Dani grožđa, the grape festival in Buje

Buje is 12 km inland from Umag with its own exit on the A9. The hilltop old town is closed to cars during the festival; park at the edge and walk up. Exact times are on the town's programme posters and on buje.hr.

Three days on the hill

Buje has celebrated its harvest since 1906, and the 2026 edition is the 120th, marked with a fingerprint motif for 120 years of people, work and tradition. Friday opens with sports competitions, children's activities, exhibitions and the first concert. Saturday draws the biggest crowd to the square. Sunday is the day of the parade, in which the villages and associations of the Buje area build floats around the vine and the year's harvest, followed by the kroštata baked with exactly 2026 grape berries and the tombola draw. No entry fee is listed. Wine, food and tombola tickets are paid at the stalls, so carry cash.

Airports, buses and the border

The nearest airport is Pula, about 85 km south and a little over 60 minutes by car on the A9. Trieste airport in Italy is a similar distance by road through Slovenia, and Venice is around 200 km. Croatia joined the Schengen area in 2023, so there are no passport checks at Plovanija and Kaštel, the crossings 10 km from Buje. Buje has no railway station. Regional buses connect the town with Umag, Novigrad, Poreč and Pula, and the stop is on the main road below the old town. Services thin out on Sunday, so check the last bus back before you commit. After the concerts a taxi to the coast is the practical way home.

Where to stay

Buje itself has a small number of beds, and they go first on the festival weekend. The villages of the Bujština, Momjan, Brtonigla and Grožnjan among them, have agrotourism farms with a few rooms each and their own wine on the table. Most visitors sleep on the coast: Umag, Novigrad and Savudrija are 15 to 25 minutes away by car and hold the hotels, campsites and apartment blocks that stay busy to the end of September, so book early. If you want to do the wine walk properly, stay in Buje or a nearby village. Croatia's drink-driving limit is 0.05 per cent blood alcohol, and zero for drivers under 25.

What else to see around Buje

The old town is a knot of lanes around the parish church of Sv. Servul, whose bell tower is the landmark you see from the coast road. The ethnographic museum of the Bujština shows the tools of the vineyard, the cellar and the farmhouse. From the edge of the old town the view runs over the vineyards to the sea and into Slovenia. Buje was a station on the Parenzana, the narrow-gauge railway from Trieste to Poreč that closed in 1935. Its trackbed is now a cycling and walking path towards Grožnjan and Motovun.

• Grožnjan, about 10 km east: a hill town of galleries, studios and summer music courses.
• Momjan, about 7 km north: a ruined castle above the valley and the cellars of the muškat momjanski.
• Motovun, about 30 km: the walled hill town above the Mirna valley and its truffle forest.
• Livade, below Motovun: the Zigante truffle days start on 3 October, as the white truffle season opens.
• Savudrija, about 20 km: the oldest working lighthouse on the Adriatic, lit in 1818.

Food, drink and what to bring

The Bujština is wine country. Malvazija istarska is the white, dry and fresh, teran the red, dark and sharp, and Momjan adds its sweet muscat. For a sit-down meal the konobas in the town and the villages serve Istrian cooking: fuži and pljukanci, the local pasta shapes, with game or truffle, pršut, sheep cheese, maneštra, a thick vegetable soup, and ombolo, the pork loin. Mid-September opens the white truffle season in the Mirna valley, so the first shavings of the year appear on menus during the festival weekend. Afternoons on the hill are in the mid 20s Celsius, the high 70s Fahrenheit, evenings cooler once the sun drops, and a shower is possible, so bring a layer for the concerts and shoes for cobbles and steps.