We were visiting the Istrian Peninsula towns in late April this year. Since Motovun is listed in Rick's travel book, I thought about staying there a few days. There were 5 seniors, in our little annual travel group, ranging in age from 60 to 81. We ended up staying at Hotel Marko in Portoroz and in Pula instead of Motovun, but we did visit there on a rainy day. We were prepared with raincoats and sturdy shoes, but after the shuttle bus dropped us off in the lower end of Motovun, we had to walk up a very wet, slippery, narrow, lane on big rounded cobbles (rocks really). If a work van passed us, we had to step into a doorway to keep from getting sideswiped by the mirrors on the vans. We ended up having a cup of coffee in the hotel at the town square. They required us to buy something before we could use their WC's. When we walked carefully back downhill to the shuttle bus, the rain water was running steadily downhill, too, over our shoes and splashed on us by the vans & cars passing us as we ducked into doorways. Then we had to wait for the shuttle bus to take us back down the mountain to our car in the parking lot. We were all so glad we did not book a room in Motovun!
Posted by
Washington DC
27095 posts
Weather has such an effect on our reaction to a place, doesn't it? I thoroughly enjoyed Motovun last summer; it was terribly hot, but there was no rain. Wet cobblestones are the pits.
Posted by
Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico
1743 posts
I am puzzled by the popularity of Motovun among all the hill towns in Istria. It's a pleasant enough town, and I did admire the view, but all in all I didn't think it was nearly as nice as Grožnjan, and it's certainly not a place I would recommend anyone go out of their way to visit. I'd be interested in hearing what people find especially appealing about Motovun.
It's true that weather can adversely affect our enjoyment of a place, but on that same trip I had glorious weather for three weeks, with the exception of the three days I spent in Sarajevo, where it poured rain the entire time (I was there during the Bosnian floods in 2014), and yet, two years later Sarajevo stands out as the most special place I visited on that trip.