Porec, Croatia - Wine, olive oil, truffles and prosciutto are the weapons in a duel between the Croatian region of Istria, a heart-shaped peninsula in the Adriatic across from Venice, and Italy's tourist-mobbed Tuscany. "We are aiming at artistically minded, well-to-do married couples who are taken with our culinary delights. And our offensive includes travellers to Provence and South Tyrol," said Istria's head of tourism, Denis Ivosevic, who is nothing if not brimming with confidence.
Istria's inland was largely deserted until the mid-1980s. About 120 villages had been wholly abandoned, and roads, electricity, and telephone connections were completely inadequate.
After Croatia's war of independence from Yugoslavia from 1991 to 1995, tourism on the Istrian peninsula began a race to catch up. More than 4,000 abandoned stone houses were modernized. Small, luxurious family hotels were opened within historic walls. "Artists' villages" like Grosnjan were founded. Cultural programmes in 20 mountain towns were enlivened with festivals and youth music schools.
But gastronomy is the focus of Istrian tourism. For years, the forests surrounding the hilltop town of Motovun have attracted truffle lovers in the autumn. Six "wine roads" comprising at least 45 top winemakers have been mapped out along with seven "olive oil routes." Just four years ago, nary a producer of olive oil bottled it; now it's a popular souvenir. Today you can sample at least four different kinds of olive oil in the inns, known in Croatian as "konoba."
The quality of the prosciutto (prsut) is a match for the best in Europe. Istria is also green in midsummer and has no industry at all. Pigs are kept outdoors and feed mainly on fresh greenery and herbs. Depending on the season, about 200 kinds of mushrooms and wild asparagus are now standard fare.
The Istrian tourism industry is also mingling pleasures of the palate with pedal-pumping - special "wine-and-bike" trips. GPS data on the extensive network of bicycle trails is available for download.
Istria so far has lived from mass tourism, relying on inexpensive campgrounds and a few large hotels. Of its 2.8 million guests in 2008, 27 per cent came from Germany, most arriving by car from the southern states of Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg, twelve per cent came from Austria and eight per cent from the Netherlands.
"We are now getting away from mass tourism in the inland areas," Ivosevic said. Hotels on the coast, most of which were built in the 1970s, are being renovated.
The touristic breakthrough is supposed to come via the combination of cuisine and culture. Judging by foreigners' keen interest in parcels of land with stone houses - even crumbling ones - the calculation could be right. The level of interest is reminiscent of Tuscany in the early 1970s.
Internet: www.croatia.hr, www.istra.hr.
