ISTRIA - Croatia and Slovenia - page 232

Kantina Restaurant, a block away, serves good lunches (including veggie options) and
hearty, creative 35-kn salads both in an elegant vaulted cellar and on a lazy shady terrace.
Theservicecanbeslow—ifyou'reinarush,eatatthemarkethallinstead(60-85-knpastas,
90-150-kn meat dishes, daily 12:00-23:00, closed Sun off-season, at the end of the pedestri-
an zone at Flanati č ka 16, tel. [phone]).
Pula Connections
By Bus from Pula to: Rovinj (abouthourly,45minutes), Pore č (9/day,1.5hours), Opatija
(12-14 day, 2 hours), Rijeka (nearly hourly, 2-2.5 hours), Zagreb (almost hourly, 4-6
hours), Split (2/day, 10 hours, plus 1 night bus—described next), Venice (1/day departing
at 5:00, arrives Venice 10:15). A night bus departs Pula at 20:00, going to Split (arrives
6:00), where you can connect to Dubrovnik (arrives 11:00). To reach destinations in Slove-
nia (including Piran and Ljubljana), most connections require a change in Umag. In the
summer (July-Sept only), a handy, express, direct bus departs at 16:00 and heads for Rov-
inj (30 min), then Piran (3 hours) and Ljubljana (5 hours). Or you can take the 8:00 bus
from Rovinj (late June-Aug only, described on here ) . Year-round, two days a week you can
take a very early bus from Pula to Portorož (with a connection to Piran) and then on to
Ljubljana (departs Pula at 5:30). Slovenia connections are run by Fils Pula (confirm sched-
ules at www.fils.hr ) . In the summer, be aware that bus connections are more frequent on
weekdays (fewer departures Sat-Sun). Bus info: Toll tel. [phone].
By Train to: Zagreb (3/day, 6 hours, transfer in Rijeka), Ljubljana (1/day mid-July-
Aug Thu-Sun only, 5 hours, transfer in Hrpelje-Kozina).
The Brijuni Islands
TheBrijuniIslands(bree-YOO-nee,BrioniinItalian)—anarchipelagoof14islandsjustoff-
shore from the southern tip of the Istrian Peninsula—were a favorite haunt of Marshal Tito,
the leader of communist Yugoslavia. The main island, called Great Brijuni (Veli Brijun),
was where Tito liked to show off the natural wonders of his beloved Yugoslavia to visiting
dignitaries and world leaders. Today the island is a national park that combines serene nat-
ural beauty with quirky Yugoslav sights—offering a strange but enjoyable time capsule of
the Tito years.
As you'll see from the remains of previous occupants (Romans, Byzantines, Venetians,
Austrians—even dinosaurs), Tito wasn't the first to fall in love with Brijuni. Its first tourist
boom came at the turn of the 20th century, when Austrian entrepreneur Paul Kupelwieser
developed Brijuni into a world-class health resort. Between the World Wars, it hosted many
notables, from Douglas Fairbanks and John D. Rockefeller to Richard Strauss and Hirohito.