An outdoor cinema under the sky

On a warm evening the lawn beside the pool becomes a cinema, and it is often the evening the children carry home longest.

As the light goes, a screen rises on the lawn and the loungers turn to soft seats piled with cushions and blankets. The film is the one the children chose weeks before, cued and waiting as you come up from dinner, with popcorn and something warm to hand.

Inland Istria keeps dark skies, held well back from the coast's glow, so the film plays beneath real stars and the evening carries the children off happily to bed.

Once they sleep, the same lawn turns to a later hour, a film for the grown ups, a glass of Istrian wine, the lit pool lying still alongside, the evening lasting exactly as long as you wish it to.

It is set and ready before it appears, one of the simplest and best evenings of a family stay to say yes to.