Hello Ladies and Gentlemen from inforovinj!

Thank you for your message. We visited Rovinj and Istria during the last week of September this year. Unfortunately the weather was absolutely awful and untypical during the first four days of our stay - but this is certainly not the fault of Rovinj ;-)!!

At first our POSITIVE impressions:

Rovinj is a very beautiful and romantic, mediterran town surrounded by a fascinating coast. We were very impressed about the multi-cultural flair of the buildings and inhabitants, influenced by the Roman, Venetian, Croatian and Austrian cultures! Most of the citizens of Istria speak one foreign language, like Italian, English or German - what allows a good conversation.

Rovinj is very clean and safe, also like the sea.

We stayed at family Crismanich in two nice apartments in Centener and enjoyed the very good restaurants "Orca", "Veli Joze" and "Al Gastaldo" ... (All I missed in Rovinj was a real Konoba, where just wine is sold together with bread, prsut and sir ...).

We were absolutely impressed by the hinterland of Rovinj, which is equal to Tuscany or Provence with the medieval "towns" like Motovun, Groznjan, Pazin and Buzet. Due to the weather we were not able to discover all of the landscape and little villages framed by vineyards and olive-trees. Naturally visitors should have a look to the fascinating ruins of DVIGRAD, where we missed a board that describes the place.

Now my NEGATIVE remarks:

We visited the AQUARIUM in Rovinj, which seems to be a part of the international known marine biologic institute of Rovinj (if I am informed right!). This exhibition was in an absolute bad state: the different basins looked unkempt and dirty, like the animals which gave us a sad impressions: they even kept a very large turtle in a very small basin. Conditions, which would not be permitted in other zoological exhibitions. I am sure that the visitors would agree with a higher entrance-fee if the installations would be proper!

Another subject for improvement could be the signs for traffic. I try to visit the winegrower "Igor+Viliam Žužic" but didn't find any sign or a trace of the village "Valderiso".
Perhaps you could also add some "viticultural" information to your webpage (something like the Tourist Information of Porec) for the increasing society of wine-friends!

(By-the-way: we bought the best wine form Eduardo + Franco Arman in Vizinada. ;-)

We will surely come back one day, to discover the highlands of Buzet and Motovun and to taste the wines of that area, and, if possible, to get impressions of the local folk music as described in your E-Mail.

IN SUMMARY we are sure that Istria will become as attractive like other southern vacancy regions in Italy or France, if a "gentle" (as we say here) tourism is continued in a clean environment, instead of big hotels the promotion of agri-tourism or apartment rental, instead of an uniform European mass-tourism the saving of the local istrian hospitality also like cultivated cultural sites and cities, and also in the future reliable prices which keep the area also attractive for families.

All the best for you and greetings from Germany,

Michael Urlaub