When we moved to Istria, we naively thought that our lives would be one long holiday. I mean, that’s why people come to Istria in their thousands. To holiday. But we quickly got into a groove of living in Istria permanently, and it became too easy to “live”. We still had to work. We still had to work on the house. We still had to do regular shopping trips. We did go away a lot, but over the seven years we were there, there were just some places we didn’t associate with *holidays*. And Poreč was definitely one of them. We associated Poreč with admin stuff – our bank’s main branch was there, the most efficient TCom store was there (and we became regular visitors here, as we always had some kind of an internet issue, so the efficiency level, whilst the best we had encountered in Istria, wasn’t technically the best), big supermarkets were there, a big garden centre. So, although it we did visit it, we probably didn’t see it with the same eyes as family saw it, who always loved and highly rated this coastal town. According to Wikipedia, Poreč is a town on the western coast of the Istrian peninsula, its major landmark being the 6th-century Euphrasian Basilica, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. The town is almost 2,000 years old, and is set around a harbour protected from the sea by the small island of Sveti Nikola/San Nicola (Saint Nicholas).
So, why the love for Pore, now, when we’ve sold up and we are moving on? Well, simply because we’ve now had a glimpse of it as a holiday destination rather than an admin pit-stop. When we moved out in early July, we were, quite honestly, too knackered to even begin contemplating the drive across Italy, the ferry journey and the drive from Barcelona to south west Spain. The decision was made to book four nights in the historical centre of Poreč, where could just unwind, relax and if we needed to go to the storage unit for any last drop-offs, we could. A very cute apartment, slap bang in the middle of the Roman heart of Poreč – The Bungalow by the Sea – was booked, and it was the best decision we could have made. Situated above the family run restaurant, it was 5 minutes from the sea and in the heart of the winding, cobbled streets, with a view of a Roman arch, surrounded by very cool and chic bars and restaurants. The apartment was really quite beautiful and perfect for our four night stay. The bonus being it had a washing machine and dryer so were able to get clothes washed before we set off on our road trip. Sadly, we soon filled the apartment with the belongings we had squeezed into the car for the roadtrip, as we needed to reorganise them, so the only photos I have, have to be credited to the booking website…
The historical centre of Poreč really is quite beautiful, with many reminders of the past, and it’s no wonder it’s designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage site. Cobbled streets wind up from the sea, twisting and turning and always full of beautiful apartments, independent shops, cute bars and restaurants and very, very historical buildings. Unlike the area where we lived, until recently in Istria, which was very quiet and pastoral, the centre of Porec is lively and buzzing, with a real Mediterranean feel to it. It feels as if it is on the cusp of being discovered, rather than well known, and so doesn’t feel overcrowded or overly touristy. Just beautiful and interesting and well worth a meander.
However, our trip to Poreč wasn’t all fun, fun, fun. We still had to squeeze in a trip to our least favourite store of all time – TCom – to try and cancel our internet service with them and leave the routers. Unsurprisingly, our experience was the same as it has ever been – disappointing, and a complete waste of time. Four weeks on, we are still waiting for a refund issue to be resolved and we still have the two routers, travelling in our car with us, across Andalucia. Nice to see that they didn’t let us down at the final hurdle…
