The first sip of Romano’s raki makes the hairs in my nose prickle. By the second my eyes have filled with tears and my throat is on fire. My host looks on approvingly as Rina, his wife, pushes over a plate of freshly baked cake. I have only been in Istria a few hours and already I’m being treated as one of the family.
The raki, flavoured with honey but still not sweet enough to take the sting out of the pure alcohol, is just one of the treats that Romano has in store. He also makes his own wine from the vineyards that surround the house. You can drink endless amounts of it and because it is organic, he promises, you will never get a hangover. With that he uncorks a bottle and begins to pour.
Hospitality like Romano and Rina’s is something of an Istrian trademark. While their more southerly neighbours can be famously standoffish, the people of Istria are natural hosts.
It’s a characteristic that is slowly beginning to bear fruit for the Istrian tourist industry. Croatia has made great progress since the war of the early 1990s, as seen last week when the country began EU membership talks. But while British tourists have started flocking back to Dubrovnik, Hvar and Split, so far they have been slow to rediscover the northern peninsula of Istria, even though it emerged from the war unscathed. Istria’s beach resorts are popular with Germans, Italians, Austrians and Scandinavians, but inland it is still possible to find towns and villages entirely free of foreigners.
The region doesn’t boast the breathtaking rockscapes and rugged views of Dubrovnik and the south; instead Istria’s charms are more subtle.
With its crumbling pastel buildings, rolling hills and vineyard-covered valleys, it is easy to see why Istria has earned the title of “Croatia’s Tuscany”, but it is much more than a poor man’s Italy. And nowhere in the region is more than a couple of hours’ drive away.
Whether or not it is down to Romero’s organic grapes I couldn’t say, but the next morning I wake at the crack of dawn. A short drive inland leads me to Hum, which boasts of being the smallest town in the world, with fewer than 20 residents inside its 11th-century fortress walls. It lies at the foot of a small winding gravel road known as the Glagolitic Alley, a sculpture trail created in the 1970s to celebrate the Glagolitic script, the precursor to Cyrillic.
From the graveyard, which provides a fascinating social history of the town, there are spectacular views of the valley below. A farmer appears from one of the ramshackle stone buildings across the road and walks down the hill to tend to his goats, which are grazing at the edge of the vineyards, stepping over pumpkins growing on the ground. It is an idyllic image and, keen not to have it spoilt, I climb into the car and drive further inland to Motovun.
Motovun can thank an Italian soldier stationed near here during the first world war for its current prosperity. Homesick, he noted how similar the landscape was to his native Tuscany and, acting on a hunch, he went digging for truffles. Now the knobbly white fungus is for sale in every tourist shop and on menus across the country.
Unfortunately, that means that Motovun is besieged on a daily basis. Its pretty little town square, palatial 15th- and 16th-century buildings and narrow pedestrian streets are mine to enjoy alone for all of 10 minutes. Then suddenly hordes of tourists appear, so it is time to move on.
Truffles are merely the start of the cultural and natural connections between Istria and Italy. When Istria became part of Yugoslavia at the end of the second world war, about 350,000 ethnic Italians left, but many stayed on and their influence is evident everywhere — from the pizza, pasta and truffles on all the menus to the Venetian architecture, the Italian road signs and the fact that most Istrians still speak fluent Italian.
A little further northwest is Groznjan. One of the towns left deserted after the second world war by fleeing Italians and by young people who moved to the cities to find work, it has had a renaissance in recent years. The local authorities gave the empty homes and shop units to writers and artists for little or no rent, transforming the town into a cultural colony, with every second doorway leading to an artist’s studio.
Later that day Giovanni, a local farmer’s son of Italian descent, walks past Rina’s house with his dog and, keen to practise his English, stops for a chat. With communism gone many of the young people who left for the cities are returning to Istria’s towns and villages and setting up businesses, many in tourism. But Giovanni explains that although he loves the countryside where he grew up, there is little for him here in Ruzici, which, if it had a few more houses, might qualify as a hamlet.
He is home for the holidays from university in Pula, Istria’s only city, where he is studying economics. There is not much demand for economists in a country with little industry. “When I finish I will get a job in the tourist industry like everyone else,” he says with a shrug.
Few visitors leave Istria without a trip to the Brijuni Islands, once the private playground of Tito.
Tito spent six months of the year here and played host to world leaders and celebrities including Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. They didn’t come empty-handed. Gandhi brought two elephants and a holy cow. Others brought gifts of giraffes, llamas, zebras and elephants. The animals still living are in the Brijuni Safari Park, the rest have been stuffed and are displayed in a museum.
The Opatija Riviera, which stretches for more than 25 miles, has been popular since the 19th century. Mahler, Chehkov, Puccini and a host of European politicians came here to see and be seen and the town still has an air of flashy sophistication. Although it has seen better days, Opatija, with its seven-mile-long promenade and its candy-coloured fin de siècle architecture, is still one of the prettiest towns in Istria. While the sun-worshippers fill the rocky outcrops and small coves, the pavement cafes are full of elderly well-to-do ladies tucking into coffee and gargantuan cakes.
A few miles further down the coast lies one of the largest nudist beaches in Europe. But, after my enormous slice of black forest gateau, I don’t think I’ll be braving it on this trip.
Details: A seven-night stay at the two-bedroom Rina’s House with Simply Travel (www.simplytravel.co.uk, 0870 405 5005), with car hire and direct flights from various UK airports (including Scottish airports from 2006), costs from £329, based on five sharing
