Camping Stoja, Pula,

Camping Stoja, Pula, Istria

We arrived in Croatia on Saturday 5th May 2013. We waited until May for two reasons, the weather and most of the campsites don’t open until the beginning of May. We decided to head down to Pula in Istria first then work our way up the Istrian coast and then across and down the Dalmatian coast. I think we were a bit ambitious to think that we could see all of Croatia in 3-4 weeks as we only got down as far as Split and unfortunately did not get down to Dubrovnik as we had hoped.

Map of Croatia

The drive through Slovenia to get to Croatia was really lovely and a place we will come back to explore next time. We were told to visit Lake Bled so that is on our list. The countryside was beautiful and we started to get quite excited about what was to come in Croatia.

Coffee at Village in Istria

Before we got to Pula we stopped off at a little village to get some supplies. Our first impression of the place was that it was very similar to a very pretty village in the UK and very green. It was a Saturday so there were a lot of people sitting outside 2 of the bars drinking coffee, which seems to be a popular Saturday morning past-time here. The shop, although small, was well stocked with a butchers and bakers section within it. We bought some very good steak that we cooked on the BBQ that evening. One of the bars looked so inviting with the comfy wicker chairs that we decided to have a coffee in the sun before carrying on to the campsite. We were surprised once we were on our way out of the village that an old man walking along the road stopped and waved at us with a really friendly smile.

Camping Village Stoja Pula
Pula is the largest city in the Istria region of Croatia and is situated at the southern tip of the Istria peninsula. Istria is well known for its unspoilt scenery, winemaking, fishing, truffles, gorgeous truffle cheese and olive oil. Also for its wealth of Roman ruins to explore.

Views of the campsite at Camping Stoja, Istria

We stayed at Camping village Stoja which was a large, beautiful site right on the tip of the peninsula. It was partly wooded but we chose a spot without shade to get as much sun as we could. We were in luck as it was really hot and sunny, unlike the following day where it rained most of the day, so we managed to get some sunbathing in.

The campsite was 3km from Pula and there was a regular bus service running from just inside the campsite gates.