Places on the island of Brač

1 Supetar

Fourteen times a day in high season you can commute by ferry between Split and Supetar — but who would want to! The lively coastal town, whose heart is the harbour in the deep bay, has plenty to offer itself: free concerts, architecture worth seeing, and more restaurants than one can test in a single holiday. When you then sit with a glass of local wine in the evening sun, a folklore group dances to the traditional songs and the last ferry comes in, you congratulate those who get to spend at least a few more hours of this day here.

More about Supetar

2 Mirca

Three hundred and fifty people live in Mirca on Brač, a quaint little place whose broad façades create the illusion of an elite lifestyle rather than confirming it. In fact the people who live among these palace-like buildings and the monumental parish church built in 1733 are thoroughly solid and down to earth. They tend their orchards and their vines and enjoy the quiet life and the good weather. And should anyone have an urgent need for more or for something else, there are two supermarkets in the village as well.

More about Mirca

3 Sutivan

How fortunate that the inhabitants of Sutivan like their neighbours! For it came about that a compact place arose, which today offers 500 people a home, rather than every settler securing one of the many bays in the immediate vicinity as far as possible from the others. So the beaches are still unbuilt today, accessible to all bathers and reachable after a short walk, while in the town one can safely do without longer treks on foot.

More about Sutivan

4 Bobovisca na Moru

The village of Bobovišća na Moru on the island of Brač feels as though time had stopped here: one wakes not because the alarm rings but because the sheep and goats are being driven through the village streets; the local wine matures in its barrels as patiently as the vintners themselves; walkers and livestock share the meadows and pastures — or so at least say the few tourists who have so far discovered Bobovišća na Moru as a holiday spot. And anyone made sceptical by so much idyll can come and see for themselves!

More about Bobovisca na Moru

5 Milna

More about Milna

6 Lozisca

Ložišća is the showpiece of Croatian feminism: all seven parish councillors are women, none of them belongs to a party, and the sole interest is in shaping the best policy for the village's 160 inhabitants. Apart from that, the most characteristic thing about the place is its very distinctive architecture, visible on almost all the stone houses: the entrance facing north, wooden stairs on the outer façade, and neither more nor fewer than two storeys are typical of this building style.

More about Lozisca

7 Nerezisca

The former administrative seat of the island of Brač is quickly reached from every other place, for it lies at the island's centre. Behind it rises the 778-metre Vidova Gora, and the streets are lined with the opulent town houses of the patricians and small churches, mainly in the Gothic style. From far off the tip of the bell tower of 1746 greets visitors, and anyone stopping in Nerezišća will also want to see the Renaissance altar of the parish church.

More about Nerezisca

8 Praznice

In the landscape where the citizens of Pražnice once settled, it is easy to believe in a benevolent creator. Accordingly the people of Pražnice have busily built churches over several centuries and kept them in such good repair that even the village's oldest house of God, dating from 1111, is still used weekly for services. But Pražnice knows other pleasures too: inns and beaches stand open to guests at almost any time, and anyone wanting to see more of God's wide world simply books a day trip by boat.

More about Praznice

9 Donji Humac

Everything in Donji Humac testifies to the long history of the place: the caves in its surroundings, inhabited as early as the Bronze and Late Stone Ages; the oldest surviving sketch of a ship in Dalmatia, scratched into the walls of the church of Sveti Luka; the mausoleum at the village entrance; and various churches and rustic town houses. But sadly the history of the place may soon come to an end, for more and more of the younger generation are leaving: a quiet place for holidays and relaxation is, after all, not the thing for every day, for a whole life.

More about Donji Humac

10 Gornji Humac

The shepherds' settlement of Gornji Humac lies twelve kilometres from the nearest beach in the interior of the island of Brač. Even in Venetian times sailors and travellers gladly took on this stretch of road to obtain the excellent cheese and the meat dishes of the inhabitants, and the recipes are refined to this day, so that no gourmet should let a small taste pass by. A good wine is gladly served with it, and with the corresponding view of the island's coast everything tastes better still, if that is possible at all.

More about Gornji Humac

11 Bol

The oldest place on the island has preserved a certain eccentricity in many facets. Not only does the golden horn, the island's most beautiful beach, drive cartographers to distraction because it constantly changes its shape; the local legends seem bizarre as well. The fifth of August, of all dates, is said to be the anniversary of the rare event of snow falling in Bol. To this day the date is marked with a folk festival. At least the local wine is beyond all doubt and widely loved and renowned.

More about Bol

12 Selca

The inhabitants of the former shepherds' settlement discovered at some point that one can let sheep graze anywhere, but that only here around Selca is the fine marble to be found for which the island is famous. And so a school of stonemasonry of its own developed, whose changes and works can be examined all over the town. Most of the houses, churches, castles and parks are adorned with the white stone, which stands out so sharply against the deep green of the surrounding woods and the deep blue of the nearby sea.

More about Selca

13 Sumartin

Since its founding as a refugee camp during the Ottoman campaigns, Sumartin has been so closely bound to the sea that people's lives take place almost more there than on land: a small shipyard, still working today, secures the livelihood of all those who did not work as fishermen or in international seafaring, and Sumartin is one of the few places whose harbour carries no swimming ban. It may not be the loveliest spot for a dip, but it is certainly the most central.

More about Sumartin

14 Novo Selo

The island of Brač's smallest settlement, with 113 inhabitants, shows in its very name that it is also a relatively young place: Novo Selo means new town, and regardless of the fact that it has borne the name since the thirteenth century, the inhabitants keep confirming the village's image. Where elsewhere people in tiny towns hide from the public and cultivate their own quirks, the people of Novo Selo are cosmopolitan and hospitable.

More about Novo Selo

15 Povlja

Povlja, on the north of the island of Brač, goes back to the estate of Paulianus, from whose name the place's own is also derived. After the Romans, Christians were active here in building the town: the parish church of St John and the Benedictine monastery shape the townscape and the town's development. And so it may be thanks to divine providence that the tourist association awarded Povlja of all places the title of "loveliest small tourist town in the Split-Dalmatia county" — though more probably to the association's experience and objectivity!

More about Povlja

16 Pucisca

Pučišća's byname, "harbour of castles", stresses the two great sights of the place: for one, the already deep bay on which Pučišća lies is itself split into two smaller bays, so that the sea lies heart-shaped before the town. They are called Pučiški Dolac and Stipanska Luka. For another, anyone arriving from that direction is met by an impressive backdrop of several castles and fortresses towering above the beaches and lanes in front of the quarries and woods.

More about Pucisca

17 Postira

Postira, whose name comes from the Latin word "pastura", that is "pasture", consists of at least as much water as green space. Right on the shore stands the Lazarić castle, its walls adorned with inscriptions of religious content. This Christian background of the place is felt as well when one visits the lovingly decorated and restored little church of John the Baptist. This saint is also the village's patron, so that a festival is held in his honour every year on 24 June, at which "heathens" too can take delight.

More about Postira

18 Dol

People have lived in the village of Dol since the beginning of the twelfth century, and its relaxed and friendly air is probably also brought about by the fact that — without any law requiring it — every new house is and was built so that its shadow can never fall on the windows of those around it. On the hills round about stand numerous small chapels, almost every house has a wine cellar of its own, outside the village olive groves adjoin fields of vines, and whatever else there is to discover here shall not yet be revealed!

More about Dol

19 Splitska

As though drawn with a ruler, the bay cuts into the village of Splitska in the north of Brač. No wonder the pirates of Omiš suspected a good hiding place here and raided the village in the sixteenth century, destroyed it, and involuntarily brought it to real greatness in the first place. The place gained its wealth from the marble trade, and the effects of that prosperity can still be admired on most of the house façades today; the nearby Rasohe quarry, too, was used by the local creatives: the relief "Hercules" has stood here since Diocletian's time.

More about Splitska

20 Skrip

Quaint Škrip is the oldest place on Brač and, with its rugged, at times slightly asymmetrical houses, presents its long past very clearly even to the visitor untrained in architecture. Here the Cerinić family once settled and thereby laid the foundation stone for the new settlement. Today, beside the castle, there are also a small church, the museum of the island of Brač, and an almost derelict cemetery. Little by little the morbid charm of the place is being discovered by tourists, and until then it slumbers as it has for centuries on the island's plateau.

More about Skrip