Grisia street
An artists'' lane with paintings on the walls all summer.
Florian Hirzinger - http://www.fh-ap.com — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Georg Karl Ell — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Daniel Reust — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Jose A. — CC BY 2.0
The most photographed town in Croatia, and its strange shape has one cause: **it was an island**. Rovinj stayed a separate island until **1763**, when the narrow channel dividing it from the mainland was filled in because the town had run out of room. The consequence still governs everything: the houses **rise straight out of the water** with no beach, no quay and no gap between them and the sea, and the lanes spiral upward toward the hilltop. That same shortage of space forced architectural solutions: the streets are **very narrow and crooked** to cut the wind, the houses tall and narrow-fronted, and the chimneys oddly various because each family added one to its own roof. At the summit stands the **Church of St Euphemia** with its tower, the highest point and visible from every direction. **Venice** ruled Rovinj for five centuries, and the mark is in the stone balconies, the lions of St Mark above the gateways, and the local dialect. Note: its best-known lane is **Grisia**, an artists'' street where paintings hang on the walls all summer.
An artists'' lane with paintings on the walls all summer.
Rising straight from the sea with no quay between.
A miscellany, each added by a different family to its own roof.
Old town, Rovinj
**May, June, September and early October**, without competition. The sea is warm enough to swim from June to October, the heat is manageable, and the town is fully open without being choked. ⚠ **July and August are painfully crowded** — Rovinj is a very small town with narrow lanes, so crowds are felt more sharply than in a larger city, and prices peak. **Winter** is quiet and lovely in its light, but many restaurants and hotels close, the weather is wet and the bora wind is cold. ⚠ One tip for any season: enter the old town **before nine in the morning or after seven in the evening** — the difference in crowding is enormous, and the light at both hours is better for photographs.
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