Pag is like something you’d find in a 1950s Italian film, perfect for a broody B&W Antonioni set – it’s barren, rocky and sepia coloured, with vast empty landscapes stretching across the horizon. The Adriatic has a steely blue around it and, when the sky is stormy, it’s the most dramatic-looking place in the whole of Croatia: its karstic rock forms a moonscape defined by two mountain ridges, patches of shrubs and a dozen or so villages and hamlets.
Technically Pag is no longer an island at all – it’s connected to the mainland by a bridge – but in terms of culture and produce it’s very independent and distinct. Islanders farm the miserly soil and produce a decent domestic white wine, Šutica. Tough local sheep graze on herbs and salty grasses, lending their milk a distinctive flavour and producing paški sir (Pag cheese; soaked in olive oil and aged in stone). Intricate Pag lace is famed and framed on many a Croat’s wall.
But Pag has put a twist to its image as a place of centuries-old tradition and culture: the northern port of Novalja is one of Croatia’s most carefree and lively resorts, while nearby Zrće beach is a clubbing mecca.
History
The island was inhabited by the Illyrians before falling to Rome in the 1st century BC. The Romans constructed forts and aqueducts. Slavs settled around Novalja in the 7th century AD and began building churches and basilicas. In the 11th century, salt production began to take off, resulting in conflicts with Zadar and Rab over the salt trade. In 1409 Pag was sold to Venice along with Zadar and the rest of Dalmatia. Subsequent squabbles saw the island invaded by Venetians, Austrians, French (and Austrians again) and then a German-Italian occupation during WWII.
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