Labin crowns a hill in eastern Istria, three hundred-odd metres above the Adriatic, and you reach it by climbing a sequence of bends through scrub oak and cypress. The upper town is a knot of Venetian-era lanes, with pastel houses, stone doorways and a church tower, set around a small square, and from the terraces you look straight across the Kvarner gulf to the islands of Cres and Krk. Below, down a twisting road, lies Rabac, a former fishing village turned family beach resort.
The old town has a deep and surprising history. Labin was for centuries a rough-edged mining area; the coal pits in the Raša valley below fed the Habsburg and then the Italian economy, and the miners were poor and fiercely organised. In 1921, as fascism rose in Italy, they rose in what is called the Labin Republic, an armed strike that lasted for several weeks and is remembered as one of the first anti-fascist uprisings in Europe. The theologian Matthias Flacius Illyricus, a leading figure of the early Lutheran Reformation, was born here in 1520, and the house associated with him is a small museum.
Riders will like the winding roads that link Labin to the coast and the interior. The route down to Rabac is a succession of tight bends with sea views, and the road along the Raša bay passes inlets and old mine villages. Surfaces are generally good, though minor roads in the hills can be rough, and in summer you share them with tourists on rented scooters. To the north, Mount Učka rises to roughly fourteen hundred metres, with a narrow road to a high viewpoint.
Labin has a few thousand people, which is enough for fuel stations and supermarkets, and a handful of cafes on the hill. Istrian cooking runs strongly to truffles, wild asparagus, homemade pasta, and the red Teran wine. Come in May or September, when the sea is warm and the roads are quiet, and leave the bike below if you plan to wander the cobbled upper town.