Labin

Labin has two parts: a modern town below and the old walled town on the hill above, and the connection between them was coal. Mining ran here for centuries and shaped the place. The mines closed in the 1980s and the hill town was subsiding and half empty; it has since been restored and given over largely to studios and galleries. The town museum has a reconstructed mine shaft in its basement.

History

Labin began as Alvona, a settlement of the Liburnians on the north-western edge of their land; its name, older than the Romans, goes back to a root meaning a hill. The Romans colonised it in 177 BC, and as Albona it was an important commune - a marble inscription records that the emperor Philip made it a republic, governed by two duumviri and aediles. Ostrogoths, Byzantium and the Lombards held it in turn from the 5th century, and in 788 it came under the Franks. It passed to the Patriarchate of Aquileia in 1208, to the dukes of Pazin from 1295, back to Aquileia in 1381 and to Venice from 1420 until 1797, then to Austria. For a long time it was the centre of Croatia's largest coal-mining district, with four mines at the height of production; the mine in the town closed in 1989. The Lutheran reformer Matthias Flacius Illyricus was born here on 3 March 1520, and a small exhibition in his house remembers him (Wikipedia, Labin).

What to look for

• Coal under the hill - centuries of mining that shaped the town.
• A hill town restored - after subsidence and depopulation.
• Studios in the old lanes - the current use of the buildings.
• A mine reconstructed in a cellar - in the town museum.

When to go

May to September for open galleries and the summer programme. Half a day.

Things to know

Some buildings still show subsidence damage and are shut. Galleries keep short and seasonal hours. Parking is below and the streets are steep. The modern town below is functional, not scenic.

Nearby

Rabac and its beaches are below; Pula is south-west.

Key facts