Poreč, the town
on your doorstep.
The closest city to Green Horizon Resort — and one of the finest on the Adriatic coast. Poreč is a Roman town that grew into a Venetian harbour, with a UNESCO basilica at its heart, Blue Flag beaches five minutes' walk from the old walls, and an old town compact enough to explore before lunch.
The Euphrasian Basilica
A sixth-century Byzantine basilica inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage list. Its golden mosaic apse — tessellated in the same manner as the great churches of Ravenna — is one of the best-preserved examples of early Christian art in the world. The complex includes an atrium, baptistery, and bishop's palace, all dating from the same era.
The Closest Beaches
Plava Laguna and Zelena Laguna — Blue Flag beaches fringed by Aleppo pines, with shallow turquoise water that warms quickly in summer. These are the nearest beaches to Green Horizon Resort: a fifteen-minute drive through the Istrian hills brings you from the resort to the shore. The water is calm, clear, and swimmable from late May through September.
The Roman Old Town
Poreč was founded as the Roman colonia Parentium in the first century BC. Its original street grid — the Decumanus running east to west — is still the main street today. Marafor Square preserves the foundations of the Temple of Neptune and the Temple of Mars. The Venetian Round Tower and Pentagonal Tower mark the old sea walls.
The Waterfront
Poreč's harbour promenade stretches along the western edge of the old town, shaded by mature trees, lined with café terraces. Boat trips leave from the harbour to the nearby island of Sveti Nikola, to Rovinj, and along the coast to Vrsar and Lim Fjord. On summer evenings the promenade fills with unhurried life.
Golden mosaics,
fifteen centuries old.
The Euphrasian Basilica was built between 543 and 553 AD, under Bishop Euphrasius, on the site of an earlier fourth-century church. Its apse mosaic — Christ enthroned with apostles, the Madonna and Child with Bishop Euphrasius himself depicted among the attendants — retains the full warmth of its original Byzantine gold tesserae. The complex is among the finest surviving examples of late antique ecclesiastical architecture anywhere in Europe. Entry is free; the atrium and baptistery can be explored independently. The basilica is a five-minute walk from any point in the old town.
Pine shade,
crystal water.
Plava Laguna and Zelena Laguna are Poreč's flagship beach areas — long, calm, pine-backed stretches of coast south of the old town, developed in the 1960s but still defined by the natural landscape more than the hotels behind them. The water is shallow and turquoise close to shore, deepening to cobalt further out. Both beaches hold the EU Blue Flag. Brulo beach, a quieter stretch of rock and pebble north of the old town, is popular with locals. All three are within a fifteen-minute drive of Green Horizon Resort.
Roman stones,
Venetian towers.
The old town occupies a small peninsula barely 400 metres long. The Decumanus — the original Roman main street, still paved in places with its ancient stone — runs straight from the inland gate to the sea. Side streets open onto small squares, Venetian Gothic window frames set into medieval stone façades, and the occasional Roman capital repurposed as a doorstep or a fountain plinth. The Round Tower at the harbour end dates from the fifteenth century; it now houses a wine bar. The Marafor Square, at the western tip of the peninsula, holds the largest Roman temple remains in Istria.
Three private villas,
fifteen minutes away.
Green Horizon Resort sits in the quiet hills of central Istria, just fifteen minutes from Poreč and its beaches — close enough for a morning swim and a lunch in the old town, far enough that the only sound at the villa is wind in the olive trees.