Croatia | holiday | living - All about Croatia

KONOBA (TAVERN) KREMENKO IN SVINISCE – in a small place named Svinisce, 7 km from Omis, there is an interesting and an unusual restaurant opened during the season.

You’ll be delighted by its charm, gastronomic offer and its interior decorated just like in the Prehistoric Age – it’s a nice association with the cartoon "Flintstones".

The drive to the Konoba is enthralling, with a 15-minute drive from Omis up the steep mountain. The Konoba has its own bus that drives up the mountain that overlooks where the river Cetina meets the ocean. You pass narrow lanes, and drive through the old villages that are nestled up in the mountains.

The owner spent 10 years making everything from the tables, to the salt and pepper shakers, carved from wood. With this, some individual rooms are deceorated with Croatian historical tools.

If you need help to finde tavern Kremenko just contact us!

On the 4 day of our Istria Easter holiday we went to Pula which is 40 minutes drive from Porec, on the way we made stop in the cities Vodnjan and Bale.

The city of Vodnjan is not that interesting, most street reminded me of the cities in the north eastern part of Croatia, according to our information the city church is home of some mummies which is the main tourist attraction.

Our photos from Vodnjan

The city of Bale is a nice little town made of stone houses, which gives the city a historical atmosphere.

Our photos from Bale

As we finally arrived in Pula we manage to find the main tourist attraction, the roman amphitheatre "Arena" quit easily, the theatre was build more than 2000 years ago for gladiator fights, and it today, besides a tourist attraction also used for cultural event like the International film festival in Pula.

After have a walk around the impressive building we decided to pay the 40 kuna entrance fee to see the Arena from the inside. Our girls was quite existed to see if there was still lions here, and especially when we entered the exhibition in the basement, Ida our smallest daughter was not 100% comfortable. But after I convinced them that the lions were long gone, they found it very interesting to see all the historical objects in the basement.

After finishing our visit at the Arena, we took the car to the centre of town, where we had a walk on the main street, starting from the forum (with temple of Rome and Augustus) through Sergei’s Arch until the outside market (Which i can recommend from prior visits). Pula as the largest city in Istria is also the main city for shopping, not only in the large supermarkets but especially in the city where you can find the most common brands. After finishing our walk we headed back to pula to prepare for our evening dinner at Bebo’s place.

What you can / should see:

• The roman Amphitheatre - Arena
• Sergei’s Arch - the old city gate.
• Several Churches and the Cathedral of Assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary
• Istrian historical museum, which is situated in old fortress at the top of a hill in the centre.

Where to stay:

I personally have always avoided staying in Pula, not because Pula does not have a good offer of private accommodation and Hotels, but mainly because there is much cheaper accommodation in Medulin which is only 10 from Pula. If you prefer a camp site there is a perfect camp in Fazana - the camp Bivillage.

Our photos from Pula

In the evening we went to have our "test" dinner at restaurant Borgonja (Bebo’s place), Bebo had prepared to menus which we could use for our groups.

The food was excellent especially the dessert, the homemade Fritule, which is balls made of a dough similar to the one you use for pancakes, served with Powdered sugar was irresistible, for the food Bebo served his homemade red wine, which is the best I had in Croatia until now, so I asked Bebo if I could by a couple of litres, two minutes later I had 5 litre bottle in front of me!!!

After 3 nice hours at the restaurant it was time to head back for Porec, so I asked Bebo for the bill, he said that price was 0 kuna, even when I tried to insist on paying he refused to accept it, as he said, maybe you will bring group this summer then I will be happy, if not it is also ok as you are one of Carlo’s friends, that is what I call hospitality!!

As I do not know if I will have any groups this summer, the least I can do is to recommend Bebo place to all of our readers, so if you should be in Istria this summer please go an have lunch or dinner at bebo’s place, I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

The address you have here:

Taverna Borgonja

Istarska 10

52463 Višnjan

PS: if anyone can recommend me a better red wine then the one Bebo makes, dinner is on me.

Here a few photos from Višnjan and the restaurant

Read about Porec here

Read about Novigrad and Umag here

Read about Vrsar and Rovinj here

Its special feeling to come in centre of Split city at fish market or Peskarija as it is called here. To me like to the most of people from Dalmatians it’s a ritual. We take a short way around tables full of fresh fish and exchange couple words with fish seller about from where and how fresh fish is. After a while when my eye’s get tired from all kind fishes and prices I do as almost every citizens here, I went to the table with small sort fish.

Around 12 a clock they reduced price on almost half so its very cheep to buy a good and quality fish. People buy most picarels, sprats, mackerels, sardines and anchovies.

After that we bought fish for lunch we take opportunity to take a cup of coffee in café bar near. What I can offer you its old traditional fish recipe called “Sardine in marinade”. So here comes an ingrediens

1 kg  fresh sardine

1 middle big garlic

1,5 dcl oliv oil

4 spoons vinegar

1 twig rosemary

3 spoons threaded parsley

Salt and pepper

It only takes 5 min to prepare it.

wash sardines and remove their intestine but not heads, we sponge them with clout. Straw with salt and pepper and put some drops of oil on. Put sardine on heat grill or In 250 degree warm oven without any oil. When they are ready we put them in no metal base so the one fish head is next to others arrears. In the pan on oliv oil we put threaded garlic on low heat an we add parsley and about 20small blades of rosemary and vinegar. When all of this boild up we throw it ower sardins and cover base. Then we put them in the frige untill tomorrow.They could stay in this marinade for couple days without any problems and they are best test after some days. We can also  use tuna fish instead for sardines. Sardines is blue fish, rich on insatable acids, Omega-3 and Omega 6 wich are very important for blood system structure. To hunt sardines, the best period is May when the big fishing period starts. Boats went out from hourbors and with speciall nets called “plivarica”they hunt sardines.

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Novigrad:

Unfortunately the weather was not to go on Easter Sunday, but we anyway decided of visit the cities along the costal road north of Porec. First stop on the road was Novigrad, which is about 12 km north of Porec.

In Novigrad we have a customer, which we visited several times the last 3 last years. Until this visit i always thought city looked a bit boring to me, but i turned out that the city actually have a quit charming promenade and old town part, which definitely is worth while visiting. I the bay at the north part of the town several new apartment houses and a brand new marina are being build, so I am sure Novigrad, will have an increased number of visitors in the future.

What to see in Novigrad:

• Several museums, marine museum and "Lapidarium”.
• Summer events which include fishermen nights, blues festival and sports activities.

Eating out:

• Restaurant Mandrac on the promenade

Where to stay:

• Private accommodation or Hotel can be found in the centre, 5 km south of town you find one of Croatians largest camps "lanterna" which has several thousand pitches.

See all our pictures from Novigrad here:

Umag:

After visiting Novigrad we headed on to Umag, which is about 7 km from the border to Slovenia and only 30 km from Trieste in Italy, which explain the huge number of Italians.

Personally I believe Umag not the most interesting city in Croatia, but because of it geographic placement Umag has visitors all year, main part of them are staying in the 6-7 large hotels at the north end of the town, also here the international tennis stadium, which each year hosts an ATP tournament, can be found.

The peninsula with the old part of Umag has a large number of Fish restaurant all place directly to the water on the south side of the peninsula, the rumour is that several of these restaurants should be quite good.

What to see / what to do in Umag:

• Umag aquarium, which holds most of the species from the Adriatic see.
• The hotel at northern end of town have extensive wellness program
• During whole year event are taking place in these hotels.

Eating out:

• 10-12 fish restaurants on south side of peninsula.

Where to stay:

• Hotels, I personally can recommend sol Umag whic has nice wellness area. as an alternative a large number of private accommodations can be found.
• South of Umag the new renovated camp - Camping park Umag which offer 5 star camping.

See all our pictures from Umag here:

From Umag we drowe back to Porec, where we in the evening had the most perfect home made Gnocci at Gina and Dino’s restaurant Kvartin.

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- Traditional made cheese from island Pag.

It is a hard type cheese made from the milk of the autochthon sheep from island of Pag.Pag cheese matures for 6-12 months; it has characteristic piquant taste, particular smell and mildly marbl e and grained texture. It is yellow inside and has golden yellow rind. It crumbles and melts in the mouth. When grated, Pag cheese is used as an addition to many traditional fish and meat specialties. Pag cheese is in the form of a reel and weighs about two kilos.

- Smoked ham called “prsut” from Drnis area.

Drnis is a town halfway between Šibenik and Knin.

The traditional way of producing the ham, and especially the curing process in the north-easterly Velebit wind which brings with it the aroma of Dalmatian vegetation, gives the ham a unique flavour and aroma.

-  Kulen is a type of flavoured sausage made of minced pork that is traditionally produced in Slavonia.It is the most expensive sausagetype product, not only in Slavonia but across Croatia and it is very spicy.

And now for the end of this story take a look one Istrian recipe maybe you will have opportunity in the future to try it.

Istrian recipe

-  Lamb zvacet with ghocchi from koromaca

You need; 1,5 kg of lamb leg, 4 onions, 3 fresh tomatos, 4 lobes of garlic, laurel leaf, cinnamon, muscadine nut, salt, pepper, parsley, scrubbed goat cheese, 1 dl of red wine, 1 dl olive oil. The gnocchi are made from 24 dkgs of flour, 2 eggs, 0,8 dkgs of kromaca and a little butter.The slicced onion is fried on oil until it turnes yellow. We add the meat and fry it untill all the liquid doesn’t evaporate. We add tomatos, garlic, parsley, salt, parsley and all the other spices. We pour water on it and slowly let it cook until the meat gets soft. In the end we add wine and cook a little more. The preperation of gnocchi starts with the pealing of the boiled potato and while its still hot we squeeze it. We add salt, eggs, butter, flour and small sliced koromac, We stear it slowly, roll it, and slice the pieces about 3 cm lonf and form the gnocchi. The gnocchi are then covered with zvaceta and sprinkeled with scrubbed cheese. (the recepy from Lošinj).

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During the years here in Croatia, we have visited almost all corners of the country, but main the visits has been working related, so for this eastern we decided to make family trip to Istria, so Saturday morning at 9:30 we left Split and headed for Istria.

A couple of weeks ago i was contact by a German guy named Carlo, he had read on our German blog, that we plan to make trips to the World cup in Handball 2009 here in Croatia, so he wanted to meet with us and discuss potential working relationship, anyway Carlo also offered to book private accommodation in Porec for us, which we gladly accepted, as it actually can be quit difficult to find and apartment which is not closed for the winter.

As we after 5 hours driving arrived at our meeting point with Carlo, the hotel Diamant (Diamond) in Porec, we where quite existed to see what Carlo had booked for us? I turned out to be a perfect apartment, in the suburbs of Porec - Vranići, just 100 meters from one of the best Konoba’s (Restaurants) in Porec.

After unpacking our stuff, we went down to the old town in Porec, at this time of year there is of course not as much life as in the summer, but it is still very nice place for a walk. What surprised me a bit was the price level here, although knowing Porec is one of the major tourist destinations in Croatia with around 700.000 yearly visitors, i found several things which was douple price compared to Split, which at least at this time a year was to much. Anyway, we had a nice 2 hour walk in the old town before we headed back to the apartment.

At 19 we went to our local Konoba Kvartin to meet Carlo, he immediately introduced us to the very nice owners, Gina and Dino, their restaurant is famous not only in Porec, where a 2 page picture from the restaurant can be found in the mid section of the official tourist  brochure, but also in other parts of the country. The restaurant is filled with historical object collected mainly from local farms in the area, so inside the restaurant actually looks like small museum.

This evening we decided to try the mixed grill from the menu, although Carlo insisted we should take the Gnocci (next day we found out why). The meal was excellent, especially the home made fries was "Prvo liga" first class, Carlo told me that everything you get by Gina and Dino is homemade, Dino him selves travel around to the local farms and fishermen and pick the best of what he can find. Around 21 we Lene decided to take the kids to the room, I stayed and had a glass of wine with Carlo which ended being several glasses and we also had a taste of Dino’s homemade Rakija, so I was a bit dizzy when I went home around midnight.

Here you can see pictures from our first day in Porec

Resturant tip:

Of course I have to recommend Gina and Dino’s restoration, it is absolutely on of the best i have tried in Croatia, so here is the direction how to get there. If you go from Porec centre direction Umag / Novigrad, you will come to a roundabout after approximately 2 km, in the roundabout you go in direction Vižnjan and take the first road on the right 3 times in a row after exiting the roundabout, you should be infront of the resturant.

Address is : Konoba Kvartin, Vraniči, Humska 14, 52440 Porec

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