Novigrad, Istria

Novigrad occupies a small peninsula on the western Istrian coast, walled on the seaward side, with a compact core of stone lanes and a waterfront promenade. It was a bishop's seat from the eighth century, and the carved stone that accumulated from that period - screens, capitals, altar panels, mostly pre-Romanesque - is now shown in the Lapidarium, a modern glass and concrete building put up in 2006 specifically to house it, which won architectural attention for treating a small municipal collection seriously. The Gallerion museum in the town covers the Austro-Hungarian navy through ship models and archives.

What you actually see

• A purpose-built lapidarium - pre-Romanesque carved stone in a 2006 building.
• A bishop's seat from the eighth century - the source of the collection.
• Walls on the seaward side - around a small peninsula core.
• The Gallerion naval museum - the Austro-Hungarian fleet in models.

When to go

May to September; museums reduce hours in winter. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The town core is small and busy in July and August. The lapidarium is a single-subject collection and will not detain everyone. Parking outside the walls fills in season. Beaches here are concrete and rock, not sand.

Nearby

Porec and its basilica are south; Umag is north.