Hills of Istria

 

We headed to the hill towns of Central Istria through a 3-mile-long tunnel under the mountains. Our first stop was to go truffle hunting. Truffles have symbiotic relation with the tree roots, primarily oak trees. They are a tuber that develops over 40 days. The black truffle grows worldwide, all year in well-kept forests where the soil has a Ph of 7.5. Here Lucerne oaks which are used for ships were grown. The typical price for a black truffle is $800/kg. The conditions needed for white truffle are more mysterious, they only grow in this region of Europe and only from September to January. The price is 8-10x the price for black truffles. Our truffle hunter brought his two dogs that have been trained to find truffles. As pups they use truffle oil on the mother’s tits to associate the smell with something good. Then they play a game of hide and seek for the dogs to find truffles. They are given a dog biscuit as a treat when they find the truffle. The dogs learn not to eat the truffle, but to expose it in the dirt. His best dog, Napoleon, can smell a truffle a meter underground from 60 meters away. Since it was wet and muddy from recent rains, we hid two truffles along the road for the dogs to find. They made short work of finding each truffle. Our hunter was a former civil engineer, who now makes his living hunting 5-6 hours a day.

Motovun in the clouds

We then went up to the hill top town of Motovun with its two sets of protective walls, built in the 13^th and 15^th centuries. Underneath the central square is a cistern to store the town’s water. Children were playing on the benches and the well. We walked the inner walls. It was quite picturesque with the fall colors among the hills. During Yugoslavian times, the government encouraged artists to work in these small towns. The silk scarf shop had a lot of business from our group. We sampled truffles with various cheeses, I enjoyed the taste.

Children playing

We went on to the town of Hum, billed as the smallest town in the world with its 26 inhabitants. Here we had a lunch of minestra soup, pasta with truffles, and beef with potato dumplings. The town hall was built in the 11^th century and the tower in the 14^th. We visited a museum with a wide collection of articles from the past: pharmacy, cobbler, dress maker, etc. We had a chance to sample local jams and liquors, their specialty was mistletoe brandy.

Lunch in Hum