Eating and Drinking in Istria, Croatia

Considering how much I’ve read about Lidia Bastianich’s roots in Istria, I was sad that our experiences eating out and drinking in Istria were generally so-so. Our best food market experience was, in terms of consistent freshness and variety of produce, at the enormous Mercator hypermarket in Pula (think Wal-Mart size), and our best restaurant [...]

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Seaside Towns in Istria: Rovinj and Pula

When Istria markets itself as the New Tuscany, in some ways it’s exaggerating (e.g., the food and wine, on which I’ll post next, is disappointing), and in other ways, it’s selling itself short. As an example of the latter, Istria has not only the picturesque hill towns described in my last post, but also it [...]

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Hill Towns in Istria: Mrgani, Motovun, Groznjan

After having spent eight days exploring Istria, the peninsula in the northern part of Croatia that markets itself as “the new Tuscany.” Visually, I’ve decided that many Istrian towns lived up to the description. Hill towns glowed gold in a warm, spring sun, and all the ones we visited were crowned by weathered stone buildings, [...]

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