Istrian Caves Day Trip: Baredine and Feštinsko Kraljevstvo

Istria is limestone, and limestone leaks. Rain sinks straight through it, and over a few hundred thousand years that water has hollowed out a landscape underneath the vineyards that is every bit as worth seeing as the one on top.

Two of those caves are open to visitors and both are within forty-five minutes of Rovinj. They are very different in scale, and together they make a good half day — particularly the sort of half day that rescues a family holiday on a day when the sea is too rough or the sun too strong.

Baredine Cave

Baredine, in the countryside inland from Poreč, is the serious one. The visitor route descends 60 metres below ground along about 300 metres of path, through five decorated chambers, and the guided tour takes around forty minutes.

The formations have names, as they always do — a ten-metre curtain of flowstone, a shape the guides call the milkmaid, a leaning tower, a snowman that has become the cave’s trademark. Take those lightly; what is actually impressive is the scale of the chambers and how completely the temperature and the silence change once you are down.

The thing to go for is the olm. Proteus anguinus is a blind, pale, cave-dwelling amphibian found only in the karst of this region, and Baredine keeps them where visitors can see them. They live for decades, they can go years between meals, and they look like nothing else you will see. If you are travelling with children, this is the part they will remember.

Baredine was protected as a geomorphological monument of nature in 1986 and opened to visitors in 1995. Above ground there is a collection of old tractors and farm machinery, a speleology gallery and a climbing wall, which sounds like padding and is genuinely useful if you have somebody in the party who does not want to go underground.

Feštinsko Kraljevstvo

The Kingdom of Feštini, near Žminj, is the small one, and its story is better. A vine grower in the 1930s put a pickaxe through the roof of a chamber while planting. Cavers from Pazin explored it properly in 1990, and it opened to visitors in 2008.

The name comes from the children of the surrounding villages, who used to climb down and, asked where they had been, said they had been to the kingdom at Feštini.

It is about sixty metres long and nine metres deep, with roughly a hundred metres of walkway, and the tour lasts twenty minutes. That is short — but it is densely decorated with stalactites and stalagmites, and the scale makes it much less daunting than Baredine for small children or anyone uneasy about depth.

Doing both in one trip

They are in different directions from Rovinj — Baredine inland of Poreč to the north, Feštinsko Kraljevstvo towards Žminj to the east — so the two together is a half day of about four hours including the driving between them.

If you are only doing one: Baredine for the scale and the olm, Feštinsko Kraljevstvo if you have young children, limited time, or anybody who would rather not descend sixty metres.

When to go, and what to wear

Caves are the one Istrian attraction that improves in bad weather, and the obvious time to go is a wet day or the middle of a July heatwave. Both are open through the main season; both shorten their hours considerably in winter, and Feštinsko Kraljevstvo in particular runs a reduced schedule out of season.

It is cold down there. Istrian caves sit at a constant temperature in the low teens Celsius all year, which in August means a difference of twenty degrees from the car park. Take a jacket — every guide will tell you this and half the visitors still arrive in a swimsuit and a t-shirt.

Wear shoes with grip. The paths are made up but they are wet limestone, and Baredine in particular has a long descent on steps.

Practical notes

• Both run guided tours only, at set times. You cannot wander in.
• Baredine’s tour is offered in several languages; ask which one you are joining before you pay.
• Neither is suitable for a pushchair. Baredine is not suitable for anyone with limited mobility.
• Photography is generally fine without flash, but the light is low — expect phone photographs to struggle.
• Check opening times on the day from November through March.

Travel time from Rovinj: about 30 minutes to Baredine, about 30–40 minutes to Feštinsko Kraljevstvo.

Plan your transfer

• Rovinj to Poreč transfer — the caves are just inland
• Grožnjan and Poreč — combine the caves with the coast
• Motovun — the inland hill-town day
• Private day trips from Rovinj