I debated on making our home base for the area in either Rovinj or Motovun. Rovinj is an adorable sea town, almost a tiny Dubrovnik with a touch more of Venice, while Motovun is a hill town in the interior. Partly due to proper accommodations, and partly due to the fact that we had already spent time along the coast, I chose Motovun, and I am in no way upset about that choice. (But I would not have been disappointed in choosing Rovinj either!)
Motovun has one true claim to fame: it is the birth place of Mario Andretti. Many of you know exactly who he is, where myself knew more about him because of lyrics to an Alan Jackson song. Mario is one of the most successful race car drivers the United States has seen. If you know your history well, you may be questioning me, saying, "I thought he was Italian?" Well, here is the interesting part.... he was born in Italy. "But, Rebecca, you said he was born in Motovun." Yes, both are true. At one point, not all too long ago, for a short period of time, Istria was part of Italy. Signs in this part of the country are in both Italian and Croatian. The most common greeting I have hard here is "Ciao." Despite the fact that relations between the locals and the Italians who occupied the area at the time were very difficult, the county has retained the Italian influence, and we tourists benefit from that.
The food has been simply divine: rich, local, fresh and flavorful. The area we are in is especially known for their truffles, which means they flavor absolutely everything you can think of. Mushrooms are not a delicacy that I enjoy. I've eaten some, and am certainly not offended by them as their flavor is not strong, but I avoid them when I can. This is mostly due to the texture, and perhaps just the thought that they are a fungus. But, let me say, I am now madly in love with truffles. Whenever possible, I had truffles while in Istria, and that meant at practically every meal. There was always a plethora of available pastas with truffles, which I enjoyed several times as well as scrambled eggs with truffles, olive oil with truffles, truffle potato chips, truffle cheeses, salads with truffles, soups with truffles, pizza with truffles, (do I sound like Forrest yet?), and even various desserts with truffles. Truly astounding flavors, and I'm only worried that I will now cost myself a fortune when I go home seeking out truffle ingredients.
What is a truffle exactly and why do they grow here? Well, we wanted to learn more, too, so we spent an hour in the woods with a local truffle hunter. Don't worry, you don't have to carry a gun to do this sort of hunting. When I first read about this activity, I couldn't imagine anything more idyllic than wandering through the Croatian forest with a man and his dogs while learning about truffles. Well, it was ninety degrees out and the mosquitos in the woods were more plentiful than fleas on a stray dog. So, not quite as idyllic, but nevertheless entertaining. Truffles grow under the ground in an old forest with a mixture of trees. They give no sign above ground of where they are such as leaves or vines on the surface. There are white truffles and black truffles in the world, and only recently have some places in the world seemingly learned how to cultivate black truffles, but there is still little understanding of truffles. Nikola has seven well-trained dogs that sniff out and dig for truffles. Dogs, with their keen sense of smell are the only way that truffles can be found in the wild. Truffles, when ready to be harvested, release a certain scent that dogs are able to detect. Some are the size of the end of your pinky and some take two hands to hold. Despite much attention to it, Nikola said people really can't figure out predictors for truffles. People thought particular weather conditions predicted the success of a truffle season, but that has been proven untrue. To train the dogs, Nikola said you have to start young and train the dogs that the smell of truffles is something they desire. If raising a litter, they even put truffle oil on the nipples of the mothers, otherwise, they just start with their food bowls.
Nikola has been truffle hunting for years. He said that he used to be a civil engineer, but got stressed working long hours with little profit. Now, he spends time wandering the woods with his dogs and couldn't be happier. It is not prime truffle season right now, and as he said, there is not always a guarantee of finding truffles, and since the mosquitos were rampant the moment you stepped into the shade, we decided, instead of wandering through the woods, to put the dogs to the test. We left Nikola and the three dogs he had brought with him by the car and the three of us walked down an old road with weeds and wildflowers growing several yards in both directions. We buried two truffles in different locations and then called to Nikola. The dogs had about a half acre to search while the four of us carried on our conversation about truffles. In only a matter of minutes, the puppy in the group began digging right where we had buried the truffle. He was so proud of himself and wanted to continue the game. Each dog got a bit of a treat when the truffle was found, teaching them all that it is a team sport and not to eat the treasure. In just another minute, the puppy once again started digging, but it was in a "fake hole" dad had dug. This brought the attention of the other dogs who were then able to find the nearby real truffle. Amazing four legged friends!
Now I've gone and gotten ahead of myself and let myself get distracted by truffles before even telling you about Motovun. It is a true hilltop town surrounded by lush valleys, rolling hills and fertile fields filled with "wine trees". It is at least a thousand years old, and has incredible charm. Population is somewhere in the triple digits, and those residents must have incredible calves, because where ever you go is up or down. There are six restaurants in town, and we can attest that every single one of them is delicious, including the smoothie bar. The wine bar closes at 6pm and the only market in town closes at noon somedays and 2pm on other days. By the end of our four night stay, there were multiple people in town we could smile and greet as familiar faces. Life was slower paced, and it was lovely.
The town of Motovun began about two thirds of the way up the mountain and wound up slowly. There is a wall of protection around the inner and most upper part of the town, but I must admit that my keen sense of direction was knocked off its balance several times as the roads, well, mainly the one, went in a circular pattern and was never really flat, always up or down, and as the inner circle connected to the outer, but only in one direction, it was often tricky. We do not pack lightly at all, but were told by our Air B and B that we would be allowed to take the car to the house to unload before returning partway down the hill to park the car. Dad did an incredible job of manuevering through a steep cobble stone road with buildings on either side barely wide enough for the car, and tourists walking pass, and cars trying to go in both directions. Directions on how to reach the home were just about as adorable and trusting as the town was: go up the hill and if someone is not there to open the gate for you, just wait for someone to go through as it closes slowly and you'll have plenty of time. Then, turn left at the restaurant with the teal shutters and drive until the playground, then you're just a few steps away and the key is in this very obvious place for you. And, it was just as he said it would be. Our home backed up to the inner wall of the upper and more central location. This made finding our orange home on postcards and viewpoints very easy!
As for things to do in Motovun, there was not a long list of must dos, which in a way brings its own charm. Walking around and viewing the town and its views are the most valuable things to do in Motovun. We also enjoyed the small museum highlighting history of the area as well as walking around the upper walls. There were a handful of shops selling local and Croatian artwork, well worth the visit, that we all enjoyed. Then, there were the plethora of shops selling wines, truffles, cheeses, truffle oils, olive oils, truffle pastes, brandies, truffles chips, honey, and any other truffle thing you could think of. Many shops offered free samples of their many products, and so, I tasted my way along the main street.
Motovun was also full of cats, like the other Croatian cities we had visited, and so of course I enjoyed myself. The cats here seemed a bit healthier and friendlier than in Split and Dubrovnik, possibly because of the slower pace, fewer crowds and incredibly few vehicles. Some of the especially clever ones ingeniously found ways of weaving in and out of tables and perching themselves on the ledge while watching tourists eat, you know, just in case you wanted to share your food.
We traveled about an hour to the coast one day to visit the stunning miniature town of Rovinj (rohh-VEEN). This tiny town, once an island separated only by a narrow spit of the Adriatic Sea, has been around for centuries, but it thrived in the 16th and 17th centuries. Venice ruled over the area for centuries. It is said that on a clear day, from the top of the bell tower, you can see Italy, so the two areas are geographically similar as well. The sprawling coastal town now houses about 15,000 residents, but at least ninety percent of those people live on "the main land." In its hey-day, the tiny island itself with roads too narrow for the three of us to walk side by side on, once housed 10,000 people. The only way to expand was up, which explains why so many of the homes are several stories tall and many of the roads even form tunnels from the second story additions that connected one home to another. Once a fishing and trading town, the houses back up to the edge of the water, so much so that children could use their own bedrooms as diving boards into the sea.
Like Motovun, there is not necessarily a lot on a must see list here in the tiny town, but that was just fine. The narrow wandering lanes, cluttered with gift shops and art work was fun to meander down. The stunning church at the top of the hill included an altar to St. Euphemia. She had lived in an area of now Istanbul in the fourth century. As a young girl, she gave away much of her family's wealth to help the poor, and the Romans chose to punish her because of the anti-Christian movement of the time. Tortured cruelly, she was then tossed to the lions who miraculously chose not to attack her. Eight hundred years later, sailors in the area found her marble tomb floating near Rovinj, but they struggled tremendously to move it. A young boy arrived with two oxen, saying he had had a dream that St. Euphemia had told him to go and help. Somehow, the young boy and his two oxen were able to drag the sarcophagus up to the top of the hill where she is now buried in the church.
I can only imagine the number of weddings that happen in this stunning setting, and the church was obviously getting set up and decorated for just such a special event. (We later saw the wedding party walking up the narrow cobble-stoned lanes to the church.) While we were exploring the church, a young woman practiced the songs, I assume she'll be singing for the wedding, including "To Make You Feel My Love," by Garth Brooks.
Dad and I decided to climb the bell tower, because if there is a tower, well, I must climb it. It was about two hundred steps to the top, but the steps were a bit closer to a glorified ladder with worn wooden steps that you could see through straight clear to the bottom. But the view is always worth it and gave us a bit of a better picture of the surrounding town.
We walked along the harbor and marveled at the rows upon rows of boats, inquiring just how people got to and from their boat and how they maneuvered it in and out of the plethora in the harbor. We sat for lunch (which of course included some truffles) in the harbor and watched as tiny fish made ripples reflect on the bows of boats. Rovinj was a lovely outing, and I believe would be a lovely, albeit small, destination. We also sat on the edge of the water, overlooking the crystal blue waters, in a perfectly unique little spot that reminded us of the Buza bar in Dubrovnik.
For the past two nights, at sunset, in the distance, just at the top of the tallest ridge we could see the sun set incredibly close to the steeple of a church. It added to the already astounding beauty of the sunset in the area. Had we gone off to try to find such church, I'm quite confident we would not have found it, but as luck would have it, the other village that I had read about that I wanted to visit ended up being said village! Groznjan is a tiny hill town, a fraction of the size of Motovun, that has become a hub for local artists. We walked around the teeny-tiny town and enjoyed shopping locally and talking with artists in the community. The adorable town also had one more appeal for us: you could see Motovun!
Dad did a beautiful job of manuevering us around the Istrian countryside, and thankfully GPS seems to work on phones even when abroad. So, we had fun getting a bit lost and stopping in a winery. Views of Motovun, our little hill town, were visible from all over the valley and surrounding hilltops. This area, so Tuscan like and yet, so undeveloped, felt like stepping back in time. Life was simpler in Istria. There was time to taste wine, olive oil and truffles. There was time for lengthy meals with views of the sunset. There was time to linger on steep roads to give yourself a break. Mostly, there was time for the three of us, and that was probably the most incredible part about Istria.
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