Motovun
The Truffle Capital Town Of The World
Recently I've been shooting an old stone house in Motovun, Istria, Croatia. I was early, so, on the way I stopped few times to catch the town from the distance. The day was pretty sunny so I have almost the perfect conditions to make great shots. I set the camera on the tripod, timer & bracketing with under-exposed, correctly exposed & over-exposed shots which I merged into HDR later in Lightroom.
Motovun is a small town on the hill in the central-North Istria with still well preserved stone walls & tradition making of wine, olive oil & truffle production.
The Motovun residents are mostly in agriculture & tourism. They connect very well those two. They are also hard working people but workaholics proud of their roots & achievements. Their hospitality but also gastronomy & life style is at very high level!
The place itself is attracting a lot of visitors. The locals are just using the chance to make good business with guests.
Motovun is surrounded with a peaceful river Mirna, many fields, wine & olive yards, magical forest & other hills in the distance. For 20 years, it was also a home to Motovun Film Festival which I was attending few times in the past.
On this shot you can see the curve of river Mirna & the forest on it's shores
The valley around Motovun is covered with an ancient forest. This forest is the biggest habitat in the world of the highly appreciated & most expensive mushroom in the world - white truffle - along with some species of the black ones. The government already did some damage to this forest by turning the river Mirna's natural stream & allowing the exploitation of trees. Cause this forest ecosystem is very fragile & was flooded occasionally. But also the truffles live in symbiosis with some of the trees. Lately, the forest lost it's river & keeps losing trees too. The truffle hunters claim that there are less truffles every year.
I moved lower to catch a shot from a different angle & this one resulted with a great image.
I believe that most of the visitors are coming to Motovun just for the truffles but it is much more. The location where it sits is on the path of the so called "dragon lines", maybe even the crossroad of the dragon lines, where the energy is strongest. Branko Fučić wrote a book about it, if you want to know more. Motovun was also a home to a legendary giant Jože - who was also described in a book "Veli Jože" by Vladimir Nazor.
I made this shot of the entrance to Motovun, the town's gate, which really looks majestic. The view is also fantastic.
This is my entry to #monomad challenge. Thanks 
for keeping up this great photo challenge! You can choose any of the photos from this post as an entry to the contest.
The upper shots I made with Nikon D800 & Tokina opera 16-28mm F2.8 FF & Nikon AF Nikkor 35-70 mm lenses. For the self-portrait below I used also Nikon D800 with Nikon AF Nikkor 35-70 mm lens.
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