“The fastest way to travel is to be there already.”
Terry Pratchett, Soul Music
Sites/Topics covered in this post:
• Učka Nature Park
Go-Date: Day 116, Saturday, May 18
Lesson Learned: Croatia has a wealth of national parks. You can’t drive 50 kilometers without seeing a sign for another national park. Don’t let them go unvisited. They are stunning.
Park Pleasures Abound
We needed to get out of town and do some hiking. Its great to sprinkle in nature days throughout the trip because you get as much exercise as you can stand, really get to enjoy the country as its always been, generally its cheap (which is always a good thing for your travel budget, and you never know what you will discover or who you will meet.
Učka Nature Park is a couple hours drive from Pula and we’d passed by it numerous times during our stay in Istria, but we always zoomed under it via the 6 km long tunnel on the freeway. This time, we took the back roads into the heart of the park.
Mount Učka rises along the coast of the northern Adriatic. It’s hard to imagine just how close to the sea you are, especially if you drive in from the interior of the peninsula as we did. Being this close to the Adriatic creates conditions that result in a climate supportive of lush forest vegetation, with many rare and protected plant and animal species. On the peak of Vojak there is a stone tower (built just before WWI I believe), which has become the park’s most recognizable landmark, (which doesn’t say a lot since nobody outside of Croatia has ever heard of Učka Nature Park.) We got washed out by rain from visiting this location, but I’ve read that from the top of the tower, one can admire a magnificent view of Rijeka, the Kvarner islands, Istria, Platak and beyond.
My single biggest gripe about the park is the web sited don’t give you a wealth of information on the overview of the park to determine where you go to take these hikes. Getting to and finding the trail heads is key for hiking an area you know nothing about. Directions to the trailheads is virtually non-existent for Croatian parks. Markers for the trails, once you are there is abysmal at best.
Once you find them, you are in for a great hike at Učka. I’m adding some snippets about the trails. We found that on the trails listed, there are 3 or 4 branches off that you can take to further tailor your trek to meet your needs. The one we took was supposed to be 2 km, but you could take a 7 km route (one way), a 4 km trail, and a 13 km trail. Choose your poison.
The Plas educational trail – passes over the slopes of the peak ridge of Učka, which is valued for its geological formation and rare endemic plant and animal species. The trail runs through a thick forest of beech, it features vantage points with magnificent views of the Istrian hills and the Ćićarija mountain range, has a few (very few) Info boards along the trail introduce visitors to the natural characteristics of this summit area of Učka. It has a wild range of fauna and flora, which includes deer, bear, supposedly a lynx or two, salamanders, and much, much more. Thankfully, we found no critters to inflict great bodily harm, but the variety of birds was very rewarding.
Altitude: 1,300 m
Length: 2 km
Time Required: 1:00 – 1:30 hours
Trebišća-Perun history and mythology trail – On the eastern slopes of Mount Učka, above beach of Mošćenička Draga, there lies a deep, yet hikeable gorge, whose human history goes back more than thousand years. This area held very special significance for the first Slavic settlers to reach the Kvarner area. This area was chosen as the site for their most sacred beliefs, the stage for ancient mythical events on which the cycle of life and natural changes, crucial to human existence, were based.
The Trebišća-Perun history and mythology trail is an attempt to explain more about the Slavic settlers, what we know today about their origins, why they came here, and the beliefs on which life in their community was based. The trail explains how the historical pieces of this region for the past thousand years, have been pieced together into the jigsaw that illuminated the sacred nature of this area.
The trail leads you through the hamlets in the canyon of Potoška vala up to the peak of Perun (880 meters). The trail helps you learn more about this area’s extraordinarily beautiful landscape and the history of the way in people used to live here.
The Trebišća-Perun history and mythology trail is an all-day hiking trip. The only reliable source of drinking water is in the hamlet of Trebišća. You had better lug your own water with you.
Altitude: 10 – 880 m
Length: 15 km
Time Required: 7 hours
The Slap nature trail (Slap is the Croatian word for waterfall) – runs through the Lovranska draga area, one of the most impressive torrential (which just means caused by or resulting from action of rapid streams. According to Webster) valleys on the eastern slopes of Mount Učka.
The trail leads to a waterfall in a stream that runs through the canyon and flows into the sea at Medveja. The trail continues on to the waterfall, past some sweet chestnut plantations (there are chestnuts all over this country with their beautiful pink/red clusters of flowers in the spring), an oak and hornbeam forest, flowing over old crumbling rock terraces that were used for farming in times long gone.
Altitude: 359 m
Length: 800 m
Time Required: 30 minutes
Well on our way to the summit, clouds were rolling in and the skies began weeping as frequently happens during the spring. Conditions kept deteriorating, and we felt it better to get off the mountain than risk getting stuck in the woods waiting for it to let up. We had our shells, but we definitely weren’t weather-proofed for heavy weather. Trudging downhill we decided to stop in at the restaurant sitting on the trail-head instead of eating the strawberries and sandwiches we’d packed along for lunch. We found Restaurant Ucka to be a pleasant surprise. Instead of repeating what I’ve written before, I’ll just paste in what I wrote on TripAdvisor.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g1069849-d9873190-Reviews-Restaurant_Ucka-Icici_Primorje_Gorski_Kotar_County.html
Zipping north out of Pula to get off the city streets and enjoy some deep woods hiking we made our way up to Ucka Nature Park. The park is lightly visited, free to enter, and the trail markings were decent once you were able to find the trail heads. After a nice hike we were caught up in a rain storm and found the Restaurant Ucka for lunch and shelter.
We were expecting burgers and ceviche, but were surprised and pleased to find this place so much more. Granted, its more expensive than we normally spend for lunch, but very reasonable for the type fare provided no matter what city in which you dine in Croatia. Besides, the remainder of our hiking day was being washed away.
This is one of the best restaurants we’ve eaten at in Croatia and that covers Zagreb, Porec’, Rovinj, Zadar, Split, and Dubrovnik. This is not to say we haven’t had great meals in these other places (ex. Lady Pi Pi in Dubrovnik) we just never expected to find it in a remote park on the upper end of Istria.
We had a lovely meat and cheese platter starter with deer salami, boar bacon (we’d call it razorback bacon back home), goat cheese, Istrian prosciutto, and a nice, smooth, flavorful cow cheese (I didn’t capture the type) along with home-made bread right out of the oven.
My wife had a porcini mushroom soup, while I had a wild boar goulash that was quite delightful. Istrian wine is fabulous, an apple strudel with a nice cappuccino polished off a terrific meal. I’d call it fine dining, but with a rustic flare which was well suited for the terrain of the park. The service was excellent and we had a nice view of the Adriatic Sea which is astounding since the bistro is in the shadow of Croatia’s tallest peak. We’d do it over again if we weren’t leaving Croatia in 3 days.
Not much more to report here. We made the soggy drive back to Pula and prepared to move inland the next day as we planned to meet our friends Nic and Mary K. in their home, Samobor which is just west of Zagreb. This is a great country to visit.