The Sol Umag Hotel, like many of the hotels we saw in Istria was unimpressive from the outside, (be warned it is orange) as it was built 35 or so years ago. However visitors to Umag should not be put off by the out-dated hotel exteriors. The Sol Umag was refurbished in 2003, and the interior is what you would expect from a 4 star hotel in Europe. It was bright, clean and modern. The rooms are air conditioned, of a good size and very clean. The service from the hotel staff is excellent and unobtrusive and whilst the older staff members may not speak english, most younger team members speak english very well. Umag as a resort seems mostly to be visited by Russians and Germans and owing to its proximity to Italy - Italians. According to our holiday rep, in the whole resort in the first week of Aug 05 there were only 85 British tourists, but to us was a plus! The hotel is not yet geared to the British tourist, more towards Europeans in general, which is fine. The food (we stayed half board) was heavily influenced by Germany, Russia and Italy, but it was of a reasonable standard and variety. The pool area is quite small for the size of hotel, but adequate and not overly busy. There is no beach. There is instead a bathing platform full of sun loungers facing out to sea, which is fine especially as the water is crystal clear and very clean. The view is beautiful. I would recommend paying that little bit extra and getting a room with a sea view - much better than a view of the car park. The hotel is a good 20 minute walk to Umag town, which is a small yet pretty cobbled town, with nice bars and restaurants. Car hire is very easy and driving around is very simple too - although you do have to have your headlights on by law all the time. Really recommend driving to Slovenia for the day. It is a breathtaking country and given the proximity of Umag to the border too good an opportunity to miss. You can also take a day trip to Venice from Umag. Not an awful lot to do in Umag itself, but the rest of Istria is worth seeing as it was heavily influenced by Italy and was untouched by the troubles. All in all it was a good experience. Sol Umag perhaps lacks the sophistication of some other European hotels, but it scores highly on quality.