Kringa

Jure Grando died in Kringa in 1656, and according to an account written down by the Carniolan scholar Johann Weichard von Valvasor thirty years later, the village believed he came back: neighbours reported him walking at night and knocking at doors, and after sixteen years the village elder led a party to the grave, found the body undecayed, and beheaded it. What makes the case notable is that this is the earliest known European record of a revenant described with the word strigon and attached to a named, dated individual - decades before the Serbian cases that gave the wider vampire panic its vocabulary. The village itself is small, stone and quiet, with a themed bar making the connection.

What you actually see

• The first named European vampire case - Jure Grando, died 1656.
• A record from Valvasor - written down about thirty years later.
• A small stone village - the setting is ordinary Istrian countryside.
• A themed bar - the only marking of the story in the village.

When to go

May to September. Two hours.

Honest expectations

There is very little to see - no museum, no marked grave, no site. This is a place to visit for the story, not the sights. Services are minimal. The roads in are narrow country lanes.

Nearby

Pazin and its chasm are east; Sveti Petar u Sumi is next door.