Having gone to Pula in spring, I’m acutely aware that it’s a place that probably works better in summer. There were so many things I would have liked to do and couldn’t because they don’t start until May or June. So if I was to go to Pula in July or August, this is what I’d do.
Day one
Like I did in April, I’d still spend the first day getting my bearings around the city. The Roman ruins are just sitting around in the streets and although pretty much anything you could go inside is closed from November to February, you can still admire them from the outside year-round. The big one is Pula Arena, the massive 1st century Roman amphitheatre which dominates Pula’s skyline. Then, following Kandlerova ul. and ul. Sergijevaca in a circle around the city centre, there’s the ruins of St Theodor’s Quarter, Pula Cathedral, the Forum and the Temple of Augustus, the Punishment of Dirce mosaic, the Arch of the Sergii, Hercules Gate, the Twin Gates and the Roman Mausoleum. You can make a day out of just seeing each of them. If you’ve got time, you can then go into the Zerostrasse tunnels from behind the Twin Gates, explore Pula’s wartime history and take the lift up to the Venetian Kastel, the 1600s fortress and citadel and take in the views.
What I’d then do is spend the evening at the Arena watching an actual gladiator fight – this is something I’d have loved to do but it only happens in the summer, and they haven’t released their 2025 dates yet, so I can’t tell you anything useful like when it actually gets started. The 2024 dates on the website seems to suggest fights are held every couple of days fairly randomly through August and September but Instagram suggests it starts in late June and mostly happens at the Small Roman Theatre rather than the Arena. Pula Arena is such an amazing place anyway and if you have the opportunity to watch gladiators fighting there, I’d go out of my way to make sure I get to see that.
Day two
Today we’re going to enjoy the water. Pula has various companies that run transparent kayak trips, which again, don’t start as early as April, because I’d have loved to do that! I’m going to send you out by day in this itinerary but you can also do it by night, when the kayaks are illuminated by LEDs to create a floating light show in the dark.
However, by day you can appreciate the brilliant turquoise waters around this bit of coast, jump out of the kayaks to swim in the water and explore sea caves. All of this you could do by yourself – there are companies that will just hire the kayaks or if you’re nervous about taking on an unfamiliar bit of water and an unfamiliar craft, there are plenty of guided tours available too. Most of these go from the Verudela resort area, which is accessible by bus from the city, which is another reason to suggest daytime rather than night time – unless you’ve got a car or you’re staying around Verudela, you’re probably going to find it hard to get back to Pula late at night.
While you’re down here, make the most of the beaches – Pula city isn’t great for direct access to the sea, so enjoy it here. There’s Fort Verudela too, a 19th century Austro-Hungarian defensive structure which is interesting in itself and has views over the south of the peninsula. It’s also home to Pula Aquarium, which tends to appear on “what to do in Pula” lists. Its exhibits are mostly based around the type of marine habitat and they’re a sanctuary for sea turtles, which are nursed back to health here throughout the winter and released into the wild in the summer, if they’re up to it, so if you’re hoping to see sea turtles, this is the place to come.
We’re going to stick with the sea theme for the evening too. A big, big thing in Pula is dolphin spotting and an entire fleet of small tourist or fishing boats will set out all at once from Pula’s harbour somewhere around late afternoon – the times advertised were 4.30 – 7.30pm when I was there, although none of them would start for at least another week and most of them not until May. You can choose a big boat, a small boat, a private boat, a boat that provides dinner, a boat that provides booze, whatever you want – there’s a flavour of boat tour to suit everyone! These tours run up to a bay just south of the Brijuni Islands, which is really only just outside the headlands that enclose Pula and protect it from the open Adriatic. Because they’re wild animals, I can’t promise you’ll see anything but these companies understand that disappointed tourists don’t book return trips or recommend them to friends (which is, in itself, a good reason to check that the company you’ve chosen does its tours sustainably and safely and isn’t causing distress to the wildlife) but what you might see includes bottlenose dolphins, striped dolphins and common dolphins.
Day three
Time to visit Brijuni National Park! These are the islands around which the dolphin trips go and you’ll take the little ferry out from a small town called Fažana. If you’ve got a car or you take a taxi, it should take around 15 minutes to drive from Pula to Fažana. By bus (number 21 departing from the bus station), it’s around 30 minutes. Fažana is part of Pula’s public transport system, so you’ll just need a two zone ticket or a day ticket which covers all zones and depending on what kind of ticket you have and where you bought it, it can cost anywhere up to €4 return.
In the summer, I highly recommend booking your tickets over to the islands in advance – you can opt for ferry only or you can include a guided tour in any of four languages. Guided tours include a trip on the land train giving you the highlights of the island, a quick trip through the safari park, a visit to an exhibition of stuffed animals and photos of Marshall Tito, a visit to a church and to the boathouse that also serves as the Brijuni museum.
If you don’t go with a guide, you can rent an electric golf buggy (you’ll need to provide your driving licence) or a bike or if you’re feeling really extravagant, you can hire Tito’s limited edition Cadillac with driver for €1,400 an hour. Or you can walk. There are cafes, an abundance of churches, more Roman ruins, beaches, sea views, the safari park, a massive golf course and driving range and a slightly miserable bird exhibition, which includes Tito’s elderly parrot, who can say all the things you’d expect a parrot to be able to say, including the rude ones, but only in Croatian.
Boats go about every hour in the spring so I’d expect them to run at least that often, if not every half hour in the summer, but be aware that you might be getting packed in like sardines if you come back on a particularly popular boat. I spent a day on Brijuni but you could easily spend longer, especially if you stay at one of the hotels here. There are also options for diving tours and excursions to a couple of the other islands on the archipelago.
More days
If you want to extend your trip beyond three days, you can always spend another day or two just exploring Pula or on Brijuni. But if you want more ideas, you could hire a car and explore the Istrian peninsula, which is awash with small Mediterranean villages, churches, vineyards and so on. Stop off for local wine, olive oil tastings and see if you can find fields of Istrian lavender.
You could take the bus up to Rovinj, which sounds like a delightful small town 45-60 minutes away by bus or 40-45 minutes by car. Rovinj is a fishing port and a popular tourist resort and beach destination, which looks like it’s mostly crammed onto a small roundish peninsula sticking out the west side of Istria.
If you’re feeling really adventurous, you can do a long day trip to Venice, which is almost directly opposite on the other side of the Adriatic – either by high-speed ferry or by car, both of which will take around four hours, although I’m sure you can take a longer boat if you really want to and make a long weekend of it. By land-based public transport, you’re looking at something more like 8-13 hours each way.
Or you could use Pula as the springboard for a long trip down Croatia’s spectacular coast, finishing up a few days or weeks later in Dubrovnik. City break or Balkan adventure, Pula is great for both!
I Am A Polar Bear 