Arriving this weekend in Motovun to check on the house renovations, we thought we had passed through a time warp back to World War 2 Italy. All signs of modern life had been covered and period props were everywhere. It all was a result of Lucasfilm being in town to film their latest production,, Red [...]
The last two weeks have been a little disappointing – and between trying to fix the problems and run tours we haven’t had time to post regularly on the blog. Its written somewhere that bad news comes in threes – so hopefully we have good times ahead. #1 – Time Out Croatia We provided numerous [...]
The finishing touches are being completed on the leut, including her name been painted on the stern. As mentioned previously her name, Labud – which means ‘swan’ in Croatian – is a reference to the river which runs through Perth. From my parents’ house on the river the Swan Yacht Club can be seen. Its [...]
On the telephone today I asked Ranko Bon to provide a short update in regards to Jupiter Adria’s golf course resort proposal in the valley below Motovun. He did more than that – and wrote a full account of recent events there, including local press reaction, on his Residua Blog. Last June we mentioned (here) [...]
As it turns out, yet another town in Istria was used in a Hollywood production. The well-known film Kelly’s Heroes, starring Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland and Telly Savalas, was filmed in Vižinada, not far from Poreč, in 1970. The plot deals with a platoon of jaded American soldiers trying to steal a bank-full of Nazi [...]
A secondary reason for us coming up to Motovun this weekend was to help our friend Ranko Bon form a local branch of Green Party – Green Alternative (Zelena stranka – Zelena alternativa) here to fight against the incumbent mayor, Slobodan Vugrinec, in the up-coming local elections. For years the town council has not felt [...]
After a day of running around trying to finish our house in Motovun we got back to the apartment we are renting in town and all crashed in front of the television. On the screen, flickering back at us, were images of Motovun. At first I thought it was a tourism advertisement, but then I [...]
Our friend in Motovun, Claudio, recently took over management of the restaurant that was known as Barbacan but he renamed Mondo. We mentioned it previously as one of the places to dine in Istria. The New York Times journalist, Kabir Chibber, agrees with us in his recent article in the newspaper’s travel section, giving Claudio’s [...]
Last week the Sabor (Croatian Parliament) passed legislation dealing with golf course developments. Currently it is very difficult to organize a large parcel of land in Croatia for a golf resort as the country is divided into numerous small plots, many of which are owned by numerous owners, who may also be dead or living [...]
Summer is definitely the ‘festive’ season in Croatia. To attract as many tourists as possible an almost infinite number of events are now organized. Below are the ones we have bumped into over the last 2 weeks. Motovun Film Festival Celebrating its 10th birthday is the Motovun Film Festival. What started as 5 guys with [...]
