Istrian kaleidoscope

How do you describe the shapes and colours of a kaleidoscope that change, fade and blend together every time you pick it up? How do you describe a place that is a peninsula, i.e. partly mainland and partly island, where three languages are spoken: Italian, Istro-Venetian, and Croatian; a place which, depending on the colour of the land, is divided into Red Istria, the coastal area, Grey Istria, the central part, and White Istria, the inland area; a place that for centuries has been a link between different lands, a border between all kinds of regions? Who knows. Like any bike ride in an unknown place, the only thing you can do is set off and see what happens along the way.

We begin our ride in Cittanova, a beautiful town in the middle of the west coast that looks a lot like Venice, and head north. The red dirt road runs for kilometres along the sea, and we follow it all the way to Umag, where we turn inland and gradually begin to climb. Just beyond the town of Buje, which is worth a stop just for the nickname it was known by, Istria’s lookout, we turn right and officially hit the Parenzana, the famous cycle path made from a narrow-gauge railway track that connected Trieste to Poreč in the early 1900s.

Here we enter Yellow Istria, also called Grey Istria, adding more shades to the kaleidoscope: it is the central section of the peninsula and consists of a layer of yellow clay and grey sedimentary rocks, which explains why it has two names. The wheels of our bikes roll across the ash-coloured gravel surrounded by the lush greenery of Mediterranean woods full of holly oaks, oaks and acacias. We soon get to Grisignana, one of the must-see stops along the old railway line. The central square is dedicated to none other than Josip Broz Tito. The small town is a bit Roman, a bit Baroque and a bit Venetian. It is perched on top of a hill as if it were one big terrace set in the woods, with a view of the sea.

We had only set off a few hours ago, but if anybody asked us, we would say that you could get a good feel for Istria just by travelling around here alone. There is still a long way to go before evening but, fortunately for us, it is almost entirely downhill along the grey, serpent-like Parenzana. We catch sight of Motovun well before we get there, as we round one of the many bends in the road running up the hillside. It looks like one of those small towns you occasionally see on the top of the hills in central Italy, isolated and walled. Even the fierce uphill cobblestones we have to ride up to get there, remind you of those towns, but once you are there the atmosphere changes.

There are Lions of Saint Mark, the symbol of the Serenissima Republic of Venice, all over the place. There are actually 13 of them, but only one has its book open at the page ‘Pax Tibi Marce,’ and it is, significantly, the only one facing the sea, Venice’s garden. The other 12, whose books are closed in a much less peaceful attitude, are facing east, the direction from which enemies usually came. The first evening we have dinner in a lovely outdoor restaurant that overlooks the town’s ramparts to the southeast. We hope no unwelcome visitors drop by, because with a menu overflowing with black truffles washed down with Malvasias and Terranos, we’d be the first to surrender and Motovun’s reputation as an unconquerable city would take a hit because of us.

On the second day, we venture even further inland, where the people we meet are more likely to speak Croatian than Istro-Venetian. Around here, as we clearly realised the night before, hunting for, selling and processing truffles − both black and white − is a popular enterprise, with many companies recently deciding to focus on this business. We even visit a truffle museum, where we discover that the Italians first introduced this new custom. Knowing that we have left something good in our wake − apart from having caused all kinds of havoc, most notably in the first half of the 20th century − puts us in a good mood for the rest of the day. After thirty or forty kilometres we get to Rovinj, back on the coast, and we are still feeling fairly fresh. Arriving from the south, as we did, Rovinj looks like a Mont-Saint-Michel on the Adriatic, with its bell tower in the middle and the entire historic town centre sloping down from that point. Today it is one of the most important tourist centres on the peninsula, and even in mid-September, when we came to visit, it is packed with holiday-makers, so much so that it feels like the end of July.

Before dinner we go to visit the Pelinkovac shop-museum at the start of the pedestrian district: Pelinkovac is a bitter liqueur made from artemisia or wormwood, found in abundance in Istria and more specifically in Rovinj. The shop, which sells many varieties of the liqueur, stills, and a range of other liqueurs, also provides an overview of the history of the Rovinj liqueur factory. It is the only distillery still in operation in the area, and is located just across the street. The story mirrors that of the peninsula itself: founded in 1925 by an Italian, it was handed over to the Yugoslav government after World War II and was later taken over by a private Croatian company in the ‘90s. In our opinion, there is nothing better than a 20 ml bottle of Pelinkovac to slip into your bikepacking bag and take home. After all, as the lady in the shop assured us, this bitter liqueur was used as a medicine to cure practically everything. “When you were feeling unwell around here, there was no need to go to the chemist, a small glass of Pelinkovac did the trick and you would be fine,” so she tells us, though we are not willing to vouch for the scientific validity of this last claim.

The third day is the shortest ride, from Rovinj to Novigrad. Just like the start of day one, it is almost entirely one long stretch of road along the Red Istrian coast with yet another change of scenery in this kaleidoscope-shaped peninsula. The route suddenly veers inland, and for about ten kilometres we ride through something that looks very much like a Norwegian fjord. This is the Lim Channel, Limski kanal in Croatian, the largest inlet in the entire Adriatic. The name comes directly from the Latin word limes meaning ‘border’, because this fjord-like channel has always marked the boundary between the territories of Rovinj and Poreč. And this is where we make our last stop before returning to Novigrad. It may have been the fact it was a weekday, sheer chance or just our impression, but compared to the crowded city of Rovinj, Poreč seemed more authentic, more pirate-like and, in some sense, more down-to-earth.

We walk down the main street, pushing our bikes to get through the tourists: we see Byzantine churches, buildings with Venetian windows, and old houses with wooden balconies. We wouldn’t be surprised to see Corto Maltese pop out of an alleyway or even Porco Rosso, the flying ace in Miyazaki’s animated film, who took off from Istria in his scarlet seaplane to fight the fascists. Just a few kilometres north and we will be back in Cittanova with its port, narrow streets and Church of San Pelagio and San Massimo, that looks like it could be part of Venice as it extends out to the sea. From the pier, which is directly opposite the bell tower, we take a dip in the sea, as is customary at the end of any journey that finishes by the water.

How can you describe the shapes and colours of a kaleidoscope, which change, fade and blend together every time you take hold of it? Who knows. The only thing we know, at the end of this short journey, is that every single shape and colour of the land of Istria has stuck to our bike tires and also a little higher up, somewhere near our hearts.

Epilogue: in three days we covered 220 kilometres with almost 2,500 metres of elevation gain, ate a dish of black truffles, platefuls of sarde in saor, cuttlefish and polenta, drank eight different types of Pelinkovac, tasted countless varieties of Malvasia and Terrano, rode on grey asphalt, red soil, yellow clay, and black gravel, pedalled along the coast, through villages and woods, struggled at a speed of 7 kilometres an hour on 20% climbs and sped down 2% descents at 70 kilometres an hour, but there was one thing we didn’t do: taste ćevapčići. Not one, not even half of one, not even a bite. Promise kept! Because we realised that the real Istria is already kaleidoscopic enough as it is.