Istarska pustinja – the Istrian Desert

There is one place in Istria that is utterly unlike anything else in Croatia. When you find yourself there you have the feeling you are on another planet. Nobody is immune to it. Whatever your age, the smile stays on your face long after you leave. A visit to the Istarska pustinja (the “Istrian Desert”) is hilarious fun for children and adults alike!

We must have spent a full hour running over the little hills and hollows of the desert. Picking up speed on the downhills, carrying the momentum up the other side, hopping from one “wave” to the next… The desert turns you into playful children in an instant!

This is the place where it becomes perfectly clear why central Istria is called Grey Istria. Wherever you go in central Istria you can see deposits of marl and flysch. Flysch is a mixture of sandstone and marl, the raw material for cement. At first glance everything is green, but then on the landslips of the hills you see that there is flysch underneath. If you look carefully you can spot it on the approaches to Hum, and at countless other places round about. It is most striking of all in the Istarska pustinja, because that is the largest open (unvegetated) area of flysch.

There is a tourist information board at the entrance to the desert, and a widening of the road for parking just before it. The main entrance is from the village of Čepić, and at the last house you get the feeling you are walking into someone’s yard, but people here are very obliging and will happily point you the right way. This place is still not all that well known, so people watch you with a certain curiosity.
“You came all this way for that?”

The largest part of the desert stretches westwards, into the area of the neighbouring village of Šterna.

Along the “waves” we saw a good many metal pins that clearly serve as reinforcement to stop the hills eroding. It seems to us that this place could be threatened by mass tourism, which is why it is up to each of us to behave responsibly so that this natural curiosity is preserved as fully as possible.

Istarska pustinja, a place of incredible scenery, offers heaps of hilarious fun for all ages!

The first part of the desert measures 120 x 40 m, but once you climb to the north-western edge, the desert carries on for another 200 m and more in every direction.

Close to the desert is the astonishing Butori sinkhole, so a trip to this part of the country is well worth the effort!