Pula. Things to do, map and hidden gems

The Arena is Pula and Pula is the Arena: an amphitheatre of the first century, built from Augustus to Vespasian, which ranks among the six largest preserved Roman amphitheatres of the world, and by the preservation of its outer shell at the very top. The ellipse of white Istrian stone received some twenty thousand spectators for the gladiators' games; all four stair towers and all three orders of architecture stand to this day, so up close the Arena reads less like a ruin and more like a stadium awaiting tonight's programme. And it truly does: in summer the Arena hosts song, music and films, with a stage under the starry sky that world names compete for, and every July since 1954 it has held the Pula Film Festival, Croatia's oldest. In the underground corridors, through which beasts and fighters once reached the scene, today stands a permanent exhibition on the olive growing and viticulture of ancient Istria, with amphorae and presses. The visit takes an hour; come in the morning before the ship groups or buy a ticket for an evening concert, for the Arena does its true job, gathering thousands under the open sky, even after two thousand years.

The Gate of Hercules is Pula's birth certificate carved in stone: the oldest preserved Roman monument of the city, raised between the years 47 and 44 before Christ, when Pula was officially founded as a Roman colony. The gate is deliberately modest, of roughly hewn blocks without ornament, but the top of the arch carries what matters most: a relief of the head of Hercules with his club, the city's protector, and, harder to see, the carved names of Lucius Cassius Longinus and Lucius Calpurnius Piso, the Roman officials to whom the senate entrusted the founding of the colony. That makes it unique: few cities of Europe have a preserved monument bearing the names of their official founders. One still passes normally through the gate today, from Carrarina street toward the Kaštel, and most passers-by never raise their eyes; precisely that is why this place rewards those who know where to look. Stand beneath the arch, find Hercules' beard worn smooth by centuries and the names above him: two millennia and seventy years of history, without ticket and without crowd, in a passage of thirty seconds.

The Punishment of Dirce is Pula's best-hidden masterpiece: a Roman floor mosaic of the third century lying in a courtyard behind residential buildings not far from the Forum, discovered by accident when the Allied bombardments of the Second World War brought down the houses above it and bared the floor of an ancient town villa. The mosaic of several dozen square metres is composed of geometric fields with medallions, and in the central scene it shows a rare myth: the brothers Amphion and Zethus binding queen Dirce to a maddened bull, punishment for the abuse of their mother. The scene is known from ancient sculpture, but in mosaic Europe has almost none of it, so specialists come to this courtyard on purpose. Best of all: the mosaic is lowered to the ancient level, fenced but permanently accessible and free, viewed from the rim in bird's perspective. There is no ticket office, no crowd, often not another soul; only an explanatory plaque and two thousand years beneath the feet of residents who dry their laundry above the mosaic. Find it through the passage from Sergijevaca street: a three-minute turn off the main route, and one of the most valuable Roman floors of the Adriatic.

Fort San Giorgio is one of the strongholds of the iron ring with which Austria-Hungary girdled its main war harbour in the second half of the 19th century: a low stone ring sunk into the hill, with casemates, a ditch and artillery positions, built to control from above the approaches to city and harbour. Today the fort is a quiet ruin in the greenery, without a ticket desk and without management, which gives it what tidied fortresses lack: the feeling of discovery. One passes freely through the open corridors and ramps, the walls show the master stonework of military builders, and from the roof platform the view bursts open onto city, harbour and sea. Precisely for that, two warnings hold: bring a torch for the dark casemates and watch where you step, for openings and shafts are unfenced; keep children by the hand. The fort is a station for an hour, ideal combined with a walk over the surrounding hills, and one of the places where one best understands why Pula is called a city of fortresses: there are dozens of such rings around the town, and San Giorgio is among the more accessible.

Fort Monvidal guards the north-eastern corner of Pula's fortress ring: a circular stronghold of the second half of the 19th century on the hill of the same name above the town, built to the same recipe as its sisters, stone sunk into the earth, casemates around a central courtyard, an artillery platform on the roof. The army left it long ago, the city grew up to its very foot, so Monvidal is today the most urban of Pula's forts: one reaches it by an ordinary city street, and from the ramparts one looks straight into the courtyards and roofs of the quarter. Precisely that closeness makes it the easiest introduction to Pula's fortification story, no car or mountaineering needed, fifteen minutes' climb from the centre suffices. The interior is open and unmanaged, with all that carries: free entry and freedom of exploring, but also dark in the corridors, the odd opening in the floor and graffiti on the walls. A torch and closed shoes are obligatory, caution with children understood. Climb up before sunset: the view over the roofs to the harbour and the Arena from an unusual angle is a reward the tidied attractions cannot offer.

Fort Casoni Vecchi holds the eastern forefield of the Pula fortress, farther from the sea than most of its sisters, amid fields and groves toward Šišan: a stronghold of the iron ring from the second half of the 19th century, built to close the landward approach to the harbour from the interior. Precisely because of the position this is the fort for those who love the combination of history and walking: the path to it leads through a landscape of red Istrian earth, vineyards and dry-stone walls, so a visit naturally grows into a half-day walk or an easy cycle tour from town. The stronghold itself is unmanaged and overgrown, greenery has taken over its ditch and parts of the ramparts, which gives adventurers the strongest scenery of all Pula's forts: stone and roots in an embrace as in some jungle temple. The strict rules of abandoned forts apply: a torch, closed shoes, not a step down dark corridors without light, children by the hand. The reward is double: a peace that does not exist at the better-known addresses, and the feeling of having found something tourist Pula has not yet managed to frame.

The Brijuni are the archipelago where history took its holidays: fourteen islands off Fažana, a national park since 1983, and before that the summer residence of Josip Broz Tito, who received statesmen, actors and kings here for thirty years. From that epoch remain the safari park with zebras, llamas and other gifts of non-aligned friends, white deer grazing freely by the paths, and a museum with photographs of the stars who summered here. But the Brijuni are older than politics: along the western shore of Veli Brijun lie the remains of a lavish Roman villa in Verige bay, one of the loveliest ancient residences of the Adriatic, and dinosaur footprints are pressed into the stone, whose traces at several locations make the island one of the rare places where one walks on tracks from the Cretaceous. The visit goes by boat from Fažana, with a ride on the tourist train, a tour of the museum and free time; count on half a day. A bicycle or an electric buggy is the best way to feel the island at your own rhythm. Reserve ahead in season and bring a hat: shade is scarce, and there is experience enough for a whole day.

The Zerostrasse is Pula beneath Pula: a network of tunnels dug through the central hill during the First World War, when the Austro-Hungarian war harbour had to shelter people and munitions from air raids. Corridors several metres high and wide meet beneath the Kaštel in a central hall from which four arms lead ray-like to exits on opposite sides of the hill: one can thus pass through the hill instead of around it. The shelter held several thousand people; today visitors pass through the cooled corridors, at a constant sixteen or so degrees in every season, between information panels on wartime Pula and occasional exhibitions. In summer the Zerostrasse is a double reward: the coolest place in town and its most unusual shortcut, for one reaches the foot of the Kaštel from the centre underground. Entry costs a symbolic sum, the visit takes half an hour; bring a light jacket, for the difference from thirty degrees outside to sixteen inside can surprise. The combination is logical: the Zerostrasse below ground, then the climb to the Kaštel, two military epochs of Pula in one hour.

The Lighting Giants are Pula's youngest monument and the loveliest proof that a city can love its industry: eight huge cranes of the Uljanik shipyard, which the lighting designer Dean Skira turned in 2014 into the largest light installation on the Adriatic. Every evening from dusk the cranes light up in thousands of colours, with a programme changing through the hour: now golden, now violet, now the whole spectrum pours across them, and the water of the bay doubles it all. The idea was born of respect: Uljanik is among the world's oldest shipyards to have worked in continuity, founded back in 1856 for the Austro-Hungarian war harbour, and the giants above the port fed the city for generations. The best place to watch is the promenade along the waterfront, with benches and the view across the harbour basin; the show reads best in the first hour after sunset. This is no exhibition with a ticket but the city's gift to everyone strolling the riva in the evening: it is enough to come, sit and watch industry dance. A tip for photographers: the reflection in the sea is calmest early in the evening, before the harbour traffic breaks the mirror.

The Kaštel is Pula's crown in the literal sense: a star fortress on the central hill around which the city arranges itself like an amphitheatre, raised in the 1630s to the designs of the French military engineer Antoine de Ville, when Venice decided to protect its most important Istrian harbour. Four bastions still hold the hilltop, and in them today lives the Historical and Maritime Museum of Istria, with collections on seafaring, on Austro-Hungarian Pula as the Monarchy's main war harbour and on the city's daily life through two turbulent centuries. Yet the greatest exhibit is the Kaštel itself: a walk on the ramparts offers the only complete circle of views over Pula, with the Arena, the harbour and the shipyard cranes in one frame, the green Brijuni on the horizon. In summer the fortress becomes a stage, with concerts and film evenings in the courtyard. You climb to the Kaštel through the lanes from any direction in some ten minutes; combine it with the Zerostrasse tunnels that pass exactly beneath it. The best moment is the hour before sunset: the light settles on the roofs, and the city below the ramparts composes itself like a scale model.

The Havajka, officially Hawaii, is a small cove on Verudela whose name is no exaggeration: the turquoise over white shingle here truly looks like a postcard of the Pacific, only with pines instead of palms. The beach lies beneath a cliff by the hotel cape, compact and quickly full, for beauty of such concentration fits into a hundred metres: fine shingle, sea that glows through the white bottom and a few rocks to jump from, from school heights to those that demand both courage and sense. The public is young and international, the rhythm summery: the morning belongs to families, the afternoon to jumpers and music from backpacks. The facilities are just enough: a shower, sunbed hire on part of the beach, a café on the rock above; bring everything else. The sea deepens fast, so the Havajka suits swimmers better than the youngest. One descends to the beach by steps from the Verudela promenade; come before ten or after five, for at peak time there is simply no room. For a frame worth sharing, climb the cliff above: from up there the turquoise shows all the shades that earned the cove its name.

The Ambrela is Verudela's tidy postcard: a beach of fine shingle and sand at the entrance to the tourist peninsula, with a Blue Flag flying year after year as a guarantee that sea, safety and service are in place. The cove is gentle and shallow enough for families with small children to find their beach home here: the entry is mild, the bottom clean, and everything inside the buoys under the lifeguards' eye. Around the beach works a whole small service town: sunbeds and parasols, showers and cabins, cafés, pedal boats and SUPs for hire, which makes the Ambrela a beach where from morning to evening nothing needs carrying but a towel. In summer it is, of course, full, but spacious enough for the crowd to stay bearable; most room is before ten and after five. Shade is found under the pines at the rim, the first rows by the sea lie in the sun. If you set out from Verudela on a tour, the Ambrela is the natural start: from it the promenade leads toward the Havajka, the aquarium in the fortress and on around the cape. Simply put: if you seek a day without logistics, this is Pula's easiest beach.