Rick Steves Says These Idyllic Croatian Hill Towns Are An Excellent Alternative To The Coast

There's a reason most travelers make a beeline for Croatia's sun-splashed coast. It's where you'll find Dubrovnik, a famous medieval settlement overlooking the Adriatic Sea, and its lesser-known sibling Šibenik, one of Croatia's oldest seaside cities. It's also home to the romantic island towns of Dalmatia and the terraced vineyards of the Pelješac Peninsula. But with fame and beauty come unwanted levels of popularity. That's why European travel guru Rick Steves suggests getting off the beaten coastal trail and heading for Croatia's hill towns instead.

Writing in his blog, Steves points to the Istrian Peninsula in northwestern Croatia as a good place to start. Shaped like an arrowhead (looking at central Italy), the peninsula has vineyards and olive farms clinging to its hillsides, and pretty towns whose architecture and history hint at Istria's Roman and Venetian influences. Pula is the major port city on the peninsula, which lacks the idyllic scenery of the small towns, but makes up for it with breathtaking ancient ruins that draw parallels with Rome.

Steves has two favorite hill towns in Istria: Grožnjan, an old town of cobbled streets and olive trees that has been rejuvenated by artists seeking reprieve from the cities, and Motovun, a picture-perfect fortress surveying the rolling valleys below.

Grožnjan was inhabited as far back as the Neolithic period, its vantage point over the Mirna River valley allowing no-longer nomadic human settlers to keep an eye on enemy tribes. But it was around the turn of the 12th century that it made its mark in the history books, when it was gifted to the Patriarch of Aquileia by Marquis Ulrich II. 

Today, you can still see the remnants of the old city walls, enclosing matchbox buildings with orange tile roofs, all presided over by a stately church spire. After a period of relative obscurity, Grožnjan has been reinvigorated through the arts. Every summer, people flock to the town for dance and drama workshops, and jazz musicians fill the cobbled streets with their moody, melodic sounds. Olive groves surround the town, and its shops sell some of the finest olive oil this side of the Adriatic.

Motovun is the better-known of Steves' favorite Istrian hill towns; perhaps unsurprisingly, as it's drop-dead gorgeous. Flagstone streets, colorful storefronts, family-run truffle shops, and old ramparts overlooking the Mirna River and Istria's sun-dappled vineyards from a vantage point of 886 feet — there are few places in Croatia with better pound-for-pound scenery. Don't skip visiting the Church of St. Stephen, abutting the main square. The late-Renaissance building houses a marble statue of its patron saint (and another of St. Laurence), and a painting of the Last Supper from the 1600s by an anonymous Venetian artist.

Buje is another town on the Istrian Peninsula worthy of exploration. Known as the "Sentinel of Istria," it's 6 miles from the coast and mixes crumbly stone buildings with Venetian-style architecture. Its location, deep inland and far from major towns, means Buje has yet to land on the main tourist route. 

Hum, like much of Istria, has an undisturbed, fairytale beauty, though it's squeezed into a bite-sized package. With one circular street and a population of around 50, Hum is regarded as the smallest town in the world. This is, of course, a matter of classification; there are many smaller villages, but Hum's large church has earned it "town" status.

The town of Gračišće has its own unique distinction: it's the Slavic Olympus, where the gods of the region once lived. Having been inhabited (by mortals) for 2,000 years, the hilltop town blossomed in the medieval period, and even today it's surrounded by fortress walls, erected between the 12th and 16th centuries, and Romanesque gates. From a design standpoint, Gračišće is unique among Istrian towns. Whereas they were typically built around a central or main square, Gračišće is divided into districts, each with its own square and a church. Explore the town at your leisure, then head to one of the taverns for local dishes like truffle pasta paired with Istrian wine.