Walking the thematic trails based on narrative tradition in Rodik, Kubed, and Central Istria

On 30 and 31 January 2025, as part of the Routes Biographies project (SRA J6 4611), we hiked three thematic trails related to the narrative tradition of Istria, which are part of the cultural and/or tourist offer. In Rodik, we visited the Mythical Park and its museum. In Kubed, we followed the tourist adventure trails learning about the Giants of Istria. In Pazin, we visited the Ethnographic Museum of Istria, where we met Nikolina Rusac, a collaborator of the already completed Interreg project Živa štrigarija / Živa Coprnija [Living enchantments] (2017–2019), which has developed a series of cultural trails and an online application for visiting points on the trail. However, the trail was not integrated into the local tourist offer and the web application no longer works. Nevertheless, we undertook the circular hike Gračišće – Sopot Waterfall – Pićan – Gračišće, as most of our route followed a marked mountain path. In the last section, the blue and white markings “disappeared” and shortly afterwards we had the opportunity to hear a local’s opinion on hiking over private land.

This walking seminar aimed to (comparatively) discuss thematic trails in the context of narrative heritage, recognise the motivations and ideas behind them, and observe the interventions in the landscape, its use, its life, and its eventual decay. In the workshops, we reflected on the information we received from our interlocutors (authors, collaborators, inhabitants, etc.), as well as our observations and experiences, which will hopefully result in experimental fieldnotes in the form of a fairy tale.