Truffle Days in Livade 2026: every weekend, 3 October to 1 November

Livade is a village of a few hundred people in the Mirna valley, and for five weekends every autumn it becomes the place where Istria sells its white truffles. The fair runs from 3 October to 1 November 2026, Saturdays and Sundays only, and entry costs nothing. Around fifty thousand people come, most of them from Slovenia, Italy, Austria and Germany, which tells you when to arrive.

The white truffle season

The white truffle is the one that makes Istria expensive in autumn. It grows wild in the damp oak soil of the Motovun forest along the Mirna river, it cannot be farmed, and the fair's organisers give its season as October to January, with the hunt itself running from October to December. Livade, a village of a few hundred people at the edge of that forest, is where the season becomes a public event.

When it is open

The part most visitors walk past

A tourist train leaves the fairground for the Motovun forest, where a truffle hunter and his trained dogs are waiting. You walk with them while the dogs work, and when one finds something it is dug up in front of you. It takes 45 minutes and costs 15 euro for adults, 10 for children. Departures are fixed at 11:00, 12:00, 13:30, 14:30 and 15:30, and places are booked in advance through the form on trufflefair.com or by phone on +385 91 430 1200. Leave your own dog at home, it distracts the working dogs.

The forest itself, Motovunska šuma, is a lowland oak wood along the Mirna, protected as a reserve and one of the last of its kind in the Mediterranean. It floods, which is why the truffle grows there and why the ground is mud from October on. The Parenzana, the narrow-gauge railway from Trieste to Poreč that ran between 1902 and 1935, stopped at Livade, and its track bed is now a walking and cycling route with the old tunnels and viaducts still in place.

What else is on the tables

• The white truffle itself, sold by weight, at prices that move with the season and the rain. Ask what it costs per gram before it goes on the scale.
• An international expo of wine, prosciutto, cheese, olive oil, honey and rakija, most of it from Istrian producers who are standing behind their own table.
• Cooking workshops and truffle dishes that chefs prepare in front of you; for the wine tasting you buy a tasting package with a glass.

Buying without being fooled

• Fresh white truffle is sold by weight and priced per gram. A price per piece, or no scale on the table, is a warning sign.
• Most cheap truffle oil carries no truffle at all, only the synthetic aroma compound. If the label lists an aroma rather than a percentage of truffle, treat it as a seasoning, not a souvenir.
• A whole fresh truffle keeps for about a week wrapped in paper in the fridge, not in rice, which dries it out. Buy on the way home, not at the start of a trip.
• The black summer truffle is a different, far cheaper species. It is a fine ingredient, but it should never be sold at white truffle prices.

What to order and how it is eaten

White truffle is never cooked. It is shaved raw over a hot, plain dish at the table, and the warmth of the plate releases the smell. The classic Istrian carrier is fritaja, eggs scrambled soft with the truffle grated in at the last second, and the fritaja is the quickest test of a konoba. Fuži and pljukanci, both hand-rolled pastas, come with butter or cream and a few grams of truffle on top, and the menu price usually covers a standard shaving, with extra grams charged by weight. Black truffle goes into the sauce and can be cooked, which is why black truffle dishes stay on menus all year and cost far less.

• Fritaja s tartufima: soft scrambled eggs with truffle grated in at the end, eaten at breakfast or as a starter.
• Fuži s tartufima: hand-rolled pasta quills with butter or cream and white truffle shaved over the top.
• Ask before you order: white or black, fresh or from a jar. The answer explains the price.
• Malvazija istarska goes with the eggs and pasta, Teran with meat, and both come from the hills around the fair.
• Supa: red wine warmed with sugar, olive oil, pepper and toasted bread, the old Istrian drink for cold evenings.

How to spend the day

Livade is small and the fair fills it, so arrive at opening or in the last two hours. The hill towns above it, Motovun, Oprtalj and Grožnjan, are the reason to stay past lunch, and each has konobas serving fuži with truffle at a fraction of what the same plate costs on the coast. If you want the forest itself, book the fair's truffle hunt ahead online or by phone, since on busy weekends the departures fill up in advance.

Getting there, and when

Livade sits below Motovun in the Mirna valley, half an hour from Poreč, forty minutes from Pula and about two hours from Trieste or Ljubljana. The valley roads carry fifty thousand people across five weekends, so the parking near the fair fills by late morning. Come before eleven or after four; the light in the valley is better in the late afternoon anyway, and Motovun on its hill above is the obvious second stop.

The Istrian motorway is shaped like a Y, the A9 up the western side and the A8 from Kanfanar towards Rijeka, and the fair sits inside the fork. From the coast leave the A9 at Nova Vas near Poreč and follow the signs for Motovun. From Rijeka leave the A8 at Lupoglav and follow the Mirna down through Buzet, a quiet road that ends at the fair. From Trieste the road comes through Koper and Buzet. Croatia has been in the Schengen area since 2023, but Italy runs temporary checks on its land border with Slovenia until 18 December 2026, so carry a passport or ID card. Public transport does not help: the Istrian railway stops at Pazin and Buzet with a few trains a day, and neither station is near Livade.

Where to stay

Livade itself has a few rooms and the Zigante restaurant, and on fair weekends those beds go months ahead. Motovun is the natural base: a hotel inside the walls, rooms and apartments in the lanes and on the slopes below, and the fair 10 minutes away by car. Farm stays in the villages between Motovun and Oprtalj put you closest to the forest. If you want the sea as well, Poreč, Novigrad and Umag are 30 to 45 minutes away and their big hotels stay open through October. Note that 1 November, the last fair day, is All Saints' Day, a public holiday in Croatia, so Croatian families are on the road that weekend too.

Where next

1. 5 kmMotovun, on the hill above the fair

   The walled town that gives the forest its name, twenty minutes up the switchbacks. Park below and walk the last stretch, the gate is too narrow for the traffic anyway.

2. 40 minPoreč and the basilica with the gold ceiling

   Half an hour to the coast, where a sixth-century basilica keeps mosaics that have not moved in fifteen hundred years.

Upstream, Buzet, 15 km up the valley, calls itself the town of truffles and holds its own truffle weekend in September with a giant omelette of more than 2,000 eggs. Istarske toplice, on the way there, is a thermal spa under a sheer rock face. Beyond Buzet, Hum claims the title of smallest town in the world and is reached from Roč along the Glagolitic Alley, a road lined with stone monuments to the old Croatian script. The record white truffle came from this region: in 1999 Giancarlo Zigante found one of 1.31 kg near Buje, it went into the Guinness book, and the fair carries his name.

Other fairs the same autumn

October is fair month in Istria, and the truffle weekends overlap with several others within an hour of Livade, worth knowing if you have a car and a spare day. The prosciutto fair ISAP in Tinjan, 10 km west of Pazin, is the closest; in 2026 it took place from 16 to 18 October. On the opening day, 304 slicers there cut prosciutto by hand at the same time, a new world record. The ham went to Tinjan's schools and the Pazin care home. Between fairs, the Hiža istarskog pršuta in the village runs a tasting room with prosciutto from Istrian producers. Kastav, on the hill above Rijeka, poured its young wine at Bela nedeja on the weekend the truffle fair opened. Buje's grape festival comes before the season, and Opatija's chocolate festival takes the weekend after the last one in Livade.

Practical notes

Rain makes the truffle, so the weather the hunters want is the weather that ruins shoes. Central Istria in October has mild afternoons and cold, foggy mornings in the Mirna valley, and the parking fields and forest paths turn to mud after any wet day. Wear shoes you can hose down and bring a layer for the evening. Croatia has used the euro since 2023, so prices per gram are in euros and your card works as it does anywhere in the eurozone, though small producers still prefer cash. Entry to the fair is free, and the dog demonstrations are one of the few things at a food fair that hold a child's attention.

Customs comes before the kitchen if you carry a truffle home. Fresh fungi count as fresh produce at the border: declare a whole truffle on arrival in the United States, Canada and the UK, and assume Australia will not let it in. Sealed jars and bottles travel with fewer questions: black truffle in oil, truffle honey, olive oil, a bottle of Malvazija. Cured meat and cheese are another matter, since the United States bars most pork products from Europe and the UK and Australia have their own limits on meat and dairy from the EU, so eat the pršut at the last dinner of the trip. Keep the stall receipt with the truffle: it shows what you bought, the weight and the price.