Rovinj. Things to do, map and hidden gems

St Euphemia is Rovinj's roof and compass at once: the Baroque church completed in 1736 sits on the crown of the old-town hill, and its sixty-metre bell tower, modelled on the campanile of St Mark's in Venice, is visible from the open sea before the town itself. On its top turns a copper statue of the saint, showing fishermen the wind: when Euphemia faces inland, the jugo is coming. Inside, behind the main altar, lies her stone sarcophagus; tradition says it floated in from Constantinople in the year 800 and the townspeople hauled it up the hill with prayers. The saint's day on 16 September is still Rovinj's greatest day, drawing pilgrims from all Istria. If wooden stairs do not scare you, climb the tower: the view takes in the whole old town, the islands of Katarina and St Andrew and the coast to the Lim channel. Entry to the church is free, the tower costs a token fee; the quietest hour is early morning, before the river of visitors starts up the Grisia.

The St John lighthouse on the open sea stands on the outermost rock of the Rovinj archipelago, five and a half miles southwest of town: a stone tower of twenty-three metres raised in 1853, whose light still guides ships through the middle Adriatic. The rock is bare and low, waves wash over it in bad weather, so lighthouse life here meant the strictest solitude for a century and a half; with automation the crew left and the lighthouse remained, its house now offering nights in Robinson-tourism style. For the day visitor St John is the goal of a boat outing or, for the experienced, a kayak trip in calm seas: around the rock the seabed plunges steeply into blue, with schools of fish and the odd amphora in the depths, making this a divers' favourite. Landing depends on swell and the skipper's will; often one stays by the rock, swimming from the boat. In any case bring a hat and water, for on the rock there is neither shade nor spring, only the tower, the gulls and the open sea for which one comes: here you first see how large the Adriatic is.

The Centre for Marine Research of the Ruđer Bošković Institute is Rovinj's quiet scientific side: in the buildings on Valdibora, above and around the historic aquarium, biologists, chemists and oceanographers have been measuring, counting and guarding the Adriatic for more than a century. The station was founded in 1891 as a Berlin zoological station, one of Europe's first marine laboratories, and since the 1970s it belongs to Croatia's largest scientific institute; from here sails the research vessel Burin, and here the temperature, salinity and life of the northern Adriatic are tracked in data series half a century long, precious today when the sea changes faster than ever. For the visitor the centre is mostly the backdrop behind the aquarium, but it is worth knowing what one is looking at: the laboratory lights in the evening, divers with tanks on the pier, students at their practice. Occasionally, on the Institute's Day or the Night of Researchers, the doors open to the public with workshops for children; the town announces the dates. Without this centre Rovinj would merely be beautiful; with it, it is also wise, a town that does not only sell its sea but understands it.

Old Rovinj was an island until 1763: then the channel to the mainland was filled in, and a town that for centuries could grow only upward and tighter on its rock remained the most densely woven seaside labyrinth of the Adriatic. Houses rise straight out of the sea, their washing hangs over the waves, and the lanes are so narrow that neighbours can shake hands across them. Venetian rule from the 13th to the 18th century left the town its language of facades, winged lions and a bell tower modelled on San Marco; the fishing everyday left the batana boats, the spacio taverns and the habit of eating dinner on the doorstep. The finest entrance is through the Balbi Arch and up the Grisia toward St Euphemia, but the real Rovinj reveals itself in the turnings: into lanes that end in the sea, courtyards with cacti in tin buckets, windows breathing out fried fish. Circle the town along the shore, then climb through its middle: half an hour of walking, two hours of stopping. Morning belongs to fishermen and bakeries, afternoon to painters, and at night, when the stone cools, the old quiet island returns.

Rovinj's harbour embraces the peninsula from both sides: the northern quay along Valdibora receives the fishing boats and their gajeta cousins, while the small southern harbour beneath the old town keeps the batanas, dinghies and rows of excursion boats. Here you see best that Rovinj is still a fishing town: crates are unloaded in the morning, gulls escort every move, and buyers wait for fish to pass straight from deck to the fish-market stall. By day the harbour is the departure point for the islands, the Lim channel and evening panorama cruises; price boards stand on the piers, and a deal with the boatmen is still worth a handshake. Evening belongs to strollers: the lights come on in a string, the batanas rock at their moorings, and from the waterfront terraces you watch the bell tower change colours. Round both faces of the harbour in one twenty-minute loop, then finish on the southern pier: from there opens the loveliest view of the houses growing straight out of the sea, the image that made half the world hear of Rovinj.

The Rovinj Heritage Museum lives in the Baroque palace of the Califfi family on Marshal Tito Square, two steps from the waterfront: a 17th-century noble house that has been collecting the town's memory since 1954. The display is as varied as the town itself: archaeology from Monkodonja and the surrounding hillforts, Venetian painting from the 15th to the 18th century with old masters small towns rarely own, a room of the old Rovinj kitchen, ship models and the ethnography of the fishing world. The contemporary department is special: since the sixties the museum has been buying works from the Grisia exhibition, so the history of Rovinj's painters' colony reads here too. The building is an exhibit itself, with a stone staircase, stucco and a salon view straight onto the bell tower. The museum is a pleasant counterweight to the midday heat: an hour of coolness, culture and quiet in the liveliest part of town. Summer hours cover the evening, winter ones are shorter; the ticket is of the kind paid without thinking. At the end, glance at the square: palace, clock and small fountain form Rovinj's most harmonious open-air salon.

Zlatni rt, or Punta Corrente, is the noblest park of the Croatian coast: a hundred hectares of century-old forest planted from the 1890s by the Viennese industrialist Georg Hütterott, who dreamed of a climatic health resort. The resort never came, but the forest did: avenues of cypress, Himalayan cedars, pines and holm oaks now roof a web of paths strung with coves holding the cleanest sea in town. The park begins ten minutes' walk south of the centre, past the marina, and lives in the town's rhythm: morning belongs to runners and swimmers, day to bathing families, evening to dog-walkers and couples on benches. You can swim along the entire edge, from the concrete slabs by the former quarry, where climbers now scale the walls, to the pebbles of Lone bay. Entry is free, cars cannot come in, and bikes and scooters keep to the side paths. Bring a mask: the seabed off the cape is among the richest in town. The finest moment is the golden hour, when the sun lies down on the pines and the park earns its name.

Škaraba is the last cape of the town's swimming and the first cape of the wild: the rocky end of the Zlatni rt forest, where groomed paths turn to trails and beaches to a row of stone shelves above deep water. One comes here for three things the northern part of the park does not offer: solitude even on a working summer day, rock jumps of two to six metres as you choose, and a seabed that plunges steeply into blue, the favourite spot of the town's mask-and-snorkel divers. Shade comes from pines leaning over the very edge, and towel space is never short, for bathers scatter across the shelves instead of lining up beside each other. There are no facilities at all, no kiosk, no shower, so the rucksack must carry everything, water first. Škaraba is reached by a walk through the park, some twenty minutes from the entrance, or from the sea, by kayak along the shore, which is also the loveliest approach. Mind the children, the shelves stand high above the water and without rails. The reward for the small effort is a sea as it was before tourism: deep, cold at entry and entirely yours.

Cisterna is a cove in the southern part of the Zlatni rt forest, named after the old stone cistern in its hinterland that once watered the park: the smaller, quieter sister of Lone, with a mix of fine pebble and stone slabs and a sea that deepens slowly enough for families yet quickly enough for swimmers. Pines embrace the cove from both sides, so natural shade lasts into the afternoon; there are no sunbeds and no music, which is exactly why it is chosen by those who find Mulini too loud and Škaraba too demanding. The bottom is mostly rocky with sandy pockets, the water, thanks to the park location, ranks among the cleanest in town, and a mask along the edge rocks always shows something. Cisterna is reached by the park path on foot or by bicycle, some twenty minutes from the Zlatni rt entrance; a drinking fountain and benches wait along the way. There are no facilities, so bring all your own and take all of it back. Cisterna is a cove for a whole day with a book: close enough to town to come without a plan, far enough to forget what time it is.

Palud is Istria's only ornithological reserve and one of those places that show how much more Rovinj is than beaches: a marsh right by the sea, eight kilometres south of town, where in the 19th century the Austrians dug a channel toward the sea hoping saltier water would drive away the mosquitoes. The mosquitoes stayed, but the brackish lagoon became a paradise for birds: more than two hundred species have been recorded in the reeds and on the open water, from herons and swans to rare raptors, most numerous in spring and autumn when migrants rest on their way across the Adriatic. The path around the marsh is an easy hour's walk, with a birdwatching tower halfway; entry costs a token fee in season, and binoculars pay off more than a camera. The sea is right there, so the visit pairs with a swim in Palud cove, shingly and calm even in August. Bring mosquito repellent, honour the silence and keep dogs on the lead. For families this is the easiest outing into the wild: half a day, zero climbing, and the children count herons instead of parasols.

The old quarry in the heart of Zlatni rt is where Rovinj cut its stone for centuries, and today it is the park's most unexpected space: an amphitheatre of vertical rock faces some twenty metres high, open toward the sea, its floor grown over with grass and pines. From here limestone left by boat for waterfronts and palaces, and when Baron Hütterott bought the cape at the end of the 19th century, the quarry was closed and given over to the park; what remained are the flat, almost architectural planes of the cut, which now serve a new purpose. For the quarry is a natural climbing hall: several dozen routes of all grades are bolted in its walls, so in summer climbers take turns here from morning to dark while the audience watches the show from the grass. To non-climbers the space offers shade, echo and a scenography the park has nowhere else: the cypress avenue at the entrance is among Rovinj's most photographed motifs. In winter and at dusk the quarry can be utterly empty, and then it is most striking, when the stone planes read like the work of the hands that literally cut the town out of this place.

Figarola is the small island opposite Amarin beach, one of the twenty-two islands of the Rovinj archipelago and the easiest to conquer without a boat: from the shore it is some ten minutes of calm swimming, five by paddleboard or kayak. The island is low and green, with a crown of pines, a rim of stone slabs and two small shingle coves on the lee side; there are no facilities whatsoever, and that is the point. Figarola is a half-day outing planned like a little expedition: a drybag with towel and water, shoes for the rock, a mask for the seabed which is alive and clear along the island's edges. The current in the channel can work, so the swim across is not for beginners or unaccompanied children; everyone else receives a rare feeling, an island of one's own for an hour or two, with a view of the mainland from a direction it is seldom seen. Return before the afternoon maestral ruffles the channel; and the rubbish, of course, goes back in the bag. Small islands stay beautiful only if they are borrowed, not taken.

Rovinj's fish market on Valdibora is the morning stage of a town that still fishes: the stone slabs under the covered market fill from dawn with what the batanas and trawlers pulled out overnight, and by nine the best is usually sold. The offer depends on season and wind: scorpionfish, John Dory and crabs in winter, sardines, picarel and squid in summer; beside them mussels and oysters from the Lim channel, bought here fresher than in any restaurant. The fish market is also a school: the saleswomen will gladly explain the difference between catch and farm, how a cuttlefish is cleaned and how many sardines a grill for four requires. Prices are written up, cash still rules, and a bag or a box with ice is a good idea for the walk back to the apartment. If you do not cook, stroll through anyway: beside the fish market holds a small green market with Istrian vegetables, oil and truffles, so half an hour shows the whole gastronomic base of the region. Liveliest from seven to nine; Sundays are quieter, and Mondays, when the fleet rests, the most modest.

The green market on Valdibora is where the Istrian hinterland comes down to the sea every morning: stalls under plane trees and a canopy where countrywomen from around Rovinj, Bale and Kanfanar sell what was picked this morning or preserved yesterday. Summer brings tomatoes, peaches, figs and the first watermelons; autumn grapes, pomegranates and mushrooms; all year round there are Istrian olive oil, honey, herb rakijas, cheese, dried figs and truffles in jars, the most concentrated souvenir of Istria. The goods carry no designer label, but they have what matters more: tasting before buying and a conversation in which a recipe changes hands. Prices are honest, haggling mild and smiling, cash obligatory. The market works from early morning to early afternoon, the best choice is before ten; in summer come even earlier, before the heat and the groups. The fish market leans against the green one, so breakfast, lunch and souvenir are settled in a single pass. If you buy one thing: a small producer's oil, in a tin because of the light, and a bottle of water for the walk back.