Walking Lim bay and Kontija forest

• Hiking

Walk between two towers

Walking at Lim Bay and through Kotija forest would be a relaxing day trip outside busy coastal towns. Lim Bay also known as Channel or Fjord is located between Rovinj and Vrsar. The bay is long approx 11 km but there are another 25 km called Lim Cove which goes all over to Pazin so in total Lim Bay and Lim Cove made 35 km of dry and sunken valley. Since 1964, it has been a legally protected geomorphological and hydrogeological site as an important landscape.

Kontija forest area has been a part of the eponymous forest reserve since 1964. However, it came into existence and was cultivated much earlier – starting from the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The forest vegetation in this area has been well-known since the Middle Ages and the Modern Period. The Kontija forest is home to the best-preserved Oriental hornbeam (Carpinum orientalis) vegetation surface in its typical form.

On the walking through Lim Bay and Kontija, we will pass next to the abbey building. The Benedictine Abbey of St Michael above Lim was founded at the beginning of the 11th century. St Romuald, the founder of the Camaldolese order, also resided in it for some time, which dates to the 11^th century, when the church was built. The abbey complex is situated on the old Croatian cemetery destroyed by its construction. The abbey titulary – St Michael the Archangel – is the symbol of the victory of Christianity over paganism and suggests the missionary work of the newly arrived Benedictine monks among the Slavic population.