Ninety seconds on Rovinj Old Town
Leave the car at Valdibora and walk in; nothing inside the walls takes vehicles. The lanes climb to the church in one go, and the fish market opens at the other end of the morning from the restaurants it supplies.
Closed to cars and packed onto what was an island until the channel was filled in in 1763, which is why the lanes run so tight and the houses climb. Venetian rule from 1283 left the plan, the gates and the language. Two streets carry most of the shops and the rest are residential, washed and quiet by mid morning.
Grisia climbs from the harbour square to the church at the top and carries the galleries; on the second Sunday of August it becomes an open-air exhibition that has run every year since 1967. Balbi's Arch of 1680 is the way in from the square, with a Venetian lion set over it. Beyond those two lines the lanes are residential and quiet by mid morning, which is the character of the place: somebody's front door, one turn off the crowd. Three hours walks all of it including the churchyard. Staying is the real recommendation, because the fish hall and the boats going out both happen before the day visitors arrive.
This was an island until 1763, when the channel dividing it from the mainland was filled in, and the density is the consequence: the houses had nowhere to go but up and inward. Venice governed for five centuries and left the street plan, the gates and the language. The town remains officially bilingual in Croatian and Italian, and the older local speech is a Romance language of its own rather than a dialect of either.
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