According to records, today’s Vižinada is about a thousand years old. The real rise was experienced after residents of former Ružar settled here. Ružar was already inhabited in prehistoric times. Life in Ružar continued to flourish even during Roman times because the important Roman transportation route Via Flavia was passing by. It is assumed that the place was inhabited until the beginning of the 15th century when its inhabitants moved to today’s Vižinada.

The history of Vižinada itself is very interesting. On the Field of God (Božje polje), today’s cemetery, in the 11th century the ancient church of St. Mary was built. In 1119, here the monastery of the Templars has been founded and thus this area became the centre of the Templars in Istria. After the French king Philip IV organized a massive hunt of the Templars on Friday, October 13th, 1307, in 1312 the order of the Templars disappears. Their place in the monastery was then taken over by the Maltese knights of Saint John, and after them, in 1526 the Franciscan Friars of the Third Order took over. Above the church gate you will see the head of Attila the Hun who, by some legends, has ended his life here. Behind the well-known cisterns with two wells from 1772 there is an old building in which the Venetian lion from the 15th century was built in, as well as a stone board with engraved taxes from the port of Baštija from 1726.

The harbour was located on the river Mirna, and chiselled into the stone you will see taxes that had to be paid for loading or unloading of wood, grain and wine. Originally from Vižinada, the famous ballet dancer Carlotta Grisi was born in this small village in 1819. The development of Vižinada was favoured by the narrow-gauge railway, the famous Parenzana, which passed through it from 1902 to 1935.
Vižinada is developing today with the help of the natural beauty and its gifts, as well as the rich historical and cultural heritage, combining a rich past with the demands of the modern world.

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