Rovinj

The 18th-century Baroque parish church of St Euphemia crowns the highest point of the Stari Grad peninsula, with a 60 m belltower modelled on St Mark's in Venice. Dogs cannot enter the church, but the hilltop square and viewpoint are leash-friendly.

The ornamental Balbi Arch (Balbijev luk), built in 1679 on the site of the old Venetian land gate, is the gateway into the old town and the cobbled Grisia street, a lane lined with artists' studios and galleries. Easy to wander with a leashed dog outside peak crowds.

A 300-acre seafront forest park just south of the old town, planted from the 1890s by the Austro-Hungarian aristocrat Georg Hütterott as a private arboretum and now Rovinj's green crown. Shaded pine trails, sea access and several signposted dog beaches make it the best dog walk on this coast.

An officially designated dog beach (plaža za pse) in Lone Bay on the northern edge of the Punta Corrente forest park, signposted by the Rovinj Tourist Board. One of at least four marked dog beaches in the immediate town area, most of them rocky or pebble coves.

The old town sits on a former islet joined to the mainland in 1763, a tight peninsula you can walk a full loop around in under an hour, from the Mali mol pier round the harbour promenade to the cobbled lanes climbing to St Euphemia. Traffic-free and very walkable with a leashed dog.

Crveni otok (Red Island) and Sv. Katarina are the closest of the 14 islands in the Rovinj archipelago, a few minutes by ferry tender from the harbour. Leashed dogs travel on the open decks of the tender boats, and the pine-shaded shores make a cool, low-crowd escape from the old town.