Brela. Things to do, map and hidden gems

Brela Stone is a lone rock rising from the sea a few dozen metres off the shore in front of Punta Rata, with pines rooted in the cracks at its top, which together create the most recognisable image of the Makarska riviera. Without this stone Brela would be just another lovely beach; with it the town became a postcard appearing in every catalogue and in every second photograph of the Adriatic. The rock is easily swum to, some thirty strokes from the shingle, and around it the sea is deeper and colder, with fish gathering in the shade; a diving mask doubles the pleasure here. Climbing the rock is not intended, the stone is slippery and the pines protected, so swimmers content themselves with a circle around it. The best frame is from the water or from the point of Punta Rata in the late afternoon, when the sun falls from the west and lights the pines from below. With a little patience you get the photograph that every second postcard stand in Dalmatia has, only yours.

Punta Rata is the beach that put Brela on the world map: a white shingle point pushing into the sea like a tongue, with a pine forest descending to the very shore and water so transparent that the bottom is seen at several metres' depth. When foreign magazines chose Europe's loveliest beaches in the late nineties, Punta Rata was regularly at the very top, and it holds that name to this day. The shingle is fine and white, the entry into the sea gradual, and the pines do the work that on southern beaches is worth gold: shade three steps from the towel. The beach is arranged without excess, with showers, cabins, loungers and bars along the promenade, but without music that would drown out the sea. In summer come before ten or after four; in the middle of the day the point can be full. The beach is reached by the promenade from Brela in ten minutes, and the car park lies above the road. If the Adriatic has a beach to see before all others, this one is on the shortest list.

The seaside promenade is Brela's spine: a path following the coast for kilometres, always beneath pines, always by the sea, connecting all the town's beaches from Stomarica and Podrace in the north-west to Punta Rata and on toward Baska Voda. This is one of the Adriatic's loveliest coastal walks precisely because of the pine forest that has come down to the very edge: nearly the whole length runs in shade, with benches, showers and entries into the sea every hundred metres, so walking and swimming interweave however it occurs to you. In the morning this is the locals' running and cycling route, by day the family thoroughfare toward the beaches, and in the evening the corso on which the whole riviera strolls amid the scent of pine and dinners from the taverns. The path is level and accessible, passable with a pram too, and the stretch to Baska Voda takes about an hour of easy walking. Bring a towel and a mask: the best coves are the nameless ones between the big beaches, reached by three steps down in a pine's shade.