Istria: Land of Good Wine

It's a testament to the resilience of the Croatian people that over its history a majority of its settlements were fortified or walled, what with almost every major empire of the last 3,000 years running roughshod over the place. 

Now the battlements are silent, yet hordes of Russians, Germans and Italians, joined by busloads of Americans, Chinese and Japanese, crisscross Istria, looking for a taste of the Mediterranean "as it was." Visa and Mastercard accepted. 

Istria isn't the largest part of Croatia, but it's easily one of the most beautiful, with its dramatic coastlines and steep rolling hills dotted with the region's famous vineyards and olive groves. We can't recommend visiting here enough.

Poreč Marina

After we bailed from hotel hell, we checked into the Hotel Laguna Parentium a mile north of downtown Poreč. We used Booking.com and got an amazing last-minute deal. The place had only reopened in August after a major renovation. 

The resort takes its name from the Latin name for Poreč and it's part of a much larger string of hotels which dot the isthmus below the town. It's a huge, beautiful, modern development. Some of the hotels offer private marinas, there is water skiing and a large, open air venue for concerts. The development is owned by the Plava Laguna company. Very impressive.

Exhausted from the previous night, we blew the rest of the day lounging by the pool, swimming in the Adriatic, enjoying local sparkling wines. Sybarite, it's Latin ...

That night we dined at a local haunt called Dvi Murve, just north of town. We started with the minestrone, an order of raw clams and oysters and an order of the Istrian boškarin beef carpaccio. The beef was wonderful, served with slim slices of age, smoked ricotta cheese on top, on a bed of arugula and drizzled with olive oil.

Bob had the grilled langoustines, which, while cooked beautifully, were really, just too much work. They are little lobsters, so you can imagine wrestling through a half-dozen. Tasty, though ... I had the grilled squid, and it was perfect. Light, tender, not chewy. 

On Thursday, we drove south, forty minutes, to Pula. Istria is small, you can easily traverse the region, north to south, east to west, in a day. In less time if you drive like a Croatian.

We visited the Roman Amphitheater there. It’s an impressive monument to Rome’s reach and rule with the final stone structure completed in 68 AD. 

It had all the amenities of the time: seating for 22,000-plus, awnings to shield people from the sun and an impressive basement under the arena floor proper where gladiators, entertainers and animals were kept prior to the events. Two small side tunnels allowed for dead animals, as well as critically wounded or dead gladiators to be dragged from the arena. This space now houses the museum, showcasing amphorae, as well as olive oil presses from the period.

It’s funny the museum literature quoted Pliny the Elder saying that Istria’s wine and olive oil are only second to Italy’s. We’re not going to argue that one, but will say that it’s a close, close competition.

Some of the marble and limestone was used for construction during the middle ages, but today the amphitheaters stands and looks much as it did to 2000 years ago, only know it seats about 5,000 and hosts concerts and a movie festival in the summer.

We spent the morning in Pula, then the afternoon at the hotel by the pool. That night we dined in town on the marina at the popular Sv Nikola. Boškarin beef filet with black truffles was the main course.  Bob had his with a wonderful asparagus and mushroom sauce over fresh tricolor pasta. Wow. I had a hankering for fried potatoes, which were served in a mushroom pinole nut sauce; unexpected, but tasted great with the fries.  

As an appetizer, I ordered the house special, a white fish and octopus carpaccio. Both were tender and tasty, nothing flashy, but what stood out were the raw prawns served with the dish, sweeter than any Ebi I’ve had at any sashimi restaurant, including the stalls in Tokyo’s fish market. 

MMmmmm, skrimpses ...

On Friday, our last full day in Croatia, we headed into the hills, to the medieval hilltop fortress of Motovun, through the wine country.  Now, most, if not all of Croatia’s vineyards are family affairs, with wine grapes growing on lots only a an acre or two in size to maybe on average, 50 acres. In the countryside, people make wine and olive oil, often using cooperative facilities to press the oil and grapes for private production.  

Motovun on the hilltop

For those who produce wine for the marketplace, though, many eschew many modern wine production techniques to keep the wines as organic as possible. Still, modern farming techniques have improved consistency of crop yields, though many bottle have a “eco” symbol on the label. 

Driving in Istria, despite the modernity of the roads, is difficult. It’s hilly, the roads are narrow, the locals are pushy and impatient, but the countryside is beautiful and as you drive up and down through the center of the land you can’t help but marvel at the fortified towns and fortresses which crown the hilltops. Motovun is particularly impressive, both as a challenging hike and for its beautiful view of the valley below and the hills beyond.

The view from Motovun

The streets are lined with small shops, some selling their own wine and/or olive oil; others offering tastings of truffles, wine and oil. Everything is for sale;  it’s tourist-y, but not cheesy.

I give a lot of credit to Bob for this amazing trip. I was busy with work and Bob handled all the planning. Yes, the agri-tourism inn was hilariously bad, but we landed on our feet and we have a fun story to tell. Plus, there was spit-roasted suckling pig: We call that a win.

So far, we had picked restaurants based on tour books, top 10 websites, concierge recommendations and taking a chance based on hotel proximity and, of course, wild beast roasting on a spit. For the final night, Bob picked the slow food restaurant Toklarija, located a few miles outside the town of Buzet.

Toklarija in the hamlet of Sovinjsko Polje

And by a few miles, I mean a long and winding road up a tiny hill. A road so narrow that we had to reverse back 50 feet to let a tiny Renault go by us at one point. This place gives new meaning to the phrase "out of the way." It's in a 600-year-old olive mill.

Inside the restaurant.

We had tried to get a reservation the night before, but it was sold out. Which was weird, because on the night we dined, Bob and I appeared to be the only guests. And we had the chef and owner Nevio Sirotic waiting on us as well as preparing the meal. He chose the wines – we started with a Teran-based aperitif, then a white wine, a Malvazija, followed by the red, a Teran, both grapes indigenous to Istria – and he just brought out the five courses at a leisurely pace. 

Grilled figs with aged ricotta and wild mushrooms drizzled with olive oil. Grilled figs? Who grills figs? I mean, I didn't know they were flowers and not fruits until a week ago. Amazing:

Minestrone soup for two. Croatian's take pride in their version of this hearty staple. It's richer than the Italian version, and seems to have a lot more pork in it:

Mushroom carpaccio on arugula and grated parmigiana. The chef had marinated the mushroom, but when we asked what with, he wasn't telling:

Croatian pršut (prosciutto) and cheese ravioli. Bob hates ravioli. But not this one:

Roasted pork and potatoes. This was savory and juicy and slow-roasted for God knows how many hours. Two Zocor chaser, please:

Chocolate cake and grilled ricotta on fig marmalade. The cake was a rich, with luxurious chocolate cream icing, but it was the cheese which was truly surprising and delightful: 

We arrived at 6:30 and didn't leave until almost 10 p.m. And we were the only customers. It was easily the best meal of our whole trip. And the perfect way to end our stay in Croatia. We can't recommend it enough; the people, the scenery, the food and the wine. Don't forget the wine. I didn't ... ;-)

Next stop? Venice.

Worst. Hotel. Ever.

OK, I remember roughing it in the hostels of Ireland and France in the early 1980s, in what could only be described as adobe shacks, or halfway homes for the indigent. Or once, in '92, I crashed at Asbury Park's Empress Motel (long before the Great Gay Gentrification of the early oughts) where I had to ask for a room with electrical power and the sheets were cold and damp despite it being mid-July on the Shore.

But there comes a time in every portly man-of-a-certain-age's life when threadbare towels, Blitzkrieg-like mosquito attacks, and Cold War-era hot water heaters in the shower just lose their charm.

This was that time.

Bucolic, right? Oh, that's how they lure you in ...

Bob and I planned to spend the remaining four days of our Croatia trip in Istria. Our destination was less than half-a-day's drive out of Opatija, and we left around 10 a.m., admittedly recovering from the wonderful dinner has in Rijeka the previous evening.

We drove the narrow winding roads out of the town and passed through the Učka Tunnel into the Istrian heartland, greeted by a giant sign which read: "Istria: Land of Good Wine" (in four languages, no less. It was a really big sign.)

Fall had arrived, the skies are clear with a slight breeze. Twelve days into the trip, every hotel and apartment a hit, almost every meal a home-run. Except breakfast. Outside of our hotel in Prague, and fending for ourselves in Dubrovnik, hotel breakfasts were not so great here in Croatia. Bad automated coffee machines, congealed scrambled eggs in chafing dishes, breakfast meats and sausages cooked within an inch of their lives in oil. Stick to the ever-present ham-and-cheese trays, fresh fruit and breads.

Our destination was an agritourism inn between the towns of Vsar and Kloštar. When we arrived, we were charmed: A Mediterranean-style, relatively modern villa with an olive grove; a giant spit out the front. Rustic, hand-painted signs touting wine and olive oil. A large busload of Germans were lunching in the dining area and the deck. A group of touring cyclists from a Slavic-speaking country pulled in and sat for lunch. Perfect, right?

First off, the proprietor, a stout woman in her early-50s, spoke every language, except English. And that's cool, as Bob and I are routinely embarrassed by our own monolingual limitations. But almost all the menus and documents offered came only in Croatian, Italian and German. Still, it was all part of the adventure.

Then we were escorted to our rooms. That's when the horror slowly crept in: For some reason, we each got a room, despite booking for a double-occupancy. The beds could only be described as queen-sized prison cots, supporting a single four- to five-inch mattress. The towels were little more than faded, frayed cotton rags. The largest, the bath towel, we assumed, the size of dish towel.

And then she handed us the mosquito repelling electronic devices:

Essentially a homicidal Renuzit, you slip the blue wafers into the device, plug it into the wall and a death aroma is unleashed. Still, we assumed that this was just part of the rural, agrarian charm of the place. Why the sign out front promised "agritourism," a winery, olive oil and food hadn't it?

In all fairness, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Bob had planned the trip based on our friend Jon Bonne's trip to Croatia about five years ago. He mentioned how he had gone the agritourism route through the wine country of the Pelješac Peninsula and so we thought, what the heck. Let's go for it. We probably should have done better due diligence ...

We unloaded the suitcases and headed to the nearby Limski Kanal, or the Lim Channel, formed by a glacial retreat during an ice age a long, long time ago. Its name comes from the Latin word "Limes" or limit, as the Romans used it as the natural border between two of its provinces, Dalmatia and Italia.

That's no fjord ...

On a curious side note, Croatian waters were for centuries homes to pirates and brigands, dating back to the pre-Roman era. In fact, the Illyrians, the first Croatians, gave Rome so much grief with their piracy, the Empire invaded the country in 163 B.C. to make them knock it off.

Later, during the 1600s, Captain Morgan, the feared pirate of the Spanish Main, used the canal as a hiding place. He was above all else, tasteful.

From the deck of the oddly named Restaurant Fjord

We decided to have our appetizers here at the shores of the canal itself, fresh oysters cultivated just yards from the shore along with smoked fish with a couple of glasses of the local malvazija white:

Driving towards our inn, we had ran across a couple of konobas or cafes, specializing in spit-roasted pigs or lamb. So we decided to head to one of those for dinner proper.

We can't sing the praises of this simple, satisfying meal enough. It's farm food. Plain and simple. Fresh peas, par-boiled, then finished in olive oil, parsley and garlic, "breaded" potatoes (boiled potatoes, sliced, covered in flour then fried in olive oil), and the main event, the suckling pig, cut in large chunks and served with a large helping of raw, sweet chopped onions.

A half-carafe of the house red, the meal was followed by a fragrant, homemade honey grappa which was sweet, but not syrupy, with a hint of flowers in both aroma and taste.

After a meal like that, we decided to retire early. The day had been beautiful, Istria is beautiful. A great meal, a nice mellow buzz, we could hang out in the dining room or on the deck ...

We returned to a ghost town. The lights were out and nobody, and we mean, nobody was home. Not even the owner. She must live in one of the nearby houses. The only one up, and it was barely 9 o'clock, was the family dog, who came over to make sure we weren't vandals.

We entered Bob's room and the air was electric with the whir of mosquitoes. Bob and I doubled up on the Renuzits, sealing all the doors and windows and taking refuge for the night in his room. Upon closer inspection, crushed corpses of dozens of mosquitoes dotted the walls and ceilings; victims of battles with previous tenants.

Sleep was full of fits and starts. At one point, I dreamed of Tito's soldiers lurking in the hills of the Lake Country, Hitler's Messerschmitts strafed the land, the relentless buzz in my ears growing louder, Louder, LOUDER. Only to wake myself, slapping my face and ears.

By dawn, Bob and I were zombies, staggering around the room in a quasi-death state. In the shower, at least the water was hot. But there's nothing more unsettling than hearing, and seeing, the pilot light of the water heater flame on, mere inches from your face, barely two minutes into your shower.

Enough. Bob looked sad, weary, resigned I thought, to the fact that our final days in Croatia would be spent in squalor ...

Fuck that noise. I turned on the Droid, ratcheted up the roaming and data charges, and booked us into a four-star resort twenty minutes away on the sea in the town of Poreč.

A day doesn't go by I don't thank Al Gore for the Internet.

The inn owner was disappointed when we motioned we were checking out. She rushed into the kitchen and came back with the phone, someone on the other end spoke perfect English. "I really need Internet access to get work done," I lied. The woman on the phone was gracious, promising a refund for the nights canceled. We piled into the Skoda and sped off towards the sea.

At least the dog was cute.

Dinner with Davor Lukas: Rock Singer, Chef

Now, if it wasn't for the woman who helped us book our trip, Drajica Lukas, a travel agent at the New Jersey-based Travel Time, we would not have come to Opatija, nor the port city of Rijeka.

Mimi, Drajika, Davor, Bob and Anthony

However, in the course of planning the trip, Bob and Drajica struck up a friendship and we agreed to meet she and her family for dinner at her son's restaurant while passing through the region.

The restaurant, Arca Fiumana, is a retired ferry boat in the Rijeka port.

Davor is the lead singer of the Croatian rock band, Fit. Founded back in 1982, it's big anthem rock. The band recorded two albums, one in '89, another in '90. But in '91 the war began. Davor and the band didn't want to lift arms against their neighbors, so they moved to Amsterdam. "But we split up because we didn't like each other," Davor said with a laugh.

Marinated Sardines

Our plan was to meet Drajika, Davor and his sister, Mirjana (Mimi), for dinner that night. (Drajika had retired, and returned home to Croatia from New Jersey.) But the boat is being refurbished, with a new nightclub being put in and a dining room being redone. Instead of meeting us at another restaurant, Davor offered to cook us all dinner at his restaurant. (Which led so some funny moments when people started coming on board looking to have dinner ...)

Though with no formal culinary training, Davor sure as hell knows his way around the kitchen. Drajika asked us three questions: Do we like fish? Do we like olive oil? Do we drink wine? Why, yes, we do.

It was a five-course meal complete with Istrian white wine pairings, with one extra red, a Merlot thrown in, and homemade blueberry grappa to finish the evening off.

We began with a half-dozen quickly cooked mussels, served in their liquor and olive oil, accompanied by a Misal, an Istrian sparkling wine. Second course were sardines, lightly fried, then marinated in lemon juice and olive oil. Served with tomatoes, arugula,  beans and pickled onion. Superb. Sardines were tender, flavorful, not fishy. Almost sweet.

Next up, a shrimp and porcini mushroom risotto with langoustine. Davor says he always tests any new chefs who audition for him by having them make risotto. He first boiled the langoustines, then used the broth to make the risotto. Every forkful was perfect, the rice was cooked, firm, not sticky or soupy, the shrimp sweet and the mushrooms savory.

The fourth course was a baked sea bass wrapped around smoked tuna, served with sauteed kale, finished with olive oil. An amazing combination of flavors, with the tuna being firm, yet not chewy, despite being smoked.

  OK, there were a few wines served ...

All the wines were superb and complimented each of the dishes perfectly. No, I can't remember which went with which, BUT, this one stood out, an '09 Coronica Gran Malvazija:

This was served with the sea bass and smoked tuna. According to Davor, it's made with the skin of the grape still on. This is a rich, full-bodied white, rich, citrus but not tart.

Dessert was a homemade panna cotta with raspberry sauce. Served with a muscat.

The evening was perfect. Even when a torrential downpour hit. The Lukas' family were wonderful hosts. Davor is a master chef. And he and the band reformed, back in '09 and last year, they put a new album out.

When in Rijeka, go to this restaurant. It would be a crime to miss it.

Let's Get Lost, Part 2: The Road to Opatija

Two days ago, we left Plitvice, driving northwest, down through the Croatian Inland, to Opatija.

The terrain is beautiful, lush, green, very reminiscent of Ireland or parts of New England. Fall is settling in, the leaves are turning.

We were barely 15 minutes out of Plitvice when we drove by a monument to Tito and his Partisans and their fight against the Nazis in World War II. It's almost hidden by trees, but as we zipped by, I saw the outline of the figures. I knew it was special.

It's an impressive, violent monument. Strictly Soviet-Era socialist realist in its construction and design.

I couldn't understand the inscriptions, a list of the dead, locals, I suppose. But hostilities seemed to have ended in 1943. Still, there were red, votive candles at its base. So nice to see that someone nearby remembers.

The closer we drove to the coast, the more the country began to look more like Northern Italy. Opatija is only a couple of hours away from Trieste, in Italy. Following World War II, Italy and Yugoslavia almost came to blows over the region. Up until World War I, the area had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and between then and 1943, Italy had taken control of the Istria region.

In the early-1950s, as tensions grew between Italy and Yugoslavia, Tito negotiated a deal to keep Istria and give Trieste to Italy. Good call. I'm pretty sure he did it for the wine and olive oil. (Still, Croatia and Italy spar over fishing rights. Some things never change.)

Driving in Croatia is not for the timid. As Igor, the chap who dropped off our rental in Dubrovnik cautioned: "They are crazy here. Like in Italy. Or Mexico." And this from a native, right?

The road infrastructure is incredible, we think because Croatia has an eye on joining the EU, despite the crisis, but mostly due to post-war international investment. That said, the drivers ARE crazy, and lines on the road and speed limits are more like suggestions than actual directives. "If it says go 70," Igor advised. "Go 90." This is kilometers per hour, but still ...

Drivers aside, Bob and I do love the International road signage for Parking, Wi-Fi, Dining and Roast Beast:

Note sad, hollowed-out, eye sockets. Nice touch

Opatija is a beautiful seaside town, referred to at the Opatija Riviera. It sits on the Adriatic, on the Gulf of Kvarner, looking east in an almost perfect U-shape. Elegant hotels and villas from a previous era climb up the steep hills from the water's edge.

View from Hotel Kristal

Founded millennia ago by the Illyrians, the Pre-Roman inhabitants of this part of the Balkans, it wasn't until the 1840s when the town took off as a major holiday destination. Still, despite its location, only an hours drive into Italy, it has a weathered, sad look of a summer destination past its prime; the population is elderly, though we were told a lot of young people come into the town on weekends to hang at the bars and restaurants which dot the promenade.

It's the home of an Open Air Summer Theater, and over the last century, the town has attracted its fair share of artists and luminaries, many of whom appear on a mural surrounding the theater.

The Croatian Walk of Fame is located on the boardwalk.

 Of course, Bob and I didn't recognize a lot of the names, but one stood out ...

Tesla was of Serbian origin, and he was born and raised not far from Montenegro and Dubrovnik. Still, nice to see him represented.

Opatija is quaint, relaxing and made for a perfect gateway into Istria. But first, we had dinner in Rijeka ...

Let's Get Lost, Part 1: Split and Plitvice

When we last left off, our travelers had found themselves in rather dire circumstances, set upon by nature, devoid of hope and Wi-Fi ...

The Campanile of the Cathedral of St. Domnius, Split

OK, we left Hvar two days ago and headed by car ferry to Split, the second largest city in Croatia. Founded in the 4th Century by the Roman Emperor Diocletian, this working port town expands out from the ancient site of the Roman ruler's retirement Palace.

We stayed in a little place, the Hotel Peristil, built between the inner and outer walls of the ancient palace, and just behind the Cathedral. Back in the day, the Cathedral was Diocletian's mausoleum, across the Peristil, or the central courtyard, is the Temple of Jupiter, now the Baptistry. There you can find one of two black granite sphinxes, from around 1500 BC which had greeted visitors on the entrance Diocletian's mausoleum.

Now, Diocletian was a bit of a badass. Born a slave, he joined the Roman army, rose through the ranks and was Emperor at age 39. Though, oddly, he found the Empire at the time somewhat unmanageable, so he split it into four fiefdoms, or the Tetrarchy. Then, in something rarely done in the annals of politics, he decided to retire to Split and his palace at the age of 60. This, of course, led to a civil war between the other members of the Tetrarchy. But, hey, at least he was innovating ...

We spent the afternoon walking through the Palace which has been repurposed with great expertise into a high-end tourist outdoor mall of sorts. Interesting architectural flourishes about, like our hotel, basically a discrete four-story box built between two of the ancient walls. It's not uncommon to walk by a trendy boutique or a bank in the alleys where they've built around an ancient column or wall.

Hotel Peristil's "tasteful" signage

We dined that night at Šperun Deva, a great "mom 'n' pop" restaurant, not only recommended by numerous guidebooks and websites, but also the locals.

Bob ordered the mussels in a red sauce, not on the menu, but recommended by one of the guides. Great stuff. We then had the branzino, which was poached, then baked. Great flavor, tender, but firm, served with boiled potatoes and sauteed kale.

Now the wine we were served was great. Postup, the local grape. This was insanely good. Big, bold, licorice, black cherry, full-bodied.

It's safe to say that beyond the port and the Palace, Split is a plain, working-class town. The following day we drove up into Croatia's mountains, to the Plitvice Lakes. As you pull away from the center of Split, from the ancient palace, past the Mediterranean-style stucco and brick summer houses and apartments with the red tiles which hug the shore, you move into the suburbs and a lot of those bleak, Cold War-era apartment blocks. Dreary.

We took the main road up the hills, with the temperature in the high-80s. If you've ever driven from San Bernardino to Palm Springs, you kind of get the picture. Just eliminate the smog. This is a rough-hewn country, especially in the area between the coasts and the foothills. Bare limestone pillars and peaks jut out of the ground at weird angles.

But the higher we rose into the hills, the more Alpine the scenery became, and the Plitvice Lakes National Park is beautiful. The temperature had also dropped to the mid-60s and it was overcast. The lakes are not large by U.S. standards, but they are tiered and were formed by a calcium material called travertine. The water is clear and large schools of fish can be seen in each of the lakes.

Veliki Slap (The Big Waterfall)

OK, this was really hilly, with lots of hills, and we had to walk down, and then back up a few times. Overall about a two mile walk. Bring sensible walking shoes.

We stayed at the Plitvička Jezera, a park-owned resort that's got a major '60s-modern grooviness going on. It's kind of like a mountain chalet, yet at the same time, somewhat utilitarian.

 Welcome. You WILL Enjoy Yourself

 Groovy Stairwell

Groovy Amoeba-shaped First Floor Landing Lighting

That night we headed back down the hill about 6 miles to the Vila Velebita for our first helping of spit-roasted suckling pig. This stuff is INSANE. Pork should always be served this way. No, seriously. It was tender and succulent and the crackle, the skin was a guilty treat.

The wine was also quite good. In fact, outside of one or two glasses of errant reds or whites, overall the wines here in Croatia are as good as anywhere we've had wine: Italy, France, California ... Just solid.

Bob and I made it an early night after our huge, pork-fueled dinner. In fact, it's dinnertime now. Will write more later...