Lokva Rogoznica

Lokva Rogoznica lies on the Omiš Riviera, where the coastal road runs high above the water and the village drops to the sea in terraces. Two names stand on the sign at the entrance: Lokva Rogoznica and Ivašnjak - one part lies up on the road, the other down at the bay. The bay is small and the beach is shingle; a short stone jetty reaches far enough into the water for the fishing boats to tie up. Go down in the morning and you find them lying on the pebbles, bows to the land. Above the houses old olive trees stand in dry stone walls, and between them pines cast their shade as far as the beach. Halfway up stands a small stone church with an open bell gable, and from its forecourt you look across the channel to the island of Brač. Behind the village a grey rock face rises, bare but for a few bushes - in the evening it takes on colour while the water already lies in shadow.

The village lies on the Adriatic Highway D8, barely five kilometres south-east of Omiš and some thirty from Split. It is a good forty kilometres to the airport near Kaštela, and the buses between Split and Makarska stop up on the road. Anyone coming by car should know that it drops steeply from the highway: the lanes down to the bay are narrow and the parking spaces few. Makarska is thirty-five kilometres from here, and the gorge of the Cetina at Omiš is a quarter of an hour away.