Pag Town

Pag Town is the main settlement on the island of Pag, a walled town built in the 15th century on a rational Renaissance grid plan by the architect Juraj Dalmatinac after the old settlement was abandoned. It sits on a bare bay of white karst, and the contrast between the formal stone town and the lunar landscape around it is what makes the place distinctive.

Pag is known for two things in particular, its lace and its salt. Pag lace, a fine needlework tradition, is recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage, and a small museum in the town shows it. The salt pans at the edge of the town have been worked since Roman times and still produce sea salt. The island is also the source of Paški sir, the hard sheep’s cheese made from the milk of sheep that graze the aromatic karst herbs.

The island of Pag as a whole is the driest and rockiest of the larger Croatian islands, and the road across it, between the bridge at Posedarje and Pag Town, runs through some of the starkest landscape on the coast. The famous party beach of Zrće sits on the north of the island.

For photographers, the stone town against the bare karst is the shot, and the salt pans read well in strong light. Pair Pag with the Kvarner islands or as a stop on the way to the northern Dalmatian archipelago.

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