Advertisement
Published: June 13th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Welcome To Hum
The world's smallest town The Rovinj Of The Killer Truffles
”Legend Has It…..” On Tuesday we have
Sanja to ourselves for the day and she takes us out to various places in the
Istrian Peninsula. The area has been fought over throughout history and has been part of Austria, Hungary, Italy and Yugoslavia in recent years so it’s not surprising to find that most of the places we see are fortified towns on the top of hills.
Sanjatakes us all over the peninsular giving us lots of information and telling us the history of the places we visit. I think I’ve forgotten most of it! Perhaps someone will help me out…
The World’s Smallest Town? Hmmmm…. Our first stop is
Hum, officially the smallest town in the world. Is there some official definition of a town?
Hum has a population of 17 people. How does it get to be a town and not a village? It has a church {
surprise!!} and some town walls - do the walls make it a town?
Hum is so small that even I don’t get lost!!
Glagolitic Alley A short distance from
Hum is
Glagolitic Alley,
a park laid out with characters from the glagolitic alphabet. This is the alphabet used by the two monks,
Cyril and
Methodius {
I didn’t remember their names! I had to look that up.} when the Croatian language was first written down.
Motovun Our next stopping-off point is
Motovun. Characteristic of lots of towns in the area it is built on top of a hill. It has managed to retain much of its original buildings and provides particularly good views over the local area – a good spot to stop for lunch. The town is also famous for the film festival held here every year.
An unexpected find here is the number of truffles on sale. Apparently the type of soil here and the presence of oak trees is the right environment for truffles. Although here it is dogs, rather than pigs, which are trained to collect the truffles. I even get to sample a truffle at last in one of the souvenir shops – it doesn’t impress me enough to want to buy a kilo though!
Rovinj We finish our tour
This Is Where The Elders Met
You could probably invite the whole town with a visit to the small, quiet coastal town of
Rovinj. One place we visit here is the church dedicated to
Saint Euphemia which is, of course, on top of a hill.
I remember this one! Legend has it that the Romans tried to feed Saint Euphemia to the lions but the lions wouldn’t eat her. This only temporarily delayed her fate because the Romans killed her anyway. Legend has it that her sarcophagus was washed up at
Rovinj after a storm and is now buried in the church.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.172s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0853s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb