Park activities

On October 26th, the European Heritage Day was successfully celebrated on Brijuni under the theme "Heritage that Connects – Cultural Routes and Networks."

Visitors had the opportunity to explore key archaeological sites on Veliki Brijun with professional archaeological guidance and to view the history of the Brijuni Islands in the context of cultural routes that have connected this area with the rest of Europe and the world through the centuries.

From prehistoric migrations that brought the first Neolithic farmers to these regions, through Bronze Age conquests that resulted in the formation of fortified hilltop settlements in Istria, to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire and the arrival of new populations at the end of antique.

From trade routes through which Brijuni wine and olive oil, produced on luxurious island estates of Roman patricians, traveled to distant provinces of the empire, bringing wealth to their owners, to the routes by which plague and malaria reached the island, claiming thousands of lives.

This four-hour electric vehicle tour included the Bronze Age hillfort on Gradina Hill, the Roman villa in Verige Bay, the layered fortified settlement Byzantine Kastrum, and the late antique basilica of St. Mary, hidden in the forest. The event sought to illustrate the intricate domino effect by which causes, seemingly so distant in time and space, ultimately and inevitably shape the reality we live in.