Sveti Petar u Šumi

Sveti Petar u Šumi lies in inland Istria, about 320 metres above sea level and eleven kilometres south-west of Pazin. Unlike the compact hilltop towns found elsewhere in the peninsula, its houses developed away from the monastery so that the religious community could retain silence and seclusion. The defining landmark is the Pauline monastery and the Baroque Church of Saints Peter and Paul, whose 18th-century furnishings include work from a Pauline woodcarving workshop and altarpieces by Leopold Keckheisen. A Benedictine monastery existed here before 1134; the Pauline order took possession in 1459–60 and returned to the village in 1993. Today, that monastic heritage shares the spotlight with the production of Istrian sausages. The Croatian House of Sausages presents the subject through a museum-gallery display, while the “S klobasicom u EU” fairs bring producers and visitors together around cured meats and regional recipes. The village has a railway stop on the Istrian line, although a car is more convenient for reaching its scattered hamlets, food producers and neighbouring hill towns.

Sveti Petar u Šumi takes its name from the Benedictine Monasterium Sancti Petri in Sylvis, recorded in 1174 with an indication that it had already existed for several decades. Unlike Pazin, Motovun or Gračišće, houses here did not cluster around a hilltop church but remained dispersed beside fields and vineyards. The monastery complex consequently retains an unusually detached and monumental presence. More recently, the village has fashioned a second identity as an Istrian centre of sausage-making, expressed through the Croatian House of Sausages and fairs dedicated to regional cured-meat producers.