The open studios
Painting, sculpture and ceramics behind almost every door.
Aconcagua (talk) — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Atbc — Public domain · Atbc — Public domain · APneunzehn74 — CC0
A small hilltop town in northern Istria with an unusual survival story: **it nearly disappeared, and artists saved it**. After the Second World War Istria passed from Italy to Yugoslavia, and most of its Italian population left in a mass emigration. Grožnjan emptied almost entirely, its houses stood vacant for two decades, and it came close to being abandoned outright. In **1965** the government declared it a «**town of artists**» and gave people working in the arts the right to occupy and restore the empty houses in exchange for using them as studios. The idea worked: the town today holds **more than twenty galleries and workshops** in a settlement of under two hundred permanent residents. The result is that almost every door in its stone lanes is an open studio — painting, sculpture, ceramics, jewellery — with no chain shops and no large signage. In summer it hosts an **international youth music institute**, so you hear strings being practised through the windows in the evening. Note: it is very small — half a day is more than enough, and it is usually combined with Motovun on the same trip.
Painting, sculpture and ceramics behind almost every door.
Summer practice heard through the windows in the evening.
Over the Mirna valley and the vineyards from the town''s edge.
Grožnjan, inland Istria — about 45 km north of Rovinj
The usual route is three hilltop towns, and it needs **a car** — public transport between them is very poor. The order: **Motovun** in the morning (the walls and the view, with the best light over the valley before ten), then lunch at **Livade** in the valley where the truffle restaurants are, then **Grožnjan** in the afternoon for the studios. Anyone with time left can add **Oprtalj**, **Buzet**, or the church of **Sveti Rok at Draguć** with its medieval wall paintings. The distances are short — nothing more than twenty minutes from the next — but **the roads are narrow and full of bends**, so driving is slower than the map suggests. ⚠ Most shops and galleries close between November and March.
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