Istria's hilltop truffle capital — a medieval Venetian tower town above a valley of oak forests
Motovun is a medieval hilltop town in central Istria perched at 270 metres above the Mirna river valley — a compact settlement of Venetian-era towers, a Romanesque parish church, and a double ring of intact defensive walls enclosing a car-free historic centre with views over the oak-forested valley that produces the world's finest white truffles. The Motovun Forest (Motovunska šuma) along the Mirna river is the premier white truffle (Tuber magnatum pico) habitat in Croatia; truffle hunters and their dogs work the forest from October to January, and local restaurants in the village serve fresh…
Motovun was a Venetian possession for almost four centuries (1278–1797) and its architecture reflects this: the Venetian Lion of St Mark appears on the main gate, the loggia is a standard Venetian civic building type, and the town walls (14th–15th century) use Venetian military engineering. After Venice, the town passed through Habsburg and Italian hands before becoming Yugoslav and then Croatian; the de-italianization of Istria after 1945 emptied Motovun of most of its Italian-speaking population, leaving it partially uninhabited and inadvertently preserving it from modern development. The M…