(Pag), Kuntrep Ornithological Reserve (Krk), and the Kruna and Podokladi Ornithological Reserves (Cres).
The lush green of Mljet National Park (Walk 29)
An entry fee is payable on entering a national park (and some nature parks), and you should hang on to your ticket as you may be asked to show it later. Camping is prohibited in national parks and nature parks.
While the wildlife and geological features of a natural/nature park are undoubtedly of exceptional interest and beauty, this does not necessarily in itself make an island the best destination for hiking. In fact, some of the best hikes are on islands that are not designated national/nature parks.
Many of Croatia’s other national/nature parks are on, or easily accessible from, the mainland coast, and you can easily combine your stay on the islands with a visit to one or more of these: Krka, Paklenica, Plitvička jezera, Risnjak and Sjeverni Velebit national parks, and Biokovo, Učka and Vransko jezero nature parks.
History
Evidence of the presence of Neolithic man is widespread on the islands of the Croatian Adriatic, where they hunted for game, fished in its waters, and sheltered in its many limestone caves.
The Croatian Apoxyomenos – an intact life-sized bronze Roman statue, discovered in waters near Lošinj
Settlements grew during the Bronze Age and Iron Age, and from around 800BC the history of the eastern Adriatic becomes synonymous with the Illyrians, an Indo-European people, composed of numerous tribes scattered throughout the region from the Veneto to Albania. Among the most important of these tribes were the Liburni (famed pirates, who originally controlled the coast and islands from Istria to the River Krka), as well as the Delmatae, the Japodes and the Ardiaei. Traces of many of their hill forts still remain on the Adriatic islands, and a number of them have left their names in the region (‘Dalmatia’ from Delmatae; ‘Adriatic’ from Ardiaei).
Greek settlers arrived in the fourth century BC, establishing colonies on several of the islands including Korkyra meliana (Korčula), Issa (Vis) and Pharos (Hvar), as well as on the coast at Epidaurus (Cavtat), Tragurion (Trogir) and elsewhere.
Rome launched a series of campaigns across the Adriatic against the Illyrians, beginning in 229BC and leading to the establishment of the Roman province of Illyricum, with its capital at Salona on the edge of modern Split. The remains of Roman villas, palaces and other buildings are widespread on the coast and islands, including the incredibly well-preserved amphitheatre at Pula and the UNESCO-listed Diocletian’s Palace in Split.
Diocletian’s Palace, Split, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
After the fall of Rome in the fourth century AD the region witnessed a succession of invasions – Visigoths, Huns, Ostrogoths – until Byzantium gained control of the Croatian coast and islands, ushering in an a spell of relative peace and prosperity from the sixth century until the arrival of another horde, the Avars, at the beginning of the seventh century.
The Slavs arrived on the Adriatic some time in the seventh century, having crossed the Danube and gradually settled in the rest of Croatia over the preceding two centuries. Most of the Dalmatian coast and islands were ceded by Byzantium to the Franks in 812, although Byzantium regained its control of Dalmatia around half a century later, when it became one of a number of Byzantine ‘themes’, with its capital at Zadar.
The second half of the ninth century saw a gradual increase in the power and autonomy of local Croatian dukes, reflected in a move towards religious autonomy and the adoption of Glagolitic (the written form of Old Church Slavonic) instead of Latin by the local priests. In 888 Duke Branimir pledged his loyalty to the Pope and assumed the title Duke of the Croats; Tomislav became the first king of Croatia in 925; and during the reign of Petar Krešimir IV (1058–1074) Dalmatian and Pannonian (inland) Croatia were for the first time unified into a single state, although it is not certain that all the islands were included in this.
Petar was succeeded by Zvonimir (1075–1089), who had the title King of Croatia and Dalmatia conferred upon him by Pope Gregory VII, but his kingdom more or less fell to pieces during the power struggles which followed his death, and in 1091 Hungary invaded Croatia, with the Hungarian Arpad dynasty inheriting the rights of the Croatian kings in 1102.
It was during this period that the city of Dubrovnik (or Ragusa) rose to power. Founded in the first half of the seventh century by refugees from Epidaurus (Cavtat), a city recently devastated by the Avars and the Slavs, Dubrovnik soon grew rich on maritime trade, and in the 12th century developed into an independent republic. In 1190 Dubrovnik signed treaties against external enemies, in particular Venice, and by the 14th century its territory stretched from the Kotor inlet in Montenegro to the northern tip of the Pelješac peninsula, and included the islands of Lastovo and Mljet.
The Roman forum, ninth-century Church of St Donatus and the bell tower of the 12th–13th century Cathedral of St Anastasia in Zadar
In the 12th century Venice launched a series of attacks on the coastal cities of Dalmatia, as well as on a number of its islands, sacking Zadar in 1202 as part of the infamous Fourth Crusade (which would go on to sack Constantinople two years later) and taking Dubrovnik in 1205. Venice is credited with having sourced much of the wood for its magnificent fleet from the islands of the Croatian Adriatic.
The Mongols arrived on the Adriatic coast during the 13th century, which they ravaged while in hot pursuit of King Bela of Hungary. There was a brief return to Hungarian rule in the 14th century, with Venice temporarily relinquishing its grip on Dalmatia, but by 1420 Venice controlled the whole of Dalmatia – with the exception of Dubrovnik, which became an independent republic with its own government from 1358 – a grip it would not relinquish until the arrival of Napoleon.
The Ottoman conquest of the Balkans during the second half of the 15th century saw the displacement of large numbers of people. Some of them, such as the Glagolitic priests from the Poljica Republic (the mountainous area inland from Split), took refuge on the islands, the latter on Brač, where they founded a monastery at Pustinja Blaca. Others became famed pirates – the Uskoks of Senj, scourge of Ottoman (and Venetian) shipping for years (‘God keep you from the hands of Senj’, went an old Venetian saying).
Relief sculpture in the town of Vis
Napoleon extinguished the Venetian Republic in 1797, and his victory over Austria in 1805 resulted in Dalmatia being ceded to France, and the creation of the Illyrian Provinces. He dissolved the Republic of Dubrovnik the following year. Napoleon instigated a number of reforms in Dalmatia, including the establishment of schools and the University of Zadar to combat illiteracy; the draining of the marshes to combat rampant malaria; even a tree-plantation programme, in an attempt to restore the denuded forests. Yet these reforms remained largely unpopular, due in part to French opposition to the clergy, and to the fact that new taxes were introduced upon the locals in order to pay for the reforms.
Dalmatia was returned to Austria in 1815 following the Congress of Vienna, with the Istrian coast and the island of Lošinj developing into favourite resorts for the well-heeled Austrian elite, while ship-building boomed in Rijeka and Mali Lošinj. However, the ongoing imposition
