The first thing I noticed about Luka was the silence.
My wife, Caroline, and I had driven our rental car from Split in the north along the Croatian coast to Zadar and took an hour and a half ferry ride to the island of Dugi Otok. We had then driven south all the way through the island, through pine forests and scrub, to arrive at this little fishing village, where we would spend the next week. We were both somewhat wired from driving on foreign roads. But Luka’s strange spell put an end to that.
Nothing moved, not even cats. Before us lay a sheltered bay that seemed almost surreally smooth, undisturbed by the faintest breeze. Plaster flaked from the walls of crumbling fishermen’s cottages, whose gardens were bright with blooming cacti and bougainvilleas. A row of empty beer bottles outside the closed shop gave the deserted dock a Mary Celeste character. Traveling in space can sometimes feel like traveling in time, and it felt like we were going back to the 1950s.
Dugi Otok (“Long Island”) is the westernmost island of the Zadarian Islands off the Dalmatian coast and one of the least visited major islands in Croatia. The island is 44.5 km long and only 4.8 km wide. The island’s slimness makes it easy to explore, with a single road running from north to south. Its inhabitants – fewer than 1,500, many of whom leave in the winter months to escape the infamous Bora winds – huddle on the eastern side, mostly in the ‘capital’ Sali; the west falls away to steep cliffs and sandy beaches. Cypresses, pines, figs, olives and holm oaks cover much of it, while the rest is covered with maquis, the thickets of the evergreen shrubland of the Mediterranean. The plants that make up this dense tissue are invariably provided with spines, hooks or barbs, as I have learned the hard way when going off-piste from a hiking trail; The next few days were spent nursing torn legs. The maquis makes the island wild in a way I have not encountered before, as parts of undeveloped land are impenetrable to humans.
We rented an old fisherman’s cottage in Luka (£62 per night) that had been in the owners’ family for years: high and narrow, with sturdy stone walls and a small balcony. Black and white photos gave a glimpse into their grandparents’ lives as they fished in the Adriatic Sea during storms and bitter winters. The harbor was just a stone’s throw away and we befriended several cats at the quayside restaurant, Konoba Zlata Vala, which served carafes of local wine and one of the best risottos we had ever tasted.
A short drive south of Luka lies Telašćica Nature Park, surrounding one of the largest natural harbors in the Adriatic. At the western edge of a narrow bay that cuts ten kilometers inland, elevated above the sea by 150 meter high cliffs, lies the salty Lake Mir (“Peace”), famous for its blue-green water. This is the island’s main tourist attraction, as evidenced by the yachts anchored in the bay below – snatches of drunken Italian and German drifted over the waves towards us. But we spent most of the week looking for quieter corners. Such a mission is not difficult at Dugi Otok in September. The “only busy month” is August, according to our boarding hosts, and often we found ourselves on almost empty beaches.
Our favorite was Veli Žal, half a mile of pebbles and sand bordered by dense greenery, along which previous castaways had built driftwood shelters. A mysterious craftsman had made windmills from sticks that rattled in the wind, a quirky generosity that I found strangely moving. On afternoons when we didn’t feel like going far from home, the pebble beach at Luka had its own scruffy charm. I was thrilled to come across a bright green praying mantis there, while the wonderfully uninhibited older women lying naked on the rocks were a source of great admiration for Caroline. It reflected what we found to be an unhindered – and deeply relaxing – attitude among the islanders and visitors we encountered. That said, anti-nudity signs – a Ghostbusters-style bar over a pair of cartoon breasts – were displayed at Veli Rat, the lighthouse on the island’s northern tip. Islands are parochial. Things are different in the north.
When the ruling Austrians came to write down the names of the islands, the locals cheerfully told them that there was one called Babina Guzica – Grandmother’s Donkey
Islands are also superstitious, a refuge from myth. At the sea pool of Dragon’s Eye we found fossils in the rocks and in the cave of Strašna Peć – said to have been created by fairies in an attempt to split the island at its narrowest point – deep time was recorded in dripping stalactites. Like many Adriatic islands, which were on the front lines of the Ottoman invasion for centuries, Dugi Otok also has its share of pirate stories. These coasts were once haunted by the Uskoks, Croatian sea bandits used as proxy forces by the Habsburg Empire, who wreaked havoc on the Venetian and Turkish fleets.
The best way to get to know islands is of course from the sea. On our penultimate day, a skipper sent us south in a boat from Sali and through Telašćica Bay to an archipelago that felt like another world (private half-day boat tours with Adamo Travel cost £128). The Kornati national park consists of 89 islands and islets spread over 13 kilometers southeast of Dugi Otok. They are very different from the forested place we had just left, lined with karst rock formations like gigantic ammonites, yellow and deserted, looking – as our skipper said – “like Arabia or Iran”. A century ago, the Kornati Islands were bought by farmers from Zadar’s aristocrats for grazing sheep, which ate everything in sight. Most are uninhabited, save for the hardiest souls; The summers here are scorching and the winter winds are brutal. The isolation and wildness reflect an anti-authoritarian streak that goes back hundreds of years: when the ruling Austrians came to write down the names of the islands, the locals cheerfully told them that one was called Babina Guzica (“Grandmother’s Butt”) and the other was called Kurba Vela (“Great Whore”). Fortunately, both islands today bear these names.
As we returned to Dugi Otok, relieved to see trees again, Caroline pointed to a sheep dozing on a headland. Our skipper said this matted beast was a celebrity, an escapee from a nearby island that had swam through the narrow strait and successfully evaded recapture for a decade. Her pursuers have long since given up; the sheep has won her freedom. In November 2023, a stranded sheep in Scotland was ‘rescued’ and taken to a petting zoo, and later used to front a rural loneliness campaign. In Dugi Otok, this proud loner is left to her own wild life, sunbathing on the edge of the cleanest waters of the Mediterranean. The naked older ladies would approve. It perfectly reflects the spirit of the island.