Kaštelir hill

Why it is worth your time

Kastelir Hill is a rise in Umag's hinterland on which remain the traces of a prehistoric hillfort, one of hundreds that in the Bronze and Iron Ages covered the Istrian landscape: the Histri, the people who gave the peninsula its name, built settlements on the summits, girdled them with dry-stone ramparts and from them watched the fields and the sea. Of the Kastelir hillfort remain the outlines of ramparts in the grass, stones scattered on the slope and a position that explains why it was chosen: from the top one sees the whole coast from Savudrija to Novigrad and the interior as far as the hills of Buje.

The site is not arranged, there are no boards or paths, so it is sought with a map or with a guide; the visit means walking on uneven ground, with good shoes. For a visitor who loves landscape with history, a half-hour climb gives the best view of the Umag region and a reminder that this space was settled three thousand years before the first hotel.