A Cruising Club Account of Pula, Croatia

Pula is located at the southern tip of the Istrian peninsula. It has some of the best beaches in the region. This sailing hot spot attracts visitors due to the town’s historical sites, and lovely examples of Roman architecture. We are lucky enough to share a recent sailing blog from a wonderful client of ours who has just returned from a fantastic charter exploring Pula.

The crew arrived at Marina Veruda located four miles from the picturesque city centre. Spending the day relaxing by the pool, shopping for supplies and meeting other crew members who joined the four yachts. Conveniently on site there was also a bar and restaurant where large beers, lunch and dinner could be enjoyed.

A full day sailing past Pula Town and the National Park of Brijuni to Rovinj. Glorious blue seas and warmth surrounded us. Getting to know our boats all of which had in-mast furling and self-tacking jibs. Rovinj proved to be a beautiful old town, cobbled streets, and colourful houses. A lively harbour full of fishing boats and seafront bars much enjoyed by all.

Beautiful weather meant the crew diverted for a tour of the Limski Kanal, a fjord-like feature, the largest ria in the Mediterranean as well as anchoring up for swimming in beautiful clear water. Here Dinner was eaten in various restaurants; the cuisine everywhere was more heavily Italian influenced than further south in the country and the seafood was delicious and plentiful.

We headed north, this time toward Porec. Another perfect sailing day. Not doing long distances, sailing virtually port to port on every passage. A smaller marina where, as we were all close together, FENERA invited everyone for a cocktail party, all squeezing into the very generous cockpit.

The four yachts decided upon different routes. ELBA returned to Rovinj for two nights to hire bikes, CETUS returned to Vrsar to try out paddleboarding and FENERA headed further north to Novigrad, another pretty town. Particularly stunning sunsets were again observed, they were beautiful every night.

All back to Rovinj tonight where a three-day music festival took place. A brass band with twirling majorettes parading through the streets followed by a band who were quite famous in Croatia as everyone sang and danced along. Consequently, the place was buzzing and we much enjoyed the festivities.

Our last day sailing back to the base. Twelve crew departed for flights home but the remainder of the group had all booked to stay for another three days. We called ourselves “The Lucky Ones”. Most remained around Pula and were able to see the amphitheatre, soak up the atmosphere of the old town and explore more of the restaurants and beaches.