Great things to do in Rabac: a seven day itinerary

Rabac is teeming with spectacular wildlife, and there’s plenty of meandering trails to explore. The most well-trodden is Rabac to Laban, a laid-back hike through a lowland pine forest. From Laban, hiking options include a western trail to Skitaca vantage point and Crna Punta lighthouse. The peaks of Goli, Oštri and Brdo are well worth the effort, and afterwards, you can plonk down to enjoy a pink-hazed sky, and the sun descending behind the mountains.

As you ascend the steep, cobbled hill up to the old town you pass by the beautiful villas built to house the white-collar workers. Passing through the first city gate you enter the main square – still named Titov trg – with its brightly painted buildings and Venetian loggia. This is the town’s social hub dominated by the landmark Velo café, restaurant and nightspot. The terrace crowds out in summer.

Labin has a vibrant arts scene and the majority of talent is home grown, artists preferring to stay here. As you continue uphill, through the second gate, and explore the old town you pass galleries, studios and workshops. Municipal Gradska Galerija Labin provides an agenda of contemporary exhibitions, opposite the Labin Museum. These and other public spaces are commandeered for the annual Labin Art Republic series of arts events in July and August. Initiated in 2003, it stages live shows, exhibitions, and ad hoc street entertainment.

Back to the old town, Šetalište San Marco is a terrace on the old city walls providing an unbroken vista out over the Kvarner Bay. Locals claim that the shallow depth of the sea here, only 80 metres, encourages growth of a specific plankton, and thus outstanding seafood. If you carry on walking to the top of the town, the whole of eastern Istria is laid out before you. 

One of the largest but least developed of Croatia’s islands, the relatively untouched gem of Cres contains 400sq km of rugged wilderness, an estimated 80 breeding pairs of the rare griffon vultures and only 3,000 full-time human residents. There are a couple of resort settlements, but not much else in the way of luxury vacations. For more sophistication, take a room in ancient Cres town; for wilderness, get a campsite in the hills. Either way, you can expect a simpler and quieter time than many of Kvarner’s other resorts.

Cres is long enough to have two distinct landscapes, verdant in the north, known as Tramuntana, barren to the south. The north contains the two settlements of Beli – home to the Caput Insulae Eco Centre, which works to protect rare resident birds – and the commercial centre of Cres town. There, fishing boats bob in the café-lined harbour, behind which serpentine, car-free streets weave between attractively austere and fading pastel buildings.

If nearby Labin is strong on culture, Rabac provides all the summer fun. For a summer-long programme of entertainment, Valamar Girandella provide a range of games and activities for all ages.

The Rabac Summer Carnival is a local celebration which proudly exhibits the eccentricities of Istrian life. Taking place in June, this annual summer carnival is a fun, bawdy and often hedonistic crawl from the costal path to Girandella Beach, where live bands and DJs play into the night. Men in frocks, sailor caps; here, anything goes.

The Rabac Festival is an annual dance music festival with DJs throwing around house, techno and disco over for one sun-kissed day in July with over 3000 party-loving attendees. 

The rocky seabed around Lošinj means there’s no sand to cloud the water, and you can see straight down for a long way. Thanks to this seabed, the currents and conservation, the water around the island is among the cleanest in the Adriatic, which is why this area is a magnet for dolphins – you may see the beautiful creatures chasing the ferry boat that brings you to this island. The clean water is also an attraction for spearfishers, who hold regular tournaments here, as well as ordinary vacationers, who enjoy a dip in clearer water. Back on shore, the attractions of Lošinj include beautiful nature as well as resort settlements full of good bars and restaurants.

Mali Lošinj, the largest island town in the Adriatic with a population of 7,000, is set around a long wide harbour, lined with Habsburg-era façades. Trg Republike Hrvatske is the big square. Pop into the Art Collections for modern Croatian and 17th- and 18th-century Italian works.

There are good beaches near Mali Lošinj, including the popular rocky and pebbly stretches in wooded Čikat, just on the other side of a hill from the harbour.

Rabac is a great place to sample Istria’s distinctive gastronomy. You’ll find all the region’s staples here - from fine wines to olive oils. 

One of the best restaurants in Rabac is Nostromo, with a large, roofed terrace where you can enjoy your meal looking out over Maslinica beach in Rabac Bay. Understandably, the menu majors on fish and seafood specialities – although not exclusively – and there’s a reasonable range of local wines.

Valamar Girandella Resort deliver traditional Mediterranean-Istrian cooking from several restaurants, with a superb choice of fresh, local dishes and Istrian fine wines.

Olive oil is a central pillar of Istrian cuisine, and the Belic family in Rabac produce award-winning stuff. Home-made, and sold by the bottle, there’s a tasting room situated in the front room of their family home.

Under a kilometre from the crowds on Maslinica beach and nearby campsite in Rabac, a ghostly sight welcomes anyone who decides to take a relatively short stroll along the coast. A busy terminal between 1925 and World War II, the Teleferika was a cable car that served the local bauxite industry. Running the whole nine kilometres from the village of Cere, where the quarry was located, the line delivered the goods directly to the ships waiting here in the bay. Today the ruins of the buildings here still remain for the curious visitor to explore. The view over the waves and of Rabac beyond is sublime – though the cable car has long been out of operation.

More soft play in the water than high-tech rides, nevertheless the two Aqua Fun sites in Rabac, at Maslinica beach and at the Valamar Girandella Resort on the other side of the headland, provide active entertainment all day long in summer. Slides, towers, climbing frames and tubes allow kids to balance, clamber and, best of all, fall off, into clear seawater. And then go back and do the same thing all over again.

While Labin gets arty, Rabac parties. Just in from the seafront, surrounded by resort hotels, the Movie Bar is where holidaymakers get down and fraternise. DJs spin all summer long, cocktails are dangerously affordable and most of the action takes place outside around a large clearing in the trees. There's occasionally live music too, but just to warm things up. Season-closing parties tend to be memorable. In high season, other party options include the Sundance Beach Club and, nearby, the Beat Beach Club, both along Obala Maršala Tita.

Now with two restaurants on the main seafront boulevard in Rabac, ulica Maršala Tita, Lino has based its success on simply sublime seafood. Linguini with clams, spicy lobster and oven-baked dentex with home-style potatoes, this is cuisine created with love and experience, one of the founders having spent his formative years in the kitchens of New York. The setting, too, is perfect, directly overlooking the waterfront in the case of Lino 1 at No.59. Guests at evening-only Lino 2 at No.11 are treated to an Adriatic view from the upper dining terrace.

Built at a Newcastle shipyard in 1879, the Lina came to grief in the Kvarner Bay on the eve of World War I when on a journey from Cardiff to Rijeka. Even sport divers may observe the ship, set 50 metres from the shore, at least as far as the captain’s cabin. More experienced divers can plunge deeper, where schools of fish hide amid the fishing nets wrapped around the mast, and see how the rudder is wedged into the sand. For complete beginners, Rabac-based Girandella diving centre lays on trips to the Golubiera rocks where octopi and occasionally seahorses dwell. Diving courses for all ages and levels are also given.

Rabac is always at its busiest in summer, its beaches, restaurants and discos buzzing through the high season. But now this seaside resort is slowly coming to life in winter too, with venues such as the family-run Nostromo staying open to offer comfortable lodging and classic Croatian cuisine, often in the form of attractive half-board deals. For those just coming here to dine, you’ll be tucking into Istrian favourites – squid, sardines, pork loin – a few steps away from the Rabac seafront. 

The Rabac Open Air Festival (ROAF) involves six weeks of culture in four main categories: street performance; street music; cinema and theatre, and special events. The key here is the alfresco aspect of the whole shebang, and its random yet inclusive nature. Street performance could mean circus entertainers, it could mean people dressed up as cartoon characters. Films are family- and usually English-friendly, with top local live acts opening and closing the festival. As the curtain comes down, the stage moves to the lighthouse by the Hotel Valamar Sanfior in Rabac.

The lesser-known smaller settlements of Plomin, Kršan, Vozilići and Potpićan lie north of Labin and Rabac, close to the tip of Kvarner. Hilltop Plomin is particularly picturesque, overlooking a channel that cuts into Istria’s east coast. Every spring, key restaurants in these communities take advantage of the plethora of wild asparagus that grows naturally in the verdant surroundings. Each prepares special dishes, but most will offer the local favourite, asparagus omelette. Establishments include the Konoba Stare Staze in Kršan, the Tri Murve in Vozilići and the Dorina in Plomin.