Rovinj Transportation

Some road distances to Rovinj from:

- Trieste (Italy): 105 kms.
- Zagreb (Croatia): 251 kms.
- Sofia (Bulgaria): 1.025 kms.
- Madrid (Spain): 2.084 kms.

Checking the website, you’ll find more road distances together with the driving times and the best routes.

Apart from the initial splurge on a taxi, for the entire week in Rovinj, we used nothing but local transport. The Bus Staion is conveniently situated halfway between the town centre and the Park Hotel so for me it was perfect. From Rovinj there are buses to Pula and Porec very frequently and one or two a day to less frequented destinations like Pazin, Buje, Labin or other inland towns.

Several buses a day leave for Zagreb,5 hours and 40 minutes away and one bus a day goes to Dubrovnik. You'd need to pack some sandwiches though, if you're planning on going to Dubrovnik because it takes about 17 hours.

Offseason there is one bus a day to Koper in Slovenia, but if you want to catch the return bus you will have about two hours to visist the town and a journey of around eight hours to get there and back.

Every morning two buses leave for Trieste in Italy, at 5.40 and 7.40. This is an excellent service which takes only a little over two hours on each leg of the trip.

I used the bus service to go to Pula, Pazin and Trieste and found the buses comfortable and the journeys pleasant. Outside all the bus stations I visited the timetables were clearly diplayed. Buses are quite cheap and they seem to run on time. A rare treat for someone used to the vagaries of Bus Eireann.

Posted below are the websites of Autotrans and Brioni Pula, the two bus companies that are mostly used in Istria.

WARNING: DO NOT DEPEND ON TRANSPORT INFO FROM GUIDE BOOKS. CHECK THE WEBSITES FOR CURRENT TIMES AND PRICES.

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If you want to visit the local islands, Red Island or St Katerina you just get the bus- boat that leaves the harbour regularly. No timetable is necessary as this large, luxurious looking blue and grey launch sails backward and forwards all day long. You can either pick it up at the dock near the Park Hotel or the one in the centre of town. Fares are from as little as 15 Kuna (a little over EURO 2 ) for a oneway fare and believe me this is the best value you will get for your money.

From spring to early October it's possible to sail to Venice from Rovinj with Venezia Line ferries - www.venezialines.com. We just missed this service as it stopped for the season on October 6th. Fares are expensive but worth it if you want to the huge treat of approaching Venice from the sea.

There were still loads of local boat trips on offer in October though and in perfect sunny weather cruising on that blue Adriatic is a seriously pleasurable business. Words are really quite inadequate to describe sailing along the Croatian coast. It's a mirage of darkest green and deepest blue, still sea scarcely ruffled by a breeze and nothing to do but sit back and enjoy it.
We went to the Lim Fjord on a boat called Quo Vadis and took some trips round the harbour and islands. One of these trips was on a glass -bottomed boat ( the better to see the fish by )but we just sat in the back and enjoyed the fresh air and beautiful views. On a boat you see every side of Rovinj and it looks even more striking than it does on dry land. The glass bottomed boat is moored close to the main square, as is the Quo Vadis and the owners just canvas for passengers as people pass by. It's the most relaxing and pleasurable aspect of a trip to Rovinj and every time we went on a boat trip it was completely on the spur of the moment because somebody asked and it seemed like a good idea.

To get to Rovinj by air the nearest airports are Pula and Trieste. Pula is considerably closer to Rovinj and now with Ryan Air flying to Pula from Dublin,the whole of Croatia has become a lot more accessible to Irish people all year round. Pula airport is tiny and check-in queues are unlikely. Paintings by local artists are dsplayed all over the terminal and in the depatures area, large segments of frescoes from churches in Croatia are mounted on the wall. There are adequate refreshment facilities for a brief visit but if you were seriously delayed there then it would be best to go into Pula.

According to Pula's website there are four buses from the airport into town at :11.15; 14.35; 15.15; 18.15. Presumably these schedules are to fit in with flight times but it's worth checking before you go. I should mention that when we arrived on Saturday afternoon the 14.35 bus did not show.

Because we found another couple prepared to share we took a taxi from Pula Airport directly to Rovinj. This took about an hour and cost EUR60.

Pula airport is only 37 km away from Rovinj. The roads are quite modern so no problem at all to get there, interesting that signs on the roads are written in 2 languages italian and croatian, but in fact that may be also confusing when trying to find some smaller town or village and not sure about the way it should be written

The best way to get here is hoping in from Pula ..30-40 min and you get there..the bus station is like a matchbox and hourly buses runs to/from Pula and other destinations..

the statoin is quite closer to the citadel or city center where all the local and trade activity is located (5-10min)

The old town can only be visited by foot, so park your car in one of the large parking lots that are around. Do not try to park too close to the old city : most of the time, in summer, the closest parking is full and you would have anyway to go back to the previous parking lot that you ha left, after 10-15 minutes of traffic jam. Then, you have better park there directly !

The best way to get to Rovinj is to fly to Trieste, Italy. We flu with Rynair from Stanstead, London. You can get a bus direct to the coach station from the airport 30 mins. Please note you have to buy the bus ticket from the Café upstairs in the airport. You can get a direct coach to Rovinj from Trieste it cost’s about 7Euro’s one way. You will travel through Slovenia it takes about 1hour 30mins.

My friend hired a car in Italy but didn’t realise that you can not take hire cars through borders into Slovenia or Croatia