim Canal, we came to Rovinj.

A town surrounded with numerous islets, the largest of which is Saint Katarina, welcomed us with the statue of Saint Euphemia on the tower of the church of the same name built in 1736. We reached it passing through the Balbi Arch, the gate of old Rovinj, whose narrow streets date from the 3rd century A.D. We were led through them by our old friend Adrijano who welcomed us on the small Rovinj pier, along which there were so many parked yachts and ships that the sea could barely be seen. While we were squeezing through the walls of houses and passing other strollers, he revealed to us the secret of Rovinj’s "maneštra" (Istrian thick soup made of beans, sweetcorn and dry-cured meat). Here it tastes the best because housewives add prosciutto, from window to window, simply by opening the grilles, under chimneys that figure as a special attraction of the town in the Valdibor region. The chimney used to cure meat is the pride of each household and is especially shaped and made with great love.

We arrived to the pier driving through the circular Street of the Holy Cross, by the Column with a Cross on the stony seafront to which, in 800 A.D. from Caledonia, arrived the relics of the martyr Euphemia. We went aboard a traditional Rovinj fishing boat "batana" and passing a catamaran that reaches Venice in an hour and a half, we finally saw Rovinj from the proper perspective. Buildings in the harbor are in direct contact with the sea. From them protrude residents from their homes, tourists from their rented apartments and people sitting in one of many cafes sipping their drinks in leisure.

While old uncle Giordano, rowing in upright position with two oars, was taking us to an ethno-tavern, from the open sea disappeared large and modernly equipped fishing ships. Only a rare lantern spread its fishnet closer to the shore because the night that was slowly hiding us was bringing darker clouds. However, the next moment we were in the "Spacio Batan" welcomed by the Istrian guitar and bitinadas, old fishermen’s ‘a cappella’ songs. In this old fisherman’s tavern we could see all the ethnic and linguistic characteristics of Istria, which are entirely different from the rest of the Croatian Adriatic. Musicians were dressed as if they had just arrived from Toscana, and they were singing mostly in Italian.

Adrijano explained that this was due to the constant alteration of empires and states to which Istria belonged in its history. Migrations of populations were frequent and language changed through the centuries, adapting to Croatian, Italian and sometimes Slovenian dialects. Today five different dialects are spoken in Istria so that sometimes even inhabitants of neighboring villages have difficulties when communicating. Therefore nearly everyone speaks Italian.

We left Rovinj in the early morning and with Saša, a driver with a tattoo "JNA 30.I.’74" on his left forearm, we left for Brioni.

The Brioni archipelago is, like the whole peninsula at the furthermost north of the Adriatic, a story in itself. In the only national park in Istria, opened for visitors in 1984, Josip Broz is still the main hero both for the inhabitants of Fažana, from where a ferry took us to the Brioni islands, and for all tourist workers who periodically stay there due to their work. Some of them, the elder ones, still faithfully maintain memories of Tito, which is obvious in their relationship towards all that the marshal of the one-time Yugoslavia left behind: the villas "Jadranka", "Brionka" and "Bela" (White), a large safari park with trees from Japan, Siberia, Lebanon, Australia, America and animals presented to Tito by foreign statesmen when they were guests in his summer residence. There is still a turquoise-green Cadillac that arrived in 1952 as a gift from Detroit and a Museum dedicated to Broz. Especially interesting is the island Vanga, or Krasnica, as the marshal was the first to have chosen it for his summer residence and loved to come there frequently.

On the Great and Small Brioni with 14 islands in the archipelago, as in all of Istria, one can still find traces of the Romans who arrived here in the 1st century A.D. and found the Illyrian tribe of Histrians, the first inhabitants of this region. The remains of the Roman Palace, the Temple of Venus, baths and wine cellar waited for us as they have for centuries waited for the Slavs and the Venetians, who ruled Istria for five centuries, the Austro-Hungarians whose fortification still stands, and whose roads on Brioni are still used, the Italians who ruled the entire peninsula from 1920 until Mussolini’s Blackshirts surrendered, and the arrival of German officers in 1943, who planned their sailing route and escape to Argentina from these islands.

All this was passing before us while we were touring the island by a small train and listening to Maria, our tour guide who spoke about tradition of playing golf on the fitting red soil, about Thomas Mann who wrote Buddenbrooks here and James Joyce who taught the English language in Pula and frequently visited the Brijuni, as the islands are called in Croatian. Robert Koch and Alojz Ćufar stamped out malaria on the island and thus prepared it for the leisurely dwelling of Josip Broz and visitors like Fidel Castro, Che Gevara, Nasser, Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Krleža, Luis Adamich, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Sofia Loren and the first woman cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova.

When several days earlier we landed by JAT ATR at the Pula Airport, we didn’t know that from this very runway the marshal frequently departed by airplane to friendly visits worldwide.

Reach Istria fastest - by Jat Jat Airways operates flights on the Belgrade-Pula line from July 3rd to August 31st. Flights are maintained twice a week and take one hour and thirty minutes. The ATR 72 departs from Belgrade on Thursdays at 12.50 h and arrives to Pula at 14.20 h. The scheduled departure from Pula is at 15.10 h and arrival to Belgrade at 16.40 h. On Sundays Jat departs to Pula at 8.55 h and arrives at 10.25 h; it departs to Belgrade at 11.50 h and arrives at 12.45 h.

Vacation in Rovinj Jat Air Lift in its rich and profuse summer offer includes an 8-day arrangement in Rovinj at reasonable prices. For all additional information pl. visit www.jat-airlift.co.yu, or call + 381 11 32 32 179 or send a mail to airlift@jat.com. As from July 7th, Jat’s tour operator has a new address: 17, King Aleksandar Boulevard, near the Church of St. Marko.