2 things about Rovinj

History you can guess: Byzantine - Frankish - Aquilean - Venetian - Austrian - Italian - Yugoslavian. Nuff said?
Round tower had me fooled- thought I was in Albania again.
Here are a couple of unusual facts:
The bell tower of St Euphemia cathedral, named for the girl martyred on the wheel whose remains are kept in a box, was built in 1677 and modeled after that of St Mark in Venice. The copper statue is 3.9m high and 61.35m above the ground. This would pose a problem in the high winds of the Bora had it not been mounted on ball bearings. "La donna e mobile" as Pavarotti would have said / sung.
It used to be a pre-condition of obtaining civil rights in the town that one had to build a chimney on ones house. In mediaevil times the island was already crammed with buildings, so new arrivals had to construct dream homes over the heads of existing ones, leading to an interesting thicket of chimneys.Read more