Kvarner Bay & Istria: Rocky Beaches & Idyllic Seaside Towns
Our first stop on the Adriatic Coast was Kvarner Bay and the Istria peninsula, both known for their beautiful and diverse nature, featuring mountain ranges, beaches and everything in between.
We stayed in Kostrena, a small town directly on the coast, just south of Rijeka, Croatia’s third largest city. Kostrena was a great starting point for day trips to Istria, the island Krk, the seaside resort town Opatija and Rijeka. Moreover, Kostrena itself is beautifully located on the coast with rocky beaches and a great walkway along the water where small cozy cafes invite for coffee with a view.
Krk Island: Where the World Ends
Our first daytrip in the Kvarner bay was to Krk Island, the largest and most populated of Croatia’s 1244 islands. The island has been connected to mainland Croatia since 1980 through an arch bridge which carries more than 1 million passengers a year. Krk is a popular holiday destination for Croatian and international tourists, offering sandy beaches, quaint seaside towns and activities for families, couples, sports enthusiasts and many more.
Our first stop was the City of Krk, which is the island‘s largest city and famous for its historic city center, nested behind city walls dating back to Roman times. The city is completely car-free and we enjoyed walking the narrow alleys and taking in the beautiful architecture of this old town. The City of Krk also has a beautiful port where many small ships dock and a picturesque promenade walk. We spent a couple of hours in the city, enjoying visiting just after the peak summer season and having only few other tourists around!
Our second stop on Krk was Baska beach, which is known as being one of the most beautiful beaches on the Adriatic coast. Baska is at the very south eastern part of Krk, the furthest away from where you cross via the bridge from the mainland. One guide book had described the trip to Baska as a scenic drive, giving you the feeling you were driving to the end of the world. We definitely recognized that feeling as we drove up steep roads with hairpin turns and spectacular mountain and sea views – and often no houses or town in sight! The beach itself was beautiful with a 2km long pebbly beach and stunning view – but in contrast to the city of Krk it was crowded with tourists and we just did a quick dip in the sea and then hurried back to the car to start our scenic drive back home.
Rovinj: Croatian Seaside Town at its most Beautiful
Our next daytrip was to Istria and we had debated in advance how much of the peninsula we should aim to cover in a day. On one hand, we wanted to see as much as possible, but on the other hand experience has shown us that with the children and for the sake of the overall family peace less is often more! In the end, we decided to focus on one place and chose Rovinj on the west coast of Istria, which is known as a typical Croatian seaside town with a very well-preserved historic city center. Visiting just one town would give us time to take it in at a quiet pace and the drive across the peninsula would also give us a good impression of the varied Istrian landscape.
An interesting observation about Croatia is that you see how quickly the country is developing everywhere. We noticed the contrasts between new and old in Zagreb and on the way to Rovinj, it was interesting to see the extent to which highways and tunnels are being built to ease the access to the popular beach areas and tourist destinations. Moreover, everywhere you look new houses are under construction – many of them holiday homes.
Fortunately, there seems to be a lot of respect for history and a wish to preserve historic sights and towns in their original style. This makes a trip through Croatia a beautiful tour of scenic yet vibrant towns and combined with its unique and varied landscape it is a country unlike many others we have seen on travels in the past.
As we arrived in Rovinj, it became clear that we were not the only tourists visiting by car that day. Luckily we found easy parking at the new yacht port and this proved to be a great place to start our tour of Rovinj. The old town of Rovinj is kept in historic style, but the city outside the old center is expanding, also with modern buildings and it was interesting to see the yacht port and a new beach promenade, which has been established just next to the yacht port. From there, it was an easy walk along the water to the old town.
Before exploring the old town, we spontaneously decided to take a panoramic boat tour which would take us around some of the many nearby islands and give us a view to Rovinj from the water. The one-hour tour was very beautiful and refreshing on a hot day, and the boat’s glass bottom was a great hit with the kids who enjoyed watching fish in the water below.
The old town of Rovinj was a picturesque as we had imagined with a myriad of narrow, cobblestone alleys, beautiful houses and not least the Church of St. Euphemia, the largest baroque church in Istria beautifully set on a hilltop. You can walk up the tower of the church through a narrow and steep stairway, but the view awaiting you at the top is worth the climb. It was a truly magnificent view of the ocean, city and the many nearby islands – and on a perfect sunny day you are even supposed to be able to see Venice in the horizon (we couldn’t see it or failed to recognize it😊).
In total, we spent a week in Kostrena and mixed daytrips with half-day trips as we also need to keep up with Niklas’ homeschooling and wanted to give the children (and ourselves) time to relax at the pool and beach and simply enjoy the good weather! While by far not having seen all Kvarner Bay and Istria have to offer, we left with a very positive impression and will definitely come back another time to see more!
