You have to pay to visit the part of the oldest complex and to visit Bishop’s palace that is organized like a museum today and it hosts remnants of the floor mosaic with the symbolic motif of the fish that belonged to the older church and some other interesting mosaics.

It is interesting that during the transition from the 3rd to the 4th century Porec became a Bishopric. This is confirmed by an inscription from the end of the 4th century which narrates the transportation of the martyr’s bones of St. Mauro from the grave outside the town walls into the area of the church.

This also proves that the old town has been fortified at that time and later on the Aquileia Patriarchs and Venetians improved the fortification system. St. Mauro died around year 250.

In 1354, Admiral Paganino Doria from Genova occupied Porec and took away the bones of the martyrs. They were returned to Porec only in 1934. Today, the bones are placed inside the Basilica. To learn more about this complex it is an advise to buy an art book guide about it where more details can be found.

Every year, at the end of April, the International Exhibit of wine, wine equipment and home made products is also held in Porec. The exhibition is called Vinistra.

Vinistra contributed in the last years in increasing the quality of Istrian wines and today there are over 100 Istrian families that produces high quality wines and over 100 families that produces high quality olive oil. Those families are the promoter of the Istrian millenniums old wine making and top quality olive oil making tradition.

A friend of mine, Marinella Viglione and Stefano Bonilli, run the Gambero Rosso company that among other things edit and publish famous Italian wine guide, they also run in the past the Gambero Rosso Channel and the famous “Citta’ del Gusto” in Rome.

I always told them that it would be interesting to understand how would our wines rank compare to the Italian wines and they promised to me that one day they will come to Istria with their experts and try by themselves the quality of our wines.

Some years ago, in Italy, a very young Sandi Chiavalon, from Vodnjan, ranked among the top 15 more prominent olive oil producers in the World.

Last time when I was Marinella’s guest in Rome in Citta’ del Gusto I tried some very special wines. Among them there was a Slovenian made wine with a thousands years old wine making technique. The colour of the wine was very particular. It was very similar to the colour of wine of my grandfather that used an older technique than my father use.

It is interesting that at the time Romans mixed wine with honey. If you try to do the wine with the old technique it will be easy for you to understand why they were doing so.

Many Istrian wines have been awarded for wine quality on European fairs and at the end of May there is a wine day of open cellars. Also in Italy and other countries with a long wine tradition a similar event is organized. Every year, on the last Sunday of May, together with the World Wine Day, there are some sixty wine cellars in Istria that are open for wine tasting.

In Porec’s photo gallery you will find pictures of most of the buildings described in the text above of this beautiful Istrian coast town.  

POREC – HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

Porec like most other Istrian towns and villages was a prehistoric settlement. There are several theories about the origin of its name and all theories agree only in a fact that the origin dates back into pre Roman times.

Bishop Negri in the 18th century used to say the story that in origin was Troian Paride that named this place Paridium that later on was changed into Parentium.

The old name is assumed to be Parentum. According to Benussi’s opinion its origin could be Celtic because of its end in “tum” that in Celtic would mean fortified village. There are others that think that the origin could be Greek, Illyric or Venetian.

During the Roman conquest of Istria the settlement was turned into a castrum, a military base, which shortly after, in 12 BC, was promoted to the status of Municipality and was named Parentium.