Three days in Pula: Rome built the arena, Austria built the rest
Two nights at the tip of Istria, with the sixth largest arena the Romans built still standing on the harbour, a Venetian fort on the hill and truffles half an hour inland.
- Length
- 3 days, 2 nights
- Where you stay
- Pula
- Places
- 7 across 3 days
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Pula does not look like the Croatia on the postcards. There are cranes in the harbour, a shipyard that still works, and apartment blocks around a hill fort. And then, at the end of an ordinary street, an amphitheatre that has been standing since the first century, with its outer wall intact all the way round.
The town has been fought over for as long as it has existed. Rome made it a colony, Venice ran it for four hundred years and stripped what it could carry, and then Austria turned it into the main naval base of the empire, which is why the cemeteries are full of Austrian and Hungarian sailors and the architecture in between the Roman bits is nineteenth century military.
Two nights is right. That is enough for the arena, the forum, the fort and a long lunch, plus a day for the peninsula behind it: hill towns with truffles, a national park of islands, and the best swimming in Istria on a cape south of the city.
Highlights
- The arena at the end of the day, when the stone goes gold and the crowds thin
- The Arch of the Sergii, and the school where James Joyce taught for one unhappy winter
- A Roman forum still doing its job as the main square, with a temple to Augustus on it
- Istrian olive oil, tasted properly, in a museum that explains why it wins prizes
- The Twin Gate and the small Roman theatre behind it, both usually empty
Where to stay
Pula, two nights
The city is arranged around a hill with a fort on top of it. The Roman street plan is still there underneath, spiralling around the slope, and the main sights sit on a ring at the bottom: the arena at the harbour end, the forum on the west side, the gates and the theatre on the east.
Stay in the old town for the walk to everything, or out at Verudela and Stoja for the hotels, the campsites and the sea. Both are fifteen minutes apart on a city bus.
In July and August the arena hosts concerts and a film festival that has been running since the 1950s, which is the best possible use of a Roman building and worth checking the dates for before you book.
Day by day
Day 1 in Pula
The arena, the triumphal arch and dinner in the old town
Go straight to the amphitheatre and go late in the day. It was built in the first century, mostly under Vespasian, held something over twenty thousand people and is the only surviving Roman arena to keep all four of its side towers. The outer wall stands to its full height on the seaward side, which is why photographs of it look faked.
It survived by luck and one stubborn man: the Venetians decided in the 1580s to take it apart and rebuild it in Venice, and a senator argued them out of it. What they did take away over the centuries was the seating, which is why the interior is bare stone and grass with a modern stage in it.
The underground chambers, where the animals and the fighters waited, now hold an exhibition of Roman oil and wine presses that is more interesting than it sounds.
Walk back into town through the old gate at the bottom of the main street. The arch was put up by a wealthy family in the last decades before Christ, and the language school where James Joyce spent a few unhappy months teaching English over the winter of 1904 stood a few steps from it. There is a statue of him sitting outside a cafe nearby.
- 17:00
Arena
HistoricThe sixth largest Roman amphitheatre still standing, and the only one with all four side towers. Go in the last two hours of light, and look at the presses in the underground galleries before you leave.
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- 19:00
Arch of the Sergii
OtherA Roman triumphal arch of about 29 BC, paid for by a woman for three men of her family, and once the gate through the city wall at the end of the main street.
- 20:00
Restaurant Orfej
EatFish and shellfish in the middle of town at prices below the places either side of it. Small, so book or turn up early.
With more time: The tunnels under the hill were dug in the First World War as air raid shelters for the naval town and are open in summer for the price of a coffee. They run right through the hill and come out on the other side, which makes them a shortcut as well as a sight.
Day 2 in Pula
The forum, the fort on the hill, and olive oil
The forum has been the main square for two thousand years. The temple at the top of it was raised to the emperor Augustus while he was alive, took a direct hit from a bomb in 1944 and was rebuilt from its own pieces; the town hall alongside is medieval, built onto the back of a second temple that was never pulled down. Have coffee here and look at the building line, which follows the Roman one.
Then climb the hill in the middle of the city. The star shaped fort on top was built by the Venetians in the seventeenth century to a French engineer's design, and it now holds the historical and maritime museum of Istria: naval uniforms, ship models, photographs of Pula when the Austro-Hungarian fleet filled the bay. The walls are the real attraction, with the whole city and harbour laid out below.
In the afternoon, do the thing Istria is actually best at. The olive oil museum in the centre explains why the peninsula's oils win international awards year after year, and the ticket includes a tasting with somebody talking you through what you are drinking.
The rest of the day is loose. There is swimming a short bus ride south, and the harbourside bars fill up after eight.
- 09:30
The Forum
ArchitectureThe Roman square, still the middle of town, with the temple of Augustus on it and the medieval town hall built onto the remains of its twin.
- 11:00
Castle
HistoricThe seventeenth century Venetian star fort on the hill, holding the Istrian history and maritime museum. Go up for the ramparts and the view over the shipyard as much as the exhibits.
- 13:00
Lunch below the hill
EatLook for fuzi with truffle or a plate of prsut and cheese; the konobas in the lanes between the forum and the market do both.
- 15:00
Istrian Olive Oil Museum
VisitA small private museum on Istrian olive growing, with presses, amphorae and a guided tasting of several oils included in the ticket. Longer tastings can be booked.
With more time: The sailors' cemetery on the northern edge of town was laid out in 1866 for the imperial navy and holds tens of thousands of graves under cypresses, with a domed church at the centre. It is a twenty minute walk and almost nobody goes.
Day 3 in Pula
The Twin Gate, the little theatre and the road out
The quietest Roman things in Pula are on the eastern side of the hill and take a morning. The Twin Gate is a double arched gateway from the second century that led into the city from the road east, and it stands on a residential street with cars parked against it.
Behind it, on the slope, a small theatre is cut into the hillside next to the archaeological museum. It seated a few thousand and is now a ruin in a garden. The museum itself has been through a long restoration, so check whether it is open before you plan around it.
That is the town. Fill whatever is left of the morning with the market, a last coffee on the forum and the bus or the plane out.
- 09:30
Porta Gemina
HistoricA Roman double gateway of the second century, on an ordinary street with traffic going past it. Free, permanently open, and the start of the walk up to the theatre.
- 10:30
Roman theatre
CultureThe small theatre on the hillside behind the museum, seating cut into the slope and a stage wall in fragments. Access follows the museum's opening hours, which have been unreliable during its restoration.
- 12:00
Coffee before you go
EatThe forum terraces are the obvious place, and the airport is only fifteen minutes away by taxi if you are flying.
With more time: With a later departure, the Franciscan church and cloister at the top of the old town is a calm fourteenth century courtyard a few minutes from the forum, and the boat to the island national park leaves from Fazana, twenty minutes up the coast.
Before you go
Getting in and getting around
The airport is about 6 km northeast with seasonal flights from much of Europe. Buses are the practical way in overland: several a day from Rijeka, Zagreb, Trieste and Ljubljana, and frequent local services up the west coast of Istria. The railway reaches Pula only from the north, through Slovenia, and is disconnected from the rest of the Croatian network, so do not plan a train to Split.
The centre is small and walkable. Everything Roman is within fifteen minutes of everything else, and the hill in the middle takes five minutes to climb. A car is worth having for one of the three days if you want the hill towns or the capes.
Eating in Istria
Istria eats like northern Italy, and it is the best food region in Croatia. Truffles come out of the oak woods around Motovun, white in autumn and black most of the year, shaved over pasta called fuzi. Pork neck grilled as ombolo, prsut air dried in the bora wind, wild asparagus in spring and boskarin, the local long horned ox, all turn up on menus.
The olive oil is genuinely world class: Istrian producers have topped international guides for years, and a tasting is a better souvenir than a bottle bought at the airport. Drink Malvazija if you want white and Teran if you want a red that tastes of iron.
Getting out of town
Brijuni, a national park of fourteen islands, is a twenty minute boat ride from Fazana up the coast. Tito kept his summer residence there for decades and entertained half the non-aligned world on it, and the safari park is descended from the animals his visitors gave him.
South of the city, Cape Kamenjak is a low limestone headland of coves, cliffs and clear water with almost nothing built on it. Take a bike or a car, take water and shoes, and be careful where you jump in.
Rovinj, an hour up the coast by bus, is the prettiest town in Istria and full accordingly. The hill villages inland, Motovun and Groznjan among them, are quieter and where the truffles come from.
What makes Pula likeable is that nobody has tidied it up. The amphitheatre stands at the end of a street with a bus stop and a supermarket, the Roman gates have cars parked against them, and the fort on the hill looks down on a working shipyard.
Two nights here, one day out in the hills or on the islands, and you will have seen the part of Croatia that behaves least like a holiday brochure and eats better than any of it.
Make it your trip
Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.
Common questions
- Is Pula worth visiting?
- Yes, for two or three days. The arena alone justifies the trip, and the rest of the town is a working port with Roman monuments in it rather than an old town kept for visitors. It also makes the most practical base for the rest of Istria.
- Pula or Rovinj?
- Rovinj is far prettier and much busier, with a Venetian old town on a headland and no Roman ruins to speak of. Pula has the monuments, the transport connections and the lower prices. They are an hour apart by bus, so the honest answer is to sleep in one and spend a day in the other.
- How do you get to Brijuni?
- Take a bus or drive to Fazana, about 8 km north, and book the national park boat, ideally in advance in summer. The crossing takes twenty minutes and the standard visit is a guided tour of the main island by train, taking three to four hours in total.
- When is the best time to go?
- May, June and September for the weather without the crowds, October for truffles and the olive harvest. July and August fill the coast and bring concerts and the film festival to the arena. Winter is very quiet, with the bora wind and half the restaurants shut.
- Do you need a car?
- Not for the city, which is walkable. For the hill towns inland, the capes south of town and the smaller beaches, a car for one day makes a real difference. Buses cover the coastal towns well and the interior poorly.
- Can I change these days around?
- Copy it into your own trip and rearrange it freely. The only timing worth keeping is the arena late in the day, when the light is on the stone and the coach parties have gone.