Umag's beaches are more like concrete slabs in the water and not very appealing, but most of the big hotels have a full slate of activities and sports available as well as programs for children. If you are staying at one of these big hotels -- or somewhere else -- a few hours at Sol Umag's Istrian-style spa can be a rejuvenating interlude. Savudrija in far northwest Istria is the newest darling among the region's many vacation towns. Perhaps that's because of its proximity to the Slovene border and Italy (2 hr. by catamaran from Venice) or perhaps it's because it is one of the few corners of Croatia as yet undiscovered by mass tourism. That's about to end with the opening of Kempinski's new golf resort.
Lost in Place -- We get lost a lot when exploring new territory, but sometimes it pays off. Instead of taking the faster Istrian Upsilon to get to Rovinj from Labin, Sanja and I decided to take the scenic route. On the way, we stumbled across Svetvincenat, a surprising little town deep in south central Istria. Svetvincenat has a tongue twister name and a mother lode of sites that surprised us. There's a 12th-century church, a bell tower, a town square with an ancient well (bunara), several vintage houses, and a castle with fortification walls, towers, and a moat. The castle is purported to be the best-preserved keep in Istria.
During a coffee stop at one of the cafes off the square, a waitress told us the castle once belonged to a Venetian family named Grimani and that the tourist office gives tours of the place during working hours (9am-2pm Mon-Fri). We couldn't make it back the next day, but this is a place we will revisit -- if we can find it again.
