The food can be fabulous, and cheap. Restaurant Mandrac, Novigrad

Now these ruins are being made into attractive holiday properties in fantastic locations. One of the most recent restoration projects is Palazzo Portole in Oprtalj, where we stayed in July.

In spite of a high proportion of ruined buildings, Oprtalj (or Portole in Italian) is one of the most stunning of Istria's hilltop villages. It's only half an hour or so from the coast, but in a different, remote world.

Relaxing Holiday

From the outside the Palazzo, built into the town wall and clearly intended to withstand a siege, looks severe. But inside was a cool, spacious paradise of tiles, beams and shutters combined with – as the saying goes – every modern convenience. Five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a huge living room and equally enormous kitchen. Then a sparkling pool with sun and shade on the patio... there was seemingly nothing its Scottish owners hadn't thought of.

’Panoramic views’ are often claimed for villas, but rarely as convincingly delivered as by Palazzo Portole. From the tower-top terrace the views stretched for 20 or 30 miles in almost a complete circle, broken only by the church and higher village buildings.

And at night, with almost no light pollution, the sky was studded with a million stars and alive with satellites and shooting stars too faint to be seen in Britain. And the silence... sitting up there watching the stars, only the hoots and rustles of the creatures of the night broke the perfect stillness. Two of the younger, more romantic members of our eight-strong party reported that at 4.30 am, the sight of the sun rising over the green hills and mist-shrouded valleys was heart-achingly beautiful. I took their word for it...