First Time to Croatia, Istria Questions

Hi Mark. Rovinj is a lovely little Venetian town, but it's not really a destination in my opinion. You can see the town in 3-4 hours. It's more of a lovely town to come back to at night after exploring nearby Istria.

I would advise anyone who says "I want to visit Rovinj" to think of it instead as visiting Istria and using Rovinj as the base. So what is it there that you want to see? Hill towns? Roman ruins in Pula? 3-4 nights is a good amount of time to do that stuff at a modest pace.

But, if you head from Mostar directly to Istria, you are missing a lot of stuff in between: Split, Trogir, islands off the Dalmatian Coast like Hvar and Korcula. Amazing national parks like Plitvice Lakes and Krka National Park. So are you leaving some time in between for that - or are you assuming Istria is more interesting to you than that stuff? That's how I'd look at it.

Mostar is a great town, but you probably don't need two nights there. The old town is small. It seems to get a lot of day trippers now but is more quiet at night. (I haven't been there in ten years, but that's what I hear from more recent visitors.)

If you want to do ANOTHER mid-life crisis trip, I'd do northern Croatia + Slovenia, which in my view go well together...and stick to southern Croatia + Bosnia + Montenegro for this trip. (You could also add more in Bosnia like Sarajevo and some of the little towns.)

Hi Mark. Not sure if helpful, but below I am pasting in the Istra Peninsula portion of our (my wife and I) visit to Croatia in 2017.
We really enjoyed it. Full report is on the forum at the URL at bottom.

Aug 29 - Sep 1 (3 nights): Rovinj. Perfect length for us. Most of the tourists seemed to be families that had driven down from Germany. We flew out of the Pula Airport when we left. Very small - the rental car dropoff is right next to the terminal building.

We stayed at Baron Gautsch, from the Rick Steves guidebook. Very nice. Our room was air-conditioned, located next to the upper-floor large balcony - which we usually had all to ourselves. The balcony overlooks the old city of Rovinj, and the sunrise views are glorious. Breakfast was excellent; if one is leaving before breakfast, the staff prepares a bagged breakfast for you. Never had a problem finding parking.

During our stay we walked the old town of Rovinj (beautiful at sunset), drove to the Hill Towns, and visited Pula.
- Hill Towns. MOTOVUN, ZAVRSJE, and GROZNJAN. TIP: visit MOTOVUN early, before the crowds. We arrived shortly before 11am, and were able to park close enough to walk into the town (rather than take a shuttle). The views are stunning. We had an incredible lunch and local wines on the terrace of Pod Napun (mentioned in the guidebook). TIP: arrive before the crowds to get a good seat along the terrace. We then drove to ZAVRSJE, largely deserted. The road we took passed by the site of the former train station; the track route is now a hiking/biking trail. We spent about 30 minutes walking through the abandoned village. Next; GROZNJAN. Good last stop. Mildly interesting. We did a quick walk through the town, browsing at a couple of the artist shops.
- PULA. One day we drove to Pula to see the Roman artifacts. The amphitheater, along with the small museum underneath the arena, was worthwhile. We then walked to the Temple of Augustus (as described in Rick's book, do view the back of the adjacent bldg), the Roman Floor Mosaic - difficult to find, and the Arch of Serguis. We drove along coast to return to Rovinj, stopping at Farzana for lunch.

On Sep 1, we flew out of Croatia from Pula.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/croatia-road-trip-aug-2017-dubrovnik-and-drive-to-split

Last summer we based in Rovinj for 6 nights (5 days) and did day trips to Pula, Porec, and two days to Istrian hill towns. I agree with Andrew that it makes a great base to do day trips but I probably wouldn't want 3 whole days just there. Nothing wrong with that, just that there is so much to see in Croatia.

I think you are skipping a lot between Dubrovnik and Istria. We've done two trips to Croatia - first one was 8 nights (4 Dubrovnik with day trips to Mostar and Kotor), ferry to Korcula for 2 nights, ferry to Split for 2 nights with day trip to Trogir. The trip this last summer was 6 nights Rovinj, 1 Plitvice, 1 Zadar, 1 Sibinek, 2 Hvar island, 3 Split with day trip to Brac island.

Here's my trip report from the trip last summer - https://andiamo.zenfolio.com/blog/2019/10/croatia

I think you should either extend your trip to at least 3 weeks or decide to do either Split and north or Split and south.

I would look at Split and Plitvice. Also Hvar and Korcula are worth a look. (I have researched Croatia quite a bit recently for a possible future trip, and visited Dubrovnik and Split as stops on a cruise in 2011.)

Inland Istria is bucolic. I have to admit that I'm a bit bored by hill towns. Perhaps I'm in a minority there... If beaches and seaside towns are an objective, you will find better examples further down the coast in Croatia IMO. I loved both Plitvice and Split. Split's history is amazing and there so many interesting restaurants in the compact city core. We booked guide Maja Benzon on a walking tour that included Diocletians’ palace and the old city. She helped bring the many layers of two millennia of history and architecture to life. Regarding Plitvice, we followed advice here on the forum about avoiding crowds in Plitvice (upper lakes late afternoon, spend the night on site, lower lakes early morning, then leave the most touristed areas) and had a memorable visit, at least in mid-September. Plitvice has so much beauty in the hundreds of small waterfalls and brilliant blues of the water and sound of rushing streams. It is a truly unique place and well worth the logistics to see it at it's best.

Another idea would be to continue north into Slovenia. The Julian Alps and Bled area have incredible natural beauty. We did great day hikes e.g. Vintgar and Mostnica gorges in the Bled area. It's about a 1/2 day drive from Plitvice in northern Croatia to the Bled area. You would pass near Ljubliana, which is a very pleasant city to visit. Culturally very distinct from Croatia or Istria, and the Bled/Alps area feels Germanic and alpine.

wow, thank you! lots to digest!

Im thinking about shortening my trips to Kotor and Mostar and adding Split and maybe an island, then adding 3-4 days total in Istria!