The best museums in Pula

Pula wears its Roman past in the open: a near-complete amphitheatre in the middle of town, a temple on the forum, and tunnels under the streets. Its museums fill in two thousand years around them. Here are the ones worth your time.

The Arena

The Pula Arena is one of the best-preserved Roman amphitheatres in the world — and the sixth largest — still hosting concerts and a summer film festival. Below the seating, an exhibition on Roman olive-oil and wine production occupies the underground chambers where gladiators once waited.

The Archaeological Museum of Istria

Recently renovated, the Archaeological Museum of Istria gathers the peninsula's finds from prehistory through Rome and the Middle Ages, with the Roman theatre ruins in its grounds. The natural companion to the open-air monuments outside.

The Temple of Augustus & Zerostrasse

On the old forum, the Temple of Augustus survives almost intact from the 1st century. For a different layer of history, the Zerostrasse tunnels — dug beneath the city for shelter and storage in the First World War — run cool and quiet under the streets and lead up toward the hilltop fortress.

Kaštel & the aquarium

The Venetian Kaštel fortress crowning the old town holds the Historical and Maritime Museum of Istria and commands the best view over Pula. Out at Verudela, the Aquarium Pula occupies a 19th-century Austro-Hungarian fort and doubles as a sea-turtle rescue centre — good with children.

Find a base in our boutique hotels in Pula, and see how to get in from the airport.