ISAP Tinjan 2026, 16 to 18 Oct: prosciutto fair and world record attempt

Istrian pršut is a ham with rules: the leg is trimmed with the skin and fat removed, rubbed with sea salt, pepper, garlic and bay, and left to dry in the bura for at least a year, which gives it the dark, dry, peppery cut that sets it apart from the softer Dalmatian ham. Since 2015 it carries the European protected geographical indication, Istarski pršut, and the village that made the most of it is Tinjan, 10 km west of Pazin on the road to Poreč, where the producers' association sits and where the fair began. The municipality of Tinjan organises ISAP with a programme of sports, culture, tradition and food, and the 2026 dates are Friday 16 to Sunday 18 October.

The record: 300 knives at once

The centrepiece of 2026 is an attempt at the world record for the largest number of people carving ham at the same time. The current mark is 205, set in Spain in 2018; Tinjan wants 300. Anyone can take part who knows how to slice a ham properly, no professional papers required, and the municipality takes registrations through an online form, by e-mail at svjetskirekord.prijave@tinjan.hr or by phone on +385 52 626 090. If you have ever wanted to stand in a row of three hundred people with a long knife and a leg of pršut in front of you, this is the weekend.

Programme

• Friday 16 October: opening of the fair, and in the evening Severina with the band Tequila on the main stage.
• Saturday 17 October: the fair day proper, with producers from Croatia, Italy, Slovenia, Spain and further afield, guided tastings and workshops, sports events, and Neda Ukraden with Mejaši in the evening.
• Sunday 18 October: the closing day with Night Express. The exact hours of the record attempt, the tastings and the stalls are published by the municipality on tinjan.hr and central-istria.com before the fair; entry prices are not listed.

What to buy and how to get there

Buy a whole pršut only if you have a cool, airy place for it and a long knife; a vacuum-packed piece of 300 to 500 grams travels better and keeps for weeks in the fridge. Ask for the seal of the protected indication and for the year of drying, and taste before you buy: the stalls cut freely. Tinjan is 10 km from Pazin and about 25 km from Poreč, on the road between them; from the A8 motorway take the Pazin exit, from the coast drive inland through Sveti Lovreč. The village is small, so the organisers set up parking in the fields around it and the walk to the square is a few minutes. October in central Istria means chestnuts, new wine and the white truffle season in the Motovun forest, all within half an hour of the fair.

Where to stay

Tinjan itself has only a handful of beds: private rooms in the village and agrotourism farms in the hamlets around it, and they fill for the fair weekend well ahead. If you want to see Severina on the Friday and walk back to a bed without driving, book one of these as early as you can. Otherwise the practical bases are Pazin, 10 km away with a few small hotels and a quiet centre, and Poreč, 25 km away, where the large hotels on the coast stay open into mid-October and rooms are easy to find at that point in the season. Motovun has rooms too, but the truffle weekends fill them. Rovinj is 40 minutes away and open all year.

Getting there from further away

The nearest railway station is Pazin, on the line from Pula through central Istria to Buzet, with a few trains a day from Pula that take about 1 hour. Buses from Pula, Poreč and Rijeka also stop in Pazin. The last 10 km are the problem: local buses to Tinjan are rare and stop early, so count on a taxi from Pazin or a lift from your host. Pula airport is about 45 km south with car hire at the terminal, and a hire car is the simplest answer for the whole weekend. From Rijeka the A8 through the Učka tunnel brings you to the Pazin exit in about 1 hour. From Trieste and Ljubljana you enter at the Slovenian border, inside Schengen since 2023, though Slovenia has run checks on its side at times, so keep your passport to hand.

Tinjan in short

Tinjan stands on a ridge above the dry valley that runs from Pazin west to Lim bay, in farmland of small fields, oak woods and stone walls. The old core is a single street of stone houses, a square with a loggia, and the parish church of St Simon and Jude with its bell tower, and you walk the whole of it in 10 minutes. The municipality takes in the hamlets around it and the village of Kringa, and most of the producers' drying rooms are in these hamlets. Outside the fair weekend the place is quiet: a few konobas, a shop, a post office. The bura that dries the pršut comes down from the Ćićarija ridge to the north-east, and on an October evening you feel it on the square.

How pršut is served

In a konoba the pršut comes hand-cut, in long thin slices, on a wooden board, usually with hard sheep cheese, a few olives, bread and a jug of olive oil, and often with ombolo, the dry-cured pork loin, and home-made sausage beside it. Nobody slices it by machine: the ham is dry and firm, and a long narrow knife with a steady hand gives the better cut, which is the skill the record attempt is built on. Drink malvazija, the white grape of the peninsula, or teran, the dark red from the red soil of the north. If supa is on the menu, order it once: red wine warmed with toasted bread, sugar, pepper and olive oil, served in a bukaleta jug and passed round the table. Then the heavier dishes of the season: maneštra, the thick bean and maize soup, fuži pasta with truffle or game, and roast chestnuts with the new wine.

What else to see nearby

The fair takes a morning or an afternoon. Central Istria is small, and everything below is within 30 minutes of Tinjan by car, with Beram and Kringa close enough to fit between two tastings. Most village churches are locked and the key is with a neighbour, so ask at the nearest house or bar. In mid-October the roads are empty and the hill towns have their own people back in them.

• Beram, 8 km: the church of St Mary on Škriljinah outside the village holds the Dance of Death frescoes painted by Vincent of Kastav in 1474.
• Pazin, 10 km: the castle on the edge of the chasm where the Pazinčica river goes underground, with the Ethnographic Museum of Istria inside and a path down into the gorge.
• Kringa, 5 km: the village of Jure Grando, named in a report of 1672 as a vampire, the earliest such case recorded by name in Europe.
• Sveti Petar u Šumi, 7 km: the Pauline monastery with its cloister and church, one of the quietest stops in the region.
• Dvigrad, 20 km: the medieval town above the Lim valley near Kanfanar, empty since the 17th century and open to walk through.
• Limski kanal, 20 km: the 10 km sea inlet with oyster and mussel farms, best seen from the viewpoints on the roads above it.
• Poreč, 25 km: the Euphrasian Basilica with its 6th century mosaics, on the UNESCO list since 1997.

Practical notes

Croatia uses the euro. Stalls take cash first and cards second, and the nearest cash machines and petrol are in Pazin, so withdraw and fill up before you drive in. Mid-October in central Istria means daytime temperatures around 17 degrees, evenings below 10 and a fair chance of rain, so bring a jacket for the concerts and closed shoes for the field car parks. Istria is bilingual, Croatian and Italian, and English works at the stalls. If you taste and drink, settle who drives: the limit is 0.5 per mille of blood alcohol and zero for drivers under 25. Pork products in personal luggage are stopped at the border in the US, Canada and Australia, so a pršut for those flights is eaten in Croatia, and the UK rules for meat from the EU have changed more than once since 2021, so check gov.uk before you pack one.