Road station
Alvona
Labin
Listen to the story
Alvona is Labin, on the east coast of Istria in Croatia, but the map moves it inland and onto the mainland. It treats the river Arsia, in reality the border between Italy and Liburnia, as the edge of the peninsula, so Alvona ends up beyond it, right beside the L of Liburnia. The Greek geographer Ptolemy went astray too, listing the town twice, as the last of Istria and the first of Liburnia. From the third century the name was written Albona. The map's twenty miles on to Tarsatica, about thirty kilometres, fall short of the real thirty-eight.