I was also considering calling this blog the Accidental Wine Trip. Initially we were supposed to be on a sailboat leaving Split. I booked the flights and some accommodations then found out a couple bailed so the economics didn’t work. Apparently, this happens to my buddy often. So still wanting to travel I hit Mr. Google hard and turned our sailing trip into a wine touring trip. It turned out great, but how does it not in this beautiful part of the world.
As always, a map is the best way to orient oneself. Unfortunately, there is no one map that shows where we were since we were in 3 different countries. So, you get 3 maps – the trick is to find Trieste which appears on all 3 maps, then you can orient yourself.
And to start the tour narrative we begin in Split, which isn’t even on one of the maps. Its about 200km south of the Istrian peninsula on the Adriatic coast. Since we were supposed to sail out of Split that is where our flight was booked. We had visited Split previously on a cruise but only for one day. We spent a few days here getting over jetlag. It is so cool to walk through a former Roman Emperor’s palace complete with Sphinx from Egypt. Diocletian was one of the great rulers of Rome. He is one of the few emperors to retire. He built the palace in Split close to his hometown of Salona.
I am now a Roman History nerd, having listened to all 190 episodes of the History of Rome podcast. The first Roman site we visited after the palace was the ruins of the town of Salona. As far as ruins go, they are pretty ruined so unless you are into Roman history you could pass on this.
We didn’t do much else, we were going to go to an island close by but the jetlag got hold of us that day. What we did do is eat and drink. The highlight of our Split leg was Kastel Sikuli; a restaurant in a vineyard half an hour from Split looking across the bay to Split. We had a fabulous 4 course meal with bottomless wine glasses. The food was Michelin style and quality, and the wine was top quality. This was our first taste of Croatia’s signature red wine, Plavec mali. Plavec mali is a cross between Crljenak kaštelanski (better known as Primitivo in Italy and as Zinfandel in the United States) and Dobričić (indigenous grape), a fact only discovered in 1998 through DNA testing. Service was very attentive as there were only 2 other tables. One was a lovely young Ukrainian lady from Lisbon who we got to know over the course of the evening.
From Split we travelled to Pula on the Istrian peninsula. We bused to Zadar then took a ferry the rest of the way. The neat thing about arriving on ferry is landing right in front of the amphitheater. The hotel I booked was next door to the amphitheater and thus a short walk. However despite all this good planning we were foiled by the Hotel gods. Hotel Amfiteatar decided to throw us into some overflow apartment a 30-minute walk away. They called a cab who didn’t have a clue which building we were to go to. Somebody was supposed to meet us but never did. We finally found the building and the apartment was poor, I would have given it a rating of 2/5. There was absolutely nothing around, no restaurants, grocery stores or even a convenience store/tobacco store. DO NOT BOOK THIS HOTEL.
We only spent the day in Pula, some nice sights with the amphitheatre being the highlight. It’s the 6th largest Roman arena standing today. It was built at the time of Jesus Christ. We did a short walk around town using our Rick Steves guidebook. There’s a few more roman sites including a nice little mosaic floor. From Pula we went to Rovinj, our Istrian base.
Rovinj is the kind of town I could live in every winter. Coastal Croatia feels like Italy, and for good reason, it was ruled by Italy for much of its history. This is reflected in the many Italian restaurants. Also just strolling down the cobblestone streets transports you to an Italian movie set. Speaking of strolling we were probably 5 minutes from the market. I would need a market if I were to live abroad. This trip is where we discovered figs. I really don’t know why we never ran into them before. So, we asked a fellow in the market about them and he showed us the best type to buy. I don’t think I mentioned how beautiful it is, the town sits on a little peninsula that juts out into the sea.
This town must be great because we have such good memories despite contracting Covid-19 again. Thankfully we had such a wonderful little apartment that was so cozy and close to a drug store. We did get a tour of some other towns in Istria like Motovun and Porec. Motovun was interesting in that you looked down on the forest where they harvest truffles. We did a truffle tasting in town and I picked up a jar. You see truffles on the menu everywhere in Istria. In the evening sunset cruises with dolphin watching are on offer all along the waterfront. We like dolphins and did see some jumping.
Next onto Italy, Trieste to be exact. Trieste is the capital of the province of Friuli Venezia Giulia (“FVG”), one of Italy’s lesser-known regions but no less wonderful. We spent a day on a hop-on hop-off tour and then walking back to our hotel via the roman ruins (remember I’m a geek) we passed on the bus. Trieste is a grand city with important looking buildings, many from when it was a regional capital of the Hapsburgs. The main reason for the stop here was to connect to the Italian train system for our tour of FVG.
So, stop #2 was Grado, what a little gem. It’s a water town, you get to it via a long bridge over a lagoon, there are boats everywhere. Its small and so easy to stroll everywhere. This was also the start of our Italian wine tasting. We passed through many vineyards on the train. This is where Pinot Grigio comes from; makes sense that a cool climate white would come from the north of Italy. We just ordered whites by the glass, they were fine to accompany the meal but didn’t find anything exceptional here.
I mentioned this is not a well know area. In fact I had difficulty researching this area when I was planning the trip. The only good source I could find was Elbrich Bos’s site https://www.explorefriuli.com/. It was so good that I engaged her online and she was helpful, so I booked her for 2 days. Day 1 was spectacular, we started in Palmanova, a medieval fortified town. I’ve seen town ramparts before but nothing like this. I just wish they offered helicopter rides.
The next stop was the real highlight – Aquilia. I bumped into this on Elbrich’s website, and then the light bulb went on; I had heard about Aquilia on the History of Rome podcast several times. I then looked at the roman roads map on Wikipedia and could see that Aquilia stood on the path that the Romans would take to get to their Eastern Empire. As a result, it was the fourth most important city during the height of Roman power. I thoroughly enjoyed Elbrich’s description of a battle over on the port where a Barbarian usurper unsuccessfully tried to enter the city. But the jewel in the crown was the mosaic in the church. The contemporary picture of the Romans is during the golden age of Julius Caesar, the Coliseum and the movie Gladiator. However, you don’t think of them building churches. In 312AD the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity which became the official state religion, out with Jupiter and in with Jesus. The church in Aquilia was built in 320AD, so I am thinking Constantine, or the bishop of Constantinople commissioned construction. What is so impressive is the 750m2 mosaic floor. The artistry and craftsmanship of the Roman mosaics is stunning. You view the floor from elevated walkways. There are scenes from the bible, especially the story of Jonah and the Whale. I especially like the octopus.
Then it was time to get out into nature and see this waterlogged place. The plan was to cycle over to an estuary and look for birds. However, we were still not feeling well from Covid so looked for an e-bike and found a place in town that only rents them. I love a country that builds bike paths; there was a bike path all the way out to the estuary. By the way Elbrich pointed out people cycling by Aquilia and said there was a long bike path that stretched north and south to Grado. The estuary is in a nature reserve and had a couple of blinds for bird watching. The first place we stopped – no luck. The second place we had success; we saw our first flamingo in the wild, herons, ibis, egrets, etc.
From Grado we went to Cormons in the Colli wine region. To be more precise we were in the Friuli Colli Orientali DOC which is in the larger FVG region. It’s the red area to the right on the map.
This is where we were going to find the real Pinot Grigio of Italy not the crappy lemon water they export. Wrong – we must have tried over a dozen and could not find one we liked. Yes some were not lemon water but the flavours were weird, with off-putting notes. The other disappointment was we could not visit any wineries since it was harvest and all the producers are small and won’t give tours or tastings when they are busy. That doesn’t mean we didn’t find any wine; we used the old wine bar trick. Enoteca de Cormons was well set-up for tasting wine. They used clothes pins to designate what wine you are tasting; they just clamp the labeled pin onto the stem of the glass. What we didn’t get was any interaction with the staff. The first evening was poor on service since every table was occupied. So, as I mentioned we were unable to find a Pinot Grigio we liked. We weren’t a fan of their indigenous grape Friulano, it didn’t have any acid. Our favorite grape turned out to be Ribolla Gialla also an indigenous grape, but not well known outside of this area. It had some apple and lemon giving it some acid. However, we did have one wine that was probably the best we had at the Wine Festival, it was a blend of Friulano and Sauvignon Blanc, where the Sauv Blanc added some acid that was missing in the Friulano. I know I’m going on and on about acid, but in a white wine the acid gives the wine a brightness and its what makes it such a good companion with food.
So due to it being harvest we couldn’t visit the wineries but instead we got a Wine Festival. It was not a high-class affair held at the Four Seasons, its more like a small town fair with no rides. It was held throughout the middle of the town and part was right across from the B&B we were staying at. There were food stalls, wine tables and entertainment. At our B&B and also at the festival we had what the locals call gnocchi and its not the little potato dumpling you pour sauce over. I believe it is a mix of Italian and Austrian food traditions. It is a dumpling filled with a plum and cooked in butter sprinkled with brown sugar. It looks much more like a German dumpling than Italian but who cares when it tastes so good. The B&B was run by a very nice lady Irina who fed us well and told us about the festival. Although we enjoyed pretending to be locals, we can’t stay up late like they do. However, in hindsight we should have kept on drinking because we were not getting any sleep, remember the entertainment and us being across the street. Thankfully this party did shut down eventually, we had a trip to Spain where their festival went ALL night. Overall, it was an enjoyable area to visit its just disappointing we didn’t find a killer wine.
So now we join our previously planned tour to Zagreb and Slovenia, I had booked these places to visit after sailing. However, to get to Zagreb we had to overnight in Trieste again and eat their damn Italian food again. We went for our passeggiata (an evening stroll in Italian) along the waterfront to Eataly. Another day another bus. Zagreb is a grand city, meaning its one of those European cities with the grand plaza, statues, big ornate buildings around the square, buskers, etc. A lot of that grandness came from the Austo-Hungarian Habsburgs who ruled this area for centuries. For dinner our first night we strolled through the grand plaza to a wine bar called Cheese Bar. We sat outside and tried a couple of Plavec Mali and some nibbles, a very civilized way to dine.
We like to book a walking tour when in a new city and Zagreb was a good one. There is a hill behind the main square that I’m not sure we would have found on its own, it had some lovely streets and sights. Croatia has an interesting history with the Austro-Hungarians, then the experiment with communism as part of Yugoslavia, the war and now this beautiful peaceful country. Our guide pointed out a few restaurants that we tried later. The next day was museum day, the first being the Tesla Museum. It is an interesting museum with some of Tesla’s creations he used for his experiments and other industrial items like antique cars. I thought the museum might explain more about Tesla’s life and Edison but it only gave glimpses of his life. The second museum was a revelation. Its an art museum like we have never seen before. It is called The Museum of Naïve Art and features the art of untrained painters. It is NOT childish or amateurish, it doesn’t follow the rules or want to be like some great master. It just wants to be beautiful, how naïve. Just take a look at a couple of the paintings and tell me they don’t catch your eye.
So now I get to relay my Croatian Wine Experience. After dinner we are going for our passeggiata, and we see a wine store and start drifting toward it. A fellow is standing in the doorway and asks us if we like wine. We say yes and he says come on in, I’ll buy you a glass of wine. At this point I say, self you are in for a wild or weird ride so buckle up or leave now. The guy was super friendly and I figure if nothing else I’ll have a story so I stayed. Sure enough, he calls over to a lady and asks for a bottle of wine. At this point it registers that he doesn’t work here. We each get a nice glass of white wine (way better than Italy) and chat with our patron. Turns out he was with the group at the only occupied table in the shop, and he bet them he could sell 5 bottles of wine to people off the street. So that was the catch, but little did he know that I wanted to buy a bottle of Plavic Mali. I had my inflatable wine bag (to carry in your luggage) and thought I would get a bottle from Cormons but that never happened so then I turned my sights on Plavic Mali. So, when I said lets go look he got one of his buddies to help me. That guy knew a lot about the Croatian wine industry including the story of Mike Grgich. Grgich became the winemaker and limited partner at Chateau Montelena. His 1973 vintage Chardonnay was selected to compete in the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, where it was ranked the number one white wine. If you have not seen the movie Bottle Shock its all about how the California wine industry got put on the map. Grgich came back to Croatia and has a winery there now, and I liked the story so much I bought the wine. I’ll let you know how it tastes when I pop the cork.
Now to our last leg, Slovenia. Not Slovakia, Slovakia was the last half of Czechoslovakia. Slovenia borders Croatia to the South and Italy to the West. Slovenia was also part of Yugoslavia. Slovenia is a hidden gem. You might recognize the name as being where Melania Trump is from. Slovenia is nestled in the Julian Alps, these are a smaller mountain range than the Alps. Our first stop was the capital city of Ljubljana. What a quaint beautiful little city it is. The city mascot is a dragon, because of the dragon bridge, built at the beginning of the 20th century. They also have a very odd bridge set-up off the main square; there are 3 bridges next to each other. Apparently, the original bridge wasn’t big enough, so they added 2 more and now it’s a UNESCO heritage site. Just to the left as you pass over one of the bridges is the Riverside Market. I love markets, there is always something new like the milk dispensing machine. Upon arriving the previous day, we got a light lunch. We found a basic restaurant that had some nice-looking salads on the menu. In Europe, well at least Italy and its neighbours, don’t seem to know what a salad dressing is. What you get is a bottle of oil and a bottle of vinegar. We had to look 2 or 3 times at the tall bottle of black liquid, I then took a taste and it was oil. In fact, it was a very nice oil. So back to the market again we see these bottles of pumpkin seed oil and the liquid is black. The picture on the bottle shows a pumpkin with black seeds. I’m saving our souvenir oil till salad season (in the summer using our garden greens).
Just to add to the charm of this city they put a castle on the hill. It looks great sitting above the town. We took a funicular up to the castle. There wasn’t much history here. What was kind of fun was the puppet museum. The handiwork was impressive. We decided to do Lupper because we had a wine tasting that evening and we wanted to have some food in our bellies. Lupper is the meal between lunch and supper, so say about 3pm. I had a craving for something other than pasta or pizza and a plate of Carolina sausage (local variety and very good) with potatoes and sauerkraut and a beer hit the spot. Brenda was also craving comfort food and ordered a bowl of mushroom soup served in a bread bowl. The restaurant was busy, and the servers wore traditional clothes, all signs of a good authentic restaurant. When Brenda finished her soup she asked our waiter what they did with all the used bread bowls, without skipping a beat he said we take them downstairs, wash them out and re-use them. At 5pm we went for our wine tasting. I was a bit nervous because the brochure had a picture of beautiful people having a good time; this often means party time. We were looking to learn about Slovenian wine and wanted a real curated tasting; thankfully we got it. The young man knew his stuff and the other guests were mature, not old. He had a map on the wall to show us the different regions and he had a good variety of wine styles as well. Our favorite was actually an orange wine made from Pinot Grigio. Our conclusion about Slovenian wine is its world class and better than Italian FVG wines.
We did find the Roman site in Ljubljana. There isn’t much to see, just a few artifacts. I just want to say that I had been in Emona – the Roman name.
Lake Bled is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The main attraction is the little island with a church on it but frame the island with the mountains and the castle in the background and your breath will escape you. We stayed at a B&B right across from the island, the view was spectacular. The main road around the lake went in front of the hotel and was a bit noisy but not bad. We ordered breakfast on our touring days which was tasty and abundant, there was enough left over we made sandwiches for lunch. For dinner our first night we had to try the famous Bled cake, its phyllo dough with a custard and whipped cream, it was good but a bit overrated. We walked around the lake to catch all the views, and as a bonus we got to see a rowing race; they use the lake as their Olympic training facility for rowing. For dinner we took a stroll off the beaten path and went to a glamping hotel that had a very nice restaurant. It was a fixed price menu with 3 courses, Brenda had trout and I had a lamb shank with a truffle demi-glaze. I mentioned Croatia has truffles in Istria, well so does Slovenia in the small section that extends into the Istrian peninsula. I am a fan of truffles when used sparingly and this was the best truffle dish I have ever had since it added a little flavour kick but didn’t overwhelm the dish, not that I am an expert on the subject.
More exercise was the plan for the next day, so we booked a tour of the Vingtar gorge. If you like seeing the power of rushing water then you will love this hike. The natural beauty of this place is stunning. After a rest the sun poked its head out so we ran across the street to where the boats are moored. The boat is called a Pletna, It’s rowed by a guy that stands in the back not unlike a gondolier in Venice. Apparently, an Empress (Austo-Hungarian) commissioned some locals to build the boats and ferry pilgrims to the church, thus proving them jobs for generations. The views that day from the boat are burnt into my memory now. More meat and potatoes for dinner and a better dessert called Grmada – a walnut cake with rum and whipped cream. Our waiter was very good and personable. We told him we love his country – the natural beauty, the man-made sights, the great food and wine, and the friendly people. If this sounds good to you go ahead and book a flight to Slovenia, then zip down to the Istrian peninsula, you will not be disappointed.
We had one last food adventure on this trip. Getting out of Ljubljana airport isn’t that difficult, just tricky to do it in one day. Our flight home was out of Gatwick, so we stayed the night in a little hotel in Horley. I can’t say I know what Horely looks like since we just walked over to a local pub called Ye Old Six Bells. The best part of the walk was the path beside the church and its graveyard grounds. What a lovely little pub, it was better than I had hoped for. We ordered Fish and Chips and Sticky Toffee Pudding for dessert. Yes, yes, yes, the perfect English pub dinner. The fish was fresh, the chips crunchy, the pudding was divine and the beer warm (can’t win them all). And the cherry on top was the service. It was very competent and polite during the meal and after the meal on our way home the waiter chased me down to return my hat that I left behind.
