After Rome and Venice, we made our way to Croatia to celebrate our friend’s 50th birthday at their villa. We had visited the deservedly famous Croatian Islands on our last trip, so this visit we decided to explore Istria in Northern Croatia, where we joined my friend and her son at a villa we had rented. Only an hour south of Trieste in Italy and running along the border with Slovenia, the region often described as “Croatia’s Tuscany” lived up to our expectations.

While the coast is stunning, with beautiful Venetian towns dotting the coastline, there are also a lot of camp grounds and tourists. The interior, on the other hand, remains unspoiled. With medieval hilltop towns, vineyards, olive groves and fields of lavender, it indeed feels like Tuscany or Provence. The medieval town of Motovun has a famous film festival, but while we were there it hosted a celebrity wedding that hit the gossip pages.

The moms went to wine tastings while the boys visited the Beredine Caves where they loved the cool respite and the stalactites and stalagmites. We tried several other wineries and decided that the rosés and the local Malvasia wine were our favourites. The local red, Teran, is hearty – maybe a little too hearty for summer. Our favourite was the Kozlovic winery – one of the pioneers of Istrian Wine.

Our villa came with bikes in all shapes and sizes, so we headed out onto the Parenzana, a converted rail line that is now miles of pathways through the Istrian countryside. We definitely felt the lack of a B&R support van when my son got a flat tire – but the trails were great!

We enjoyed the coastal towns of Rovinj and Novigrad, but always felt relieved to be back at our villa overlooking the valley at the end of the day.