Mlinice Pantan Restaurant, Trogir, Croatia

The excursion we’d taken while Azura was docked at Split had first taken us to the delightful, historic town of Trogir and would include some time visiting the larger city where the ship was too, but between those two elements of this day in Croatia we had a lunch stop included.

Lunch was taken a short drive from Trogir at a former mill called Mlinice Pantan (although we also saw a sign referring to it as Konoba Mlinice so check out both if you’re looking for more details about this restaurant). I never did find out anything about the history of the building other than a reference to the fact that some of the parts of the mill came from Venice.

We were treated to a couple of forms of entertainment during our lunch stop on this tour, although the first of those was unplanned. I hope. A wide lake separated the car park area from the restaurant building and there was a variety of bird life around. Much to many people’s amusement – though that seems a bit sadistic to say – some of the local geese were in the middle of a blazing row as we arrived and they had no intention of stopping while we filed off the bus and gathered by the side of the water to take in the views that would otherwise been idyllic were it not for all the honking and splashing going on.

The lunch that came as part of this tour consisted of bread, prosciutto, cheese, and some local wine. I won’t confess to being blown away with any of it, but then I limited myself to bread, prosciutto, and red wine only because I have the good sense to find cheese revolting and white wine questionable at best. For all I know, though, the cheese and white wine might have been spectacular. I doubt it. What it definitely wasn’t, however, was much more than a snack. But, welcome enough, and it provided an opportunity for those who needed to use the toilets to do so, and it kept us all in one spot for the second bit of entertainment here in the form of a couple of local musicians and singers. There’s a bit of video of the music down below.

With my light meal quickly devoured and my wine glugged down I stood up to take some photos of the room we were in. There were lots of little pieces of artwork and religious items around the walls with many representations of places in Trogir.

As I thought I’d run out of things to take photos of at Mlinice Pantan, someone who may have been the owner nodded to me, looking at my camera, then proceeded to unlock and open up a door and gesture for me to head in and down some steps. Far from being a lure into a dungeon where I would be forced to work the mill and never be seen or heard from again, this was simply a lower room almost set out like a museum with lots of mill stones and associated equipment to look over.

A second door was then opened that granted me access out the back of the restaurant where a stone walkway extended out into a shallow pond of clear water with long grass along its edges. The clear blue sky, the pale stone and orange tiles of the old building, and being close to water with a gentle wash of nature’s noises around was absolutely enchanting. I had to rush back in to bring my wife out to see it all, and we might have been the only two who did with everyone else mingling on the other side of the mill building, waiting to be told when to board the bus.

So, you didn’t tell anyone else in the tour group about the lovely views at the back of the mill then, Mark?

I have checked my notes from the day and apparently I did not, no.

The time allocated for our short stop at Mlinice Pantan came to an end so we wandered back through the restaurant and former mill and over the bridge over the sluice gate and beside the lake. I had just enough time to wander away from the bus to take a photo of the old storage tanks and earn myself a few quizzical looks from fellow cruise passengers on this excursion before returning to the vehicle. Can I help it if I find old, rusted metal cylinders with fading paint on them worthy of a photograph?