While the cultural heritage of the coastal part of Istria attracts visitors mainly with its urban Mediterranean setting, there is the equaly breathtakingly beautiful inside, with its predominantly cultivated landscape and small Istrian villages and towns.
More on: http://central-istria.com and http://www.coloursofistria.com
Vodnjan mummy Saints
Keywords: mummies, saints, relics
Region: Istra
Nearest town: Pula, Rijeka
Content: Sacral monuments and leftovers
Vodnjan mummy Saints
A collection of relics in Vodnjan and Vodnjan mummies of saints are situated in the church of st. Blaise in Vodnjan in Croatia.
Church of Sts. Blaise was built from 1760 to 1800 years and is the largest church in the wide area. The height of the church tower is 60 meters.
Vodnjan is known worldwide for its collection of relics. The collection includes a total of 370 relics of 250 Christian saints. Among them are the preserved bodies representing scientific phenomenon.
This unique treasure of relics is located in the former sacristy. It has the largest collection in Croatia and one of the largest in Europe. Every year thousands of visitors visit and pilgrimage to this place.
The collection includes 730 works of sacred objects from the period from the 4th to the 11th century. The church has ten altars, 24 paintings and 18 sculptures.
The secret of the mummies
The bodies are not embalmed nor were ever sealed. Scientists still can not explain, what has prevented the decomposition. In addition to the bodies the clothing in which the saints are buried has also been preserved. At the moment, mummies are laid at glass coffins.
Around the world, there is a small number of mummies, that remained intact for centuries, without the use of special chemicals.
church photo "Vodnjan Church, Northwest Croatia" by Modzzak - Vlastito djelo postavljača. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vodnjan_Church,_Northwest_Croatia.JPG#mediaviewer/File:Vodnjan_Church,_Northwest_Croatia.JPG
Hum - medieaval pearl of central Istra
Region: Istra
Nearest town: Pula
Content: Historical site
Hum - medieaval pearl of central Istra
Hum - the medieval town also known as the smallest town in the world. The legend says it was created by accident - the giants who built the surrounding towns in the Mirna River valley, decided to use the few remaining rocks and build a miniature city. Time has not changed much this small town, and it's small cobbled streets seam to still be talking about ancient knights and medieval legends.
Hum today is a memorial town, one of the few surviving examples of urban development exclusively within the early medieval walls. In the course of almost a millennia, from XI.st. to date, outside the walls pf Hum almost nothing was built, the town has remained within the limits defined already in the early Middle Ages.
http://www.coloursofistria.com/hr/destinacije/istra/hum-najmanji-grad-na-svijetu
The Cave of Pazin
Keywords: cave, novel, Jules Verne
Region: Istra
Nearest town: Pula, Rijeka
Content: Nature
The Cave of Pazin
Under the walls of the Castle, in the hatch of the Cave of Pazin, the Stream of Pazinčica ends its flow above the ground, continuing underground southwards. About a hundred meters under the town level, the underground stream creates two lakes connected by a siphon. When there are periods of profuse rains, the hole of the cave cannot swallow all the incoming water, so a real lake is then formed in the canyon, sometimes even 2 km long. Such floods were registered in 1883, 1896, 1930, 1934, 1935, 1961, 1964,1974, 1993, 2002 (two times), 2008 and 2009. The greatest of all ever known was the one from 1896, when the water lacked only 30m to reach the walls of the castle.
Jules Verne, a pioneer of science fiction, set a large part of the plot of his novel Mathias Sandorf from 1885 into Pazin. After the introductory part of the novel, which takes place in Trieste, a rebellious count Mathias Sandorf and his two friends are arrested and imprisoned in the Castle of Pazin. They manage to escape through the window and down the lightning rod into the cave, and are then carried into the underground by the flood. After a while, two rebellions see daylight in the Bay of Lim on the West Coast of Istria. The story leads us all over the Adriatic (Rovinj, Dubrovnik) and further over the Mediterranean (Sicily, Malta, Gibraltar).
The Castle of Pazin
The Castle of Pazin
The Castle of Pazin is the biggest and the best-preserved medieval fortress in Istria. It was first mentioned in written documents in 983. Since that time, the Castle and the growing civil area that surrounded it have been given as present, conquered and sacked, destroyed, rebuilt and sub-leased many times. It has changed owners, managers and names. It was under the dominion of Patriarchate of Aquileia, and then under the County of Gorizia. The whole Middle Istrian area, then called Graftschhaft Mitterburg, Contea di Pisino or the County of Pazin was being governed within the safety of its masonry. Since 1374, the whole County had been a private property of the Austrian house of Habsburgs. Today, the Ethnographic Museum of Istria and the Museum of Pazin are located there, and their exhibitions are held.
photo http://www.infoteka.hr/3d/LINKOVI/MARKOVIC/ka%C5%A1tel.htm
Pazin - Ethnographic Museum of Istria
Keywords: tradition, history, etnography
Region: Istra
Nearest town: Pula, Rijeka
Content: Museum
Ethnographic Museum of Istria - Permanent exhibition
The main preoccupation in ethnology, until recently, was cultural ways of past everyday rural life. That kind of approach is visible in the Ethnographic Museum's permanent exhibition. The Croatian people in Istria were more identified with simple, rustic and archaic aspects of life than, for example, the culture of Italian habitants in Istria. That is one of the reasons why Croatian rural culture in Istria is more represented in permanent exhibition. The main emphasis of the permanent exhibition is on various types of handicrafts and basic branches of rural economy.
In the first part of permanent exhibition, you can see traditional costume from different parts of Istria. Some of its elements are reflecting archaic influences - like woman dress suknja, modrna or gologran from Ćićarija and Labin area, which is not cut in waist; people inserted wedges to make it more volumenous. Next is the women dress from Montenegro inhabitants that came in south Istrian village Peroj in 17 century. They preserved their folk costume until 20 century. Because of the custom of burying woman in their traditional dresses, there are not any left. You can also see traditional dresses of women from Vodnjan that are reflecting baroque influences. Musical instruments, mostly the wind instruments, paint the picture of archaic music that they produced. Castle kitchen suggests typical Istrian kitchen with the most common traditional inventory from the end of the 19 century. There is a display of Istrian handicraftsmen products - pottery, baskets and weaving products characteristic to this cultural area. The main branches of rural economy (agriculture, vine growing, cattle breeding, and fishing) are also represented. Some of them have specific Istrian cultural elements (wooden plough - vrganj).
Notable is the archaic rural economy and the fact that Istrians who lived in villages produced, in their households, all that they needed for living until 20 century (food, clothes, dishes, simple furniture and other).
This permanent exhibition is displayed over twenty years. In the next year will be replaced with modern permanent exhibition. It will try, using different approach, to provide experience and information about different forms of Istrian culture.
The Living Cross at Lindar
Keywords: living cross, Crucifixion, christianity
Region: Istra
Nearest town: Pula, Rijeka
Content: Cultural and historical heritage
"The Living Cross at Lindar“, Branko Fučić: Danica-6, pg. 81-86, 1951. (extract)
Among numerous medieval monuments of wall painting in Istria, an almost unknown work on the wall of the chapel of St. Catherine at Lindar draws special attention to itself. By both its painting characteristics and its content, it is unique in the heritage of our cultural and artistic history.
Although the central figure in the painting represents the crucified Jesus Christ, it does not depict the Crucifixion the way we usually see it in paintings in our churches. Here at Lindar, the Crucifixion is not presented as a historical event on Mount Calvary, where at the moment of Christ’s death you can see the Virgin, St. John, women, Jews and soldiers beneath the cross. The essential idea behind the Lindar painting is the contemplation of the redemptive sacrifice of JesusChrist. This central thought, which emerges from the Calvary cross, develops and performs a whole set of inter-related religious truths, Christian teachings, pious considerations, theological ingenuities and comparisons, all of which art presented in a figurative manner. The painting therefore, does not depict the historical moment of Crucifixion, but gives the event a figurative explanation. All that was, in the Middle Ages, believed, taught, contemplated, and cogitated, in relation to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, as the most important event in the History of Salvation, is retained in this painting. The thing that matters here is the idea. It underlies everything that can be seen in the painting: each character, exactly every single thing here functions as a sign, as a symbol of the idea.
Jure Grando - the earliest European vampire
Keywords: vampire, legend, Valvasor
Region: Istra
Nearest town: Pula, Rijeka
Content: Legend
Jure Grando and the nine brave men
Jure Grando is the earliest European vampire to be recorded in written documents by given and family name. The testimony of his elimination in 1672 was recorded by Johann Weikhard Valvasor, famous Slovenian traveller and writer in his book The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola (published in 1689). The record was based on his personal conversation with the people who took part in the event. According to Valvasor`s records, Jure Grando was an inhabitant of Kringa, who died and was buried in the usual way in 1656. But on the first night after the funeral (and thus every night over sixteen years) he rose from the grave, wandered around Kringa banging on house doors (where soon somebody would die). He would also visit his widow every night, forcing her to comply with her marital duties
After sixteen years of such terror, the mayor of Kringa, Miho Radetić, gathered nine people from the village. They opened Grando`s grave, found in it the completely preserved body with rosy cheeks. After unsuccessfully trying to pierce the body with a hawthorn stake, they cut off his head and refilled the grave. Valvasor concluded his record by saying that Jure Grando molested the inhabitants of Kringa never again.
The story of the Istrian vampire Jure Grando was then translated into numerous other collections of thrilling stories, among others into the famous work on vampires by Montague Summers and, through the almanac The Rhenish Antiquarian, it was inserted into a collection edited by the famous Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse. There have been indications that the story of Jure Grando inspired the first vampire prose ever written in the European and world literature, namely the tale The Vampyre by John Polidori (1819) who used a fragment of a story written by George Gordon Byron. Thus the vampire from Kringa indirectly got to inspire a whole literature (and later film) genre whose popularity has never ceased to exist.
photo: https://zenassassin.wordpress.com/tag/vampires/
Beram – an important Glagolitic centre
Keywords: glagolitic script, medieval paintings
Region: Istra
Nearest town: Pula, Rijeka
Content: Art and culture
Beram – an important Glagolitic centre
Beram was one of the most important centres of medieval Glagolitic literacy. Students („žakans“) from most parts of Istria would come to study with Beram Glagolitic priests. They left testimonies of it written in Glagolitic script on the margines of Beram liturgic books, or carved with a sharp object into fresco-painted walls of the little church of St. Mary „na Škrilijinah“ (of the Rocks). Several illuminated XIII. and XIV.cent. Glagolitic manuscriptscome from Beram, including a fragment o a homilliary (collection of sermons), and a richly painted missal and a breviary from the XIV.cent.
St. Mary of the Rocks
The cemetery church of St. Mary of the Rocks, situated 1km to the north-east from Beram, within itself holds one of the most valuable acomplishments of Istrian medieval painting. Well preserved late-gothic frescos almost entirely cover the inner walls of the church, and they were made by master Vincent of Kastav. The paintings were commissioned by Beram confraternitiy of St. Mary, so most of their space is dedicated to scenes from lives of Mary and Jesus.
The strongest impression leaves the fresco called „Dance of the Dead“, where in front of our eyes kings, merchants, cardinals, even the Pope himself dance hand in hand with death. In the XVIII.cent., during the baroque period, the church was expanded and renovated, which caused most of the frescos to be damaged or destroyed. All the frescos were painted over and hidden at that time, and rediscovered and renovated in the year 1913.
Groznjan - artistic tradition
Keywords: art, tradition, culture
Region: Istra
Nearest town: Pula, Rijeka
Content: Art and culture
The magical Groznjan is revived by young people as it is the International Cultural Centre of the Croatian Musical Youth. Groznjan nurtures a rich art tradition. Art and music are represented in the best possible form: on-site creation. Many artists who live and work in Groznjan or the surrounding area add to its liveliness. By walking around the town one can directly and actively experience art.
Motovun Film Festival
Keywords: film
Region: Istra
Nearest town: Pula, Rijeka
Content: Event
Motovun Film Festival
The Motovun Film Festival was established in 1999. The Motovun Film Festival is entirely dedicated to films made in small cinematographies and by independent producers, films that excel for their innovativeness, ideas and power of their stories. The Motovun Film Festival is, in fact, a film marathon lasting for a few days in late July, with film projections following each other uninterrupted from 10 in the morning until four after midnight. The evening projections are held in the open air and the daily projections in the cinema.
Ancient Motovun
Nearest town: Pula, Rijeka
Content: Architecture
At the foot of the Motovun hill, the mythical Jason and the Argonauts sailed along the Mirna River, but the first inhabitants to leave traces populated this area in the period between 3,500 and 2,200 B.C. The first mention of Motovun in written records dates back to 804 and after centuries of domination by the Germans and the Patriarchs of Aquileia, Motovun asked Venice to be accepted under its rule in 1278 and remained so until 1797. At the time of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy this area was renowned for the growing of trees used in ship-building.
The town is the venue for the Moto- vun Film Festival, which, unlike the more traditional Pula Film Festival, attracts mainly young audiences and thus provides a kind of injection of vitality to this ancient city.
- Motovun walls - The earliest preserved Motovun walls date back to the 11th and 12th centuries when tall and mighty bulwarks fortified with towers were built. The main bulwark was further fortified in the 12th and 13th centuries. At the beginning of the 15th century Motovun had already received its shape of Gothic stronghold with a new town gate.
- The parish church of St. Stephen was erected in place of an older church which was, in its turn, erected most probably on the foundations of an antique basilica. The legend says that margrave Engelbert of Istria and his wife countess Matilda were buried in the older church. The present-day church of St. Stephen was built between 1580 and 1614, obtaining its current shape at the end of the 18th century.
- Main Tower Gate - The main Town Gate leads from the lower square to the citadel – the oldest part of the town. The gate’s vaulted opening opens into the “upper square”. This mighty gate and its tall tower, built in the 16th century, offered safety to the citizens and impeded entrance into the town to possible assailants.
- Other: Tower, Loggia, New gate, Borgo, Hospice...
Interesting routes
