Hum and the Glagolitic Alley

Hum calls itself the smallest town in the world, and the claim is hard to argue with: two streets, a handful of stone houses, a church, a loggia, a tower gate and a resident population you could count on your fingers. It has a charter and a bell tower, which is what makes it a town rather than a hamlet. The road up from Roč is lined with the Glagolitic Alley, a series of stone monuments set along several kilometres, each marking a stage in the history of the angular Glagolitic script that was written and printed in this part of Istria for centuries. The alley ends at Hum's gate, whose copper doors are cast with Glagolitic letters.

What you'll find

• The town gate - copper doors cast with Glagolitic letters and the months of the year.
• The two streets - the whole of Hum, walkable in fifteen minutes, with a loggia and a bell tower.
• The Glagolitic Alley - stone monuments along the road up from Roč, tracing the history of the script.
• St Jerome's chapel - a small Romanesque chapel below the town with faded medieval wall painting.

When to go

Spring and autumn suit the drive through the Mirna valley and the light on the hills is better then. Hum has almost no shade, and very little is open in winter. Weekday mornings are quiet; summer weekends bring coach parties who fill the two streets completely for an hour and then leave again.

Things to know

Hum takes fifteen minutes to see and the drive is the greater part of the day, so treat it as one stop on a loop rather than a destination. The last stretch of road is single-track with passing places, and parking is outside the walls. In high season the ratio of visitors to residents is absurd, and the place can feel like a stage set with a souvenir counter attached.

Nearby

Roč, Buzet and the truffle country of the Mirna valley are all within twenty minutes.