With an Old Town piled up on a campanile-crowned peninsula, Rovinj represents the Istrian coast at its most photogenic. Filled with stepped alleyways and handsome stone houses, the town is just as atmospheric as the pictures suggest.

Rovinj is famous for its artists’ studios and artistically-inclined guests – a famously open-to-all art exhibition is held on the main street, Grisia, every August.

St Euphemia

Marking the peninsula’s highest point is the eighteenth-century Church of St Euphemia, a bulky Baroque structure whose soaring, 58-metre bell tower is topped by statue of the saint after whom it is named. Fourth-century Christian martyr Euphemia was put to death during the persecutions of Roman Emperor Diocletian’s reign; her remains are held in a stone sarcophagus behind the church’s altar.

Batana Eco-Museum

On the south side of the peninsula, beside the sea, the Batana Eco-Museum tells the story of the flat-hulled, single-sail fishing boats for which the town is famous. The small but engrossing Town Museum nearby is strong on contemporary art – although the Madonna and Child by sixteenth-century Venetian painter Bassano will keep the traditionalists happy.

Zlatni Rt