Poreč - Rob Santoro

Old Sea Village

Poreč, Croatia

In August of 2018, I was presented with the opportunity to head to Slovenia for a work trip. I had been to Slovenia previously, roughly 10 years prior, and on that trip, I ventured in to the capital city of Croatia as it was a short car ride away. At that time, Croatia had not yet been part of the EU.

Much had changed in the 10 years since I had been, so I decided it was easiest to take a direct flight to Zagreb from Paris, then to drive over to Slovenia. Since I had a car and a free weekend, I took an extra few days and headed down the coast of Croatia to a small tourist town called Poreč.

Warm shadows cast as the evening sun starts to fade.

Boats calming sitting in the harbor as the sun sets over them in Poreč, Croatia.

The sun creates an orange sky as it makes it's way to the horizon over the Adriatic Sea creating a silhouette of the boat puttering away.

Poreč was a beautiful seaside town. It reminded me very much of a smaller Italian seaside town. After all, Italy was nothing more than a 2 hour car ride away and it appeared that many of the other guests at my resort were vacationing from Italy. At the time of my stay, Croatia was not yet in the Euro Zone, so Italians could get a good bargain with lodging and food in Croatia. This was also true for fellow Americans such as myself, as the Dollar to Kuna rate was quite favorable. Though I was hard-pressed to find another American here. The resort itself was a 5 star resort right on the sea. This all can be had for four days for about $100 a night. I will say I was probably the only lone traveler. Most of the guests at this resort were families or couples enjoying the last bit of their European Summer Holiday.

The food was very similar to that of Northern Italian Seafood. Pastas and fish were a plenty. And it was delicious. Language was not an issue, most of the hotel staff and wait staff spoke some level of English. The beaches by the resort were a bit rocky, and a lot less sandy. But I wasn’t going to complain.

The walk from my hotel to the center of town was a bit further than I had thought when booking it. Not that I should have been surprised by this, I could have easily checked before booking. However, I enjoyed the 4.5km, or just over a mile, hour or so walk from my hotel to the center of town. The countryside was filled with fields for olives and grapes. Again, very similar to that dry, arid Italian landscape.

I managed to plan my walk perfectly with the sun, as by the time I entered town, the sun was just about to begin it’s colorful decent towards the horizon. I probably sat by the edge of sea and took far too many pictures of the sun as it set over the horizon but I was overtaken by the orange beauty that it was. Every now and again some blue light would appear to make it look as though the sunset was on a completely different day.

Finally, I enjoyed walking around the small, car-less streets amongst the many other tourists. Roman ruins were visible in the center of town, and the small shops sold local arts and crafts.

All in all, Poreč was a random pick from a map based on how long it would take me to get there from my work meeting location and well worth the trip over the bigger, more famous beach towns in Croatia.