Motovun appears on the horizon like a film set—a medieval fortress town perched on a conical hill above oak forests. The walk up takes twenty minutes through defensive gates and along fortified walls, arriving at a main square roughly the size of a tennis court. But the point of Motovun isn’t efficient sightseeing. This is truffle country. From September through December, hunters head out before dawn with trained dogs, and several restaurants build their menus around the harvest: truffle pasta, truffle omelets, truffle-infused honey over local cheese. A tasting menu runs forty to sixty euros—a fraction of Alba or Périgord prices for comparable quality.
