About this journey

Pula station stands at the southern tip of the Istrian peninsula, in the largest city of Istria County. The city carries deep layers of history: it served as Austria's main naval base from 1859, and the region passed from Austria-Hungary to Italy in 1918 and then to Croatia in 1947, leaving a layered Austro-Italian-Croatian heritage across the landscape the line traverses northward.

The route runs through the interior of Istria toward Pazin, the county's administrative capital since 1991, passing through a landscape of forested terrain and river valleys. As the journey approaches Lupoglav, the terrain becomes rougher karst country — the same limestone landscape that challenged the builders of the parallel A8 road corridor, which required three major bridges totalling 949 metres, the longest being the Dražej viaduct at 444 metres. Near Lupoglav, the railway passes beneath or alongside that motorway, and the Učka mountain range comes into view, pierced further north by a road tunnel stretching 5.062 kilometres. The contrast between Pula's harbour-flat peninsula and the broken karst of the Lupoglav end captures the geographical range of this two-hour crossing of Istria.