Truffle Hunting in Buzet, Croatia!

Above is the view of Buzet, the hilltop town where we stayed, and Gracie with Ash & Coop outside our adorable hotel, Vela Vrata. Buzet is small, quiet and sleepy. It’s known for truffles, which grow in its forests, and my family is known for eating them with every meal each time we visit. Other than truffles, the biggest attraction here is walking around the quaint cobblestone streets and sitting outside one of the two restaurants in town slowly drinking coffee or wine. The cafe next door set up a big screen outside where we all watched Croatia beat Spain in the Euro Cup, cheering them on with local Croatians and Bosnians. Every time Croatia plays and scores, trumpets, horns and canons go off.

Hunting for truffles! Hermes the dog has an expensive name to match the expensive price of the truffles he finds. Each is sold for the equivalent of around $25 and up, depending on the size. We quietly followed Hermes through the forest until he found one, which was later shaved over our lunch.

White truffles grow naturally in only two places in the world — Italy and Istria, Croatia. Summer is the season for black truffles, which is what we hunted for with Prodan Tartufi. Their family has been hunting and creating delicious products like truffle cheese, truffle salami, truffle oil and of course selling fresh, whole truffles to local restaurants for three generations. It was so much fun to see their son and daughter excited to carry on their family’s business and way of life, and to get to experience a bit of what they do each day.

These two cuties helped Ash while she washed off a fresh truffle.

Truffle spreads, fresh shaved truffles, truffle scrambled eggs, truffle salami and cheese. Everything was incredible and melted in your mouth, but the creamy truffle cheese and salami was out of this world. We washed it all down with the family’s Malvazija and Teran wines, made from their vineyard.