🇭🇷 Croatia · Istria
Few Adriatic cities greet you with so emphatic an image as Pula: you turn a corner and suddenly the Arena appears, a colossal, almost intact Roman amphitheatre that has stood for two thousand years and still fills with people, now for concerts and festivals instead of gladiator fights. That coexistence of antiquity and everyday life defines Pula, the largest city in Istria and one of the oldest in Croatia.
But Pula is much more than its amphitheatre. Its historic centre is an open book of history: the Temple of Augustus and the Roman Forum, the Arch of the Sergii, the walls and the Venetian fortress on top of the hill, and an Austro-Hungarian residue recalling when Pula was the empire's great military port (where, incidentally, the Irish writer James Joyce lived and taught). All of it mixes with a working port, markets, terraces and, a few kilometres away, some of the loveliest coastline in Istria.
This guide covers Pula with a practical, warm eye: how to visit the Arena and the Roman monuments, what to see in the historic centre, where to swim in the coves of Cape Kamenjak, how to slip over to the Brijuni islands and how to get around and eat well in a region where the Adriatic meets Italian cooking, truffles and olive oil. A perfect gateway to Istria.
According to legend, Pula was founded by the Colchians pursuing Jason and the Argonauts, but its real history begins with the Histri, the Illyrian people who gave Istria its name. Rome conquered the region in the 2nd century BC and Pula (Pietas Iulia) flourished as a Roman colony, reaching its peak in the time of Augustus: from that era come the Arena, the Temple of Augustus and the Arch of the Sergii. After the fall of Rome it passed through Byzantine, Ostrogothic and Frankish hands, and through the Middle Ages it was contested until it fell into the orbit of the Republic of Venice, which ruled it for centuries. Run down and decimated by plagues, Pula rose again strongly in the 19th century, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire chose it as the main port and base of its navy (the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine): the city grew enormously, filled with shipyards, fortifications and imperial architecture, and multiplied its population. After the First World War it passed to Italy, which reinforced its Italian character; after the Second World War it was briefly under Allied administration and then absorbed into socialist Yugoslavia, which triggered the exodus of much of the Istrian Italian population. With Croatia's independence in 1991, Pula became part of the new country, keeping its bilingual Croatian-Italian status and reinventing itself as a tourist and cultural destination. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Croatia's westernmost peninsula, Roman and Venetian, Italian for much of the 20th century and today officially bilingual: land of the Pula amphitheatre and the Poreč mosaics, marked by the painful exodus of its Italians after 1945.
Read the history of Istria →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Pula's origins are lost between history and myth. The most famous legend links it to the Greek cycle of Jason and the Argonauts: according to the story, the Colchians pursuing Jason to recover the Golden Fleece, unable to catch him, did not dare return empty-handed to King Aeëtes and founded a city they called Polai, which in their language would mean 'city of refuge' or 'asylum'. It is only a legend, but it gives a sense of the antiquity the inhabitants themselves attributed to their city.
Documented history begins with the Histri, the people of Illyrian origin who lived on the peninsula and gave it its name: Istria. The Histri had their fortified hilltop settlements (castellieri) and lived from farming, herding and, according to Roman sources, also from piracy on the Adriatic. The hill where Pula's Kaštel now stands was already inhabited then, in a strategic position above a naturally sheltered bay.
That bay, one of the best natural harbours on the Adriatic, would be the key to Pula's fate over the following centuries. Its safe shelter made it first a coveted base for Rome and, much later, the ideal home for the Austro-Hungarian Empire's war fleet. Geography set the city's maritime and military vocation from the very start.
Rome subdued the Histri in the 2nd century BC, and the region was absorbed into the Roman world. Pula became a colony, probably in the time of Julius Caesar or of Augustus, under the name Colonia Pietas Iulia Pola Pollentia Herculanea. Under the Roman peace, and especially during Augustus's reign, the city lived its first golden age: a regular street plan was laid out around the Forum, temples, theatres and walls were built and, above all, the great amphitheatre.
The Pula Arena, raised between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD and enlarged under the emperor Vespasian, is the most spectacular testimony of that era: an amphitheatre for more than 20,000 spectators, where gladiator fights and wild beast hunts were staged. From the same period come the Temple of Augustus, dedicated to the goddess Roma and the emperor, and the Arch of the Sergii, raised by a prominent local family. The city came to have several thousand inhabitants and was an active trading port, exporting wine, olive oil and Istrian stone.
Istrian limestone, white and hard-wearing, was one of the region's great products: it built not only Pula's monuments but, centuries later, would also be used in Venice. After the empire's crisis, Pula passed into the Byzantine orbit and then into the hands of various powers, but the Roman legacy was marked into its urban landscape for good, to the point that today it is one of the cities with the most and the best Roman monuments on the Adriatic.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Pula and all Istria passed through successive hands: the Ostrogoths, the Byzantine Empire (which left its mark on the region's mosaics and basilicas), the Lombards and the Franks. Through the early Middle Ages, the city kept a degree of importance as an episcopal see and a port, though far from its Roman splendour. Instability and power struggles marked these centuries.
From the late Middle Ages, Istria became a battleground between the great powers of the northern Adriatic: on one side, the Patriarchate of Aquileia and the feudal lords; on the other, the thrusting Republic of Venice, which needed to control the Istrian coast to secure its sea routes and to supply itself with stone, timber, salt, wine and oil. Pula fell definitively under Venetian rule and stayed in the Serenissima's orbit for centuries, until the Republic fell in 1797.
Venetian rule, however, did not bring Pula prosperity. Quite the opposite: the city went through a long decline. Wars, sackings (including by the Genoese, Venice's rivals) and, above all, repeated epidemics of plague and malaria decimated its population, which fell to a few thousand inhabitants. The Venetians even took blocks from the Roman monuments to carry off to Venice. From that period, though, comes the Kaštel fortress, built in the 17th century to defend the harbour. Pula entered the modern era as an impoverished, half-empty city, awaiting a rebirth that would come at the hands of a new empire.
Pula's rebirth came in 1856, when the Austrian (later Austro-Hungarian) empire decided to turn its excellent natural harbour into the main base of its war fleet, the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine. That decision transformed the city completely: in a few decades, Pula went from a run-down town of a few thousand inhabitants to a thrusting military and industrial city of tens of thousands.
Huge shipyards (the Arsenal) were built, along with fortifications all around the bay, barracks, hospitals, a naval observatory, whole districts for officers and workers, and public buildings in imperial style. The population multiplied and became cosmopolitan, with Croats, Italians, Austrians, Hungarians and people from all over the empire living side by side in the city. Pula became one of the great military ports in Europe and Austria-Hungary's naval pride.
From this cosmopolitan period comes one of the most curious episodes in the city's history: in 1904-1905, the young Irish writer James Joyce, future author of 'Ulysses', lived a few months in Pula working as an English teacher for naval officers, before moving on to Trieste. Today a statue of him, seated at a terrace in the centre, recalls that stay. Austro-Hungarian splendour ended abruptly with the First World War and the empire's defeat: in 1918 the fleet was dismantled and Pula changed hands.
After Austria-Hungary's defeat in the First World War, Pula and all Istria became part of the Kingdom of Italy, under the postwar settlements. During the Italian period, and above all under fascism, a policy of Italianisation was pushed that affected the region's Croatian and Slovene population. Pula lost its role as a great Austrian military port, but it remained an important city of Italian Istria.
The Second World War brought a new and dramatic change. After the fall of fascism and the end of the war, Istria was the scene of violence and of the foibe (killings and disappearances), and the region was contested between Italy and Tito's new socialist Yugoslavia. Pula spent a few years under Allied administration and, finally, under the Treaty of Paris of 1947, passed to Yugoslavia. That change triggered the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus: the great majority of the Italian population of Pula and Istria left their homes and emigrated to Italy, profoundly transforming the make-up of the city.
Under socialist Yugoslavia, Pula was rebuilt as a Croatian city, recovered its industry (shipyards, factories) and developed tourism, drawing on its Roman heritage and its coastline. The Arena began to be used for festivals, such as the Pula Film Festival. With the break-up of Yugoslavia and Croatia's independence in 1991, Pula became part of the new state, keeping its bilingual character (Croatian and Italian) in recognition of its historic Italian community, which still survives.
Today Pula is the largest city in Istria and one of the region's main tourist gateways. Its great asset is the uncommon combination of first-rate Roman heritage — the Arena, the Temple of Augustus, the Arch of the Sergii, the gates and walls — with a Mediterranean coast of coves and crystal-clear water and a rich Istrian food culture.
The Arena, that thousand-year-old amphitheatre that survived sackings and wars, has become the city's cultural heart: every summer it hosts the historic Pula Film Festival (one of the oldest in Europe, held in this setting since the mid-20th century) and major classical, opera and rock concerts, as well as gladiator shows. Experiencing an event under the open sky, inside Roman walls, is one of the most memorable things Croatia offers.
Pula also preserves the traces of all its historical layers: the Austro-Hungarian residue in its buildings and fortifications, the Italian legacy in its language and cooking, the Yugoslav past in some districts. It is a working, seafaring city, less 'picture-postcard' than neighbouring Rovinj but more authentic and with more visible history. For travellers, it is the perfect base for exploring southern Istria: the Brijuni islands, the wild Kamenjak cape, the inland villages and the vineyards and oil houses that have made the region famous. A city where two thousand years of history live alongside everyday life.