We had a very fun and educational truffle experience today. They called it a truffle hunt, and we did indeed find four truffles, but it was more of a demonstration.

We met at the Miro Tartufi headquarters just below the town of Motovun. We opted for the group hunt for 90 € each. There were 16 participants in all. The true truffle hunters go out for hours in the woods with their dogs, while we strolled through the woods for about an hour, listening to Miro, who was passionate about his subject and obviously loved his dogs.

Miro told us everything we wanted to know about truffles and truffle hunting. Right now it is white truffle season, which starts around September and ends at Christmas. Black truffle season starts around March and runs through August, but the seasons do overlap.

Miro pays 250 € per year for a license to hunt for truffles on the land we walked today. Fifteen years ago he planted hundreds of trees on his own property, which he called a truffle farm. They recently found their first truffles in the orchard. The truffles grow on the roots of all kinds of trees. They don’t last long, about 20 days, and if not found, they are eaten by bugs and decompose back into the soil. You can go back and find truffles in places where you’ve found them before. Miro said he goes out daily. The price for truffles fluctuates wildly, it can reach as high as 5000 € per kilo for the white truffles.

They train the dogs very early, using truffle oil and bits of truffle in their food. They look for dogs that are not “lazy”, are good diggers, and not known for chasing wildlife. Miro had to give one of the dogs away because it only wanted to chase deer. The truffle hunter must be quick too, as the dogs will eat the truffles.

There was an older dog, Bella, who at twelve years old does not go out hunting any longer, but feels left out, so they must take her walking in the woods. He said he trusted her 99% of the time, when alerted to a truffle. Lila the Lab he trusts 80% of the time, and Jackie, who is learning, gets it right about 20% of the time.

The truffle hunt included the lunch. It was the best lunch so far of this trip with different types of truffle spreads, a salad with shaved truffles, and scrambled eggs with truffles. The eggs were fantastic. They scrambled them with butter, olive oil, grated truffles, anchovies and Parmesan cheese. It was topped with shaved truffles.

It was well run and felt like an honest example of what a truffle business can be. The dogs seemed happy and Miro and his family and helpers seemed genuine and friendly.

After our truffle filled morning we drove twenty minutes to the small town of Grožnjan, a local artistic community. It had restaurants and shops, and to our surprise, karaoke in the square.

From our rental house it was an hour drive to see Rovinj on the coast. The drive was scenic, through mostly vineyards and olive groves. We saw olives being harvested at four of the groves, but the grapes have already been harvested.

At the farmer’s market we tasted samples of the truffles. In the past I have avoided dishes made with truffle oil, it’s always been too strong for my taste. But here, what a difference. The truffles in the jars weren’t strong, just pleasant. We ended up buying two jars of truffles, but not the truffle oil or truffle powder.

Having seen so many representations of the winged lion, or St Mark, I was curious about the origin. A google search for St Mark opened up a rabbit hole of catholic symbology and history of the saints. In Augie’s words “Raised a Catholic, I always figured you couldn’t tell a Saint without a score card.” I think we have seen as many winged lions as crucifixes. There were at least four in this town.

We drove from Rovinj north towards Poreč. My sole purpose of visiting this coastal town was to tour the Euphrasian Basilica, built in the 6th century. When we found the ticket office, we were told that it had closed at 1:30 today for two weddings. We were disappointed and headed to lunch instead.

Truffle ravioli and a glass of wine only slightly eased my disappointment. We discussed options and ideas. We decided on making a quick return to the city early Monday, prior to heading into Italy.

Once we had a plan, we walked back to the Basilica to confirm the opening hour on Monday. There was a wedding party exiting the basilica, and a band and crowd at the gate. At the same time we saw a guide ushering a group of tourists past the throng and into the church. We slipped in right behind them and joined the tour.

We only saw the basilica, the atrium, and the baptismal room, but that was better than nothing. We missed the Bishops palace and the bell tower.

I would have liked to make a proper tour of the entire “masterpiece”, as it is described, but we were lucky to be able to see the basilica with its marble columns and beautiful mosaics. We drove the 45 minutes back to the house and called it a day.

We are staying at a very nice VRBO rental in Istria, with a view of the hilltop town of Motovun. We rolled into the rental just prior to sunset. Marion met us there and introduced us to the cats, and our accommodation.

We woke to thick fog filling the valley. But it cleared quickly. The little town of Motovun was a ten minute drive and then a 15 minute walk through the stone streets. It was nice to have a day without a lot of driving.

In the guidebooks Motovun is called “the most celebrated of the Istrian hilltowns”, “picturesque” and “fairytale.” The Istria Tourist Board describes Motovun-Montona as “magical” and “the best preserved medieval urban complex in Istria.” All pretty accurate, and we had a fun and relaxing day wandering the streets and settling in for lunch.

We climbed to the top of the town, but not the Bell Tower. Augie was happy to see it was closed today. There was a shop in the square selling locally made olive oil, soap, chocolate, liquors, jams, and more. We made a few purchases and tasted the olive oils.

It is another walled city, so we were compelled to walk it.

After lunch we drove down into the small town below the walled section looking for vines. We found not only the vines, but the Tomaz winery and tasting room. We tried to get a tasting but it was full, and we were told it was best to make a reservation. We bought two bottles of the white I had at lunch, each bottle costing just 12.50 € .

We had a good weather day today. It was sunny and 75 F. We watched the sun go down from the patio.

We made the drive up to Plitvice Lakes National Park from Trogir, stopping in Zadar for lunch along the way. We had a bit of trouble finding our lodgings but finally pulled in right around sunset.

We arrived at the park at 8 am, and were glad we made the effort. We had portions of the boardwalk to ourselves at that early hour. It was cold enough to see your breath, and we had deep shadows in places. But the lack of people made it worth while.

It’s a truly beautiful park, and it’s one of the most well run parks I’ve ever visited. The boardwalks are beautiful and get you into places you could not have gone otherwise.

Plitvice Lakes National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was National park is 1949 and UNESCO site in 1979. It’s our fifth UNESCO site of this trip, something we weren’t even trying to do.

It is absolutely pristine. The water is crystal clear, but they make a huge effort towards that. No feeding the ducks or fish, no swimming in the lakes. There were park rangers galore.

We started our walk at Gate 1, then took the shuttle boat to the drop off point to the upper lakes. We walked the upper lakes, all on boardwalks and trails. It’s very well maintained and marked. We think we walked about 5 miles. There were many people with dogs, welcome visitors, as long as they are on leash.

I was impressed with the boardwalk. It was sometimes over the lakes, or marsh, or even placed over waterfalls.

I was impressed with the park and recommend a stop here if visiting Croatia.

We boarded a ferry in Split, and two hours later were driving onto the island of Hvar at the small port town of Stari Grad. The pedestrian ferry has a direct route into Hvar Town, the main attraction. But we wanted our car as we were on a mission to find a local winery where we could taste a few wines and see more of the island.

We walked along the waterfront, enjoyed some coffee and continued our drive.

The steeply climbing hairpin turn main road heading east out of Jelsa would have been a pleasure on a motorcycle, but alas, we were in an Opel. Still it was scenic if also hair raising at times.

If what we saw previously were narrow, these roads were half that size. We drove up some gravel roads to spots where we had to back out, with no room to turn around.

Still we continued our search for vineyards and wine, and the perfect wine tasting experience. Several spots where we thought we saw signs of a tasting room turned out to be dead ends.

We were starting to worry we wouldn’t have a chance to taste some locally made wines, when we stumbled upon the Plančić winery. We passed by the nearly hidden road the first time, then turned around and saw the sign pointing down towards what looked like a garage. With no sign of life we thought we had made a mistake.

We walked around the building, through scattered equipment and tires, thinking for sure we had the wrong place. We were about to give up when we did find someone. Three men were wrestling with machinery inside the building, but directed us out to the picnic table.

Mario, as it turned out, gave us a quick tour of the fermentation vats and bottling area, then wiped off the outside table and sat us down. He bade us to wait maybe five or ten minutes and he would be back. It appeared that they were having some sort of issue with the bottling machine. They had finished the harvest the day before, having started it in August. We felt like we were intruding. But no, Mario was more than happy to open a few bottles with us and talk about his wine. He said it got him out of working on the bottling.

Mario returned with three bottles of his wine. He explained to us that they have 8 hectares of vines, and that each one is a microclimate. The soil, the slope, the amount of sun, each one determines how the wine will taste.

From the Hvar tourist board website (visithvar.hr):

Plančić Winery

Wine production in the Plančić family was founded in 1919 with the arrival of Plančić’s grandfather in Svirče. The winery started modern wine production in 1985. The concept of Plančić winemaking is based exclusively on the production of wines originating from autochthonous Hvar grape varieties.https://www.facebook.com/vinaplancic

After our positive reaction to the first three, Mario brought out a 2016 Grand Cru. This wine he said, should be enjoyed slowly, like whiskey, with a good movie and maybe a cigar.

What we found was a true wine tasting experience. There was no fancy tasting room with a million dollar view. We got something better, an introduction to the wine – and Croatian history – from the winemaker himself, and a lesson in family dynamics. When we first arrived we saw Mario’s brother deep in the every day tasks of winemaking, moving about with purpose. He did not speak to us, and we asked “Is that your brother?” Mario’s response was “Unfortunately yes.” We laughed, but later learned that the family relationship is as complex as the wine. And while they argue every day (per Mario), they are family, and always come together by the end of the day. His brother was happy to come out and greet us, but spoke no English, and we speak no Croatian.

When I told Mario that it was a dream of mine to have my own small vineyard, he did as almost all winemakers and vineyard owners have, he smiled (I think there may even have been some eye rolling), shook his head and said it was a lot of work.

We were sorry to leave our very personal introduction to Croatian culture and wine, but we still wanted to see Hvar Town and we did have a return ferry ticket for later that day.

We read somewhere that Dubrovnik is called the Pearl of the Adriatic. Now we are visiting the Jewel of the Adriatic. The sites we covered in Trogir today included the Cathedral of St Lawrence, the Church of St John the Baptist, the Church of St Dominic, the Church of St Nicholas, the Loggia and Clock Tower, the Sea Gate, and the many narrow streets making up the old town. We also squeezed in a relaxed lunch, believe it or not.

Because we are staying right across the bridge from the old town, we headed out early for pictures, trying to beat the crowds. Then returned for breakfast, and back into town for the church pilgrimage.

For 5 € we toured the small exhibit in the Church of St Nicholas. Paintings of saints, the Madonna and Child, and a well preserved Greek relief of Kairos from the 1st century BC.

The Loggia faces the main square and the Cathedral of St Lawrence.

Another 9 € ticket gave us entrance into the Cathedral and the Museum of Sacred Art.

We climbed yet another bell tower while we waited for a mass to be completed in the cathedral.

The entrance to the cathedral is said to be the finest expression of Romanesque carving in Dalmatia, created by sculptor Master Radovan in 1240. It is very detailed, depicting scenes from the Bible, Adam and Eve, the birth of Christ, and many we didn’t recognize. Augie’s twelve years of Catholic education comes in handy as he can still read a lot of the Latin.

We made our way through the maze of narrow streets to the Church of St Dominic.

There was a small side entrance to the Church of St Dominic with no attendant and no one else in the church. Constructed in the 14th century and later renovated. The interesting part of this church was the central garden area, where we found old architectural pieces propped up around the garden.

The central garden had orange and lemon trees full of fruit. We also saw pomegranate trees.

It was time to take a break. Lunch was pasta and mussels in a traditional sauce from Dalmatia.

Post lunch the wind was blowing again and I was in need of coffee and dessert. No shortage of offerings there.

We rested for a few hours in the afternoon, then Teresa and I walked back over to the island to watch the sun set. We met a friendly local and watched a parade of dog walkers.

Today was moving day. We packed up our rental car and started driving north on highway 8. We drove through a few long tunnels, but mostly the road followed the coast.

We passed vineyards and olive groves. The vineyards don’t look like what I’m used to in the Oregon wine country, with neatly spaced rows, carefully pruned and tended. The vineyards look much more wild. The tasting room attendant said the vines are left alone to work at finding water and nutrients.

We passed many olive trees, which are so pretty, but with narrow roads and no pullouts, it’s hard to get photos.

These are perfect roads for motorcycles, and we saw quite a few groups of them on the road.

Our route took us through an agricultural area. There were many roadside fruit and vegetable stands. We stopped at one and bought tomatoes, lemons, fresh squeezed orange juice and fig jam. We should have bought some olive oil but there was no way to taste it.

It was raining hard when we found a parking spot in Split. We took refuge in a restaurant acrosss the street from the cathedral.

We walked through the cathedral after lunch.

We pulled into Trogir in the pouring rain. We’re staying just across a bridge from the small UNESCO World Heritage Site town.

After the rain stopped Teresa and I did a quick reconnaissance of the town. It’s small, with narrow cobblestone streets, and lots of restaurants. Tomorrow we will tour the historic sites. Tonight we just soaked up atmosphere and walked back to our rental place with a pizza.