The old town of Porec, like the old town of Zagreb, is most charming at twilight. This is when we saw it first.

The drive from Zagreb to this point on the Istrian coast takes three hours. We traveled well-paved highways through increasingly picturesque countryside, the tree leaves gold and red, orange and rust, thanks to the season, the sky steel blue. The drive was a pleasure, thanks to the quality of the roads, and a thrill, especially for 5-year-old Jackson in the back seat, thanks to the series of tunnels and bridges you cross through and over along the way. At least a dozen tunnels run through the mountains, one more than five kilometers in length.

Driving this region, you might think this country's government has spent all its time and money these past 10 years since the civil war ended building roads and bridges, tunnels and viaducts, rest stops and turnarounds, gas stations, mini-marts, and children's play areas. We saw crews working at night in the dark. These people are serious about rebuilding their country. It seems almost a case of "build it, and they will come"...for, right now, anyway (admittedly, off-season), we were often the only ones making use of these pretty new road works.

We arrived in Porec (say it "Porecsh") late afternoon, tired and hungry, but holding our expectations in check. One of the guidebooks I'm carrying this trip had warned us that Porec, by far the largest resort on this Istrian peninsula," is one of those places irredeemably spoiled by mass tourism." We'd chosen it because it's a central base from which to explore the region (and to carry out our search for an old stone farmhouse we can't live without), but, once I'd read the guidebook's discouraging description, I wanted to see for myself.

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First Published: Nov 06, 2005