Vela Placa Square

Why it is worth your time

Vela placa is the living room of the town of Krk: the main square right by the western gate, where all the town's paths have met for a millennium and a half. The tone is set by the Renaissance city loggia of the 16th century, under whose arches justice and council once sat and where one now cools off and waits; opposite it, under glass in the paving, lies the hexagonal cistern that watered the town for centuries, after which Krk people also name the square. Around the square arrange themselves cafés, ice-cream shops and stores in the ground floors of stone houses, so the Placa is the natural place of the first coffee and the last stroll: in the morning it belongs to locals and the market in the neighbourhood, in the evening to the corso spilling from the waterfront through the gate.

The best moment is early evening, when the stone returns the day's warmth and the loggia frames the first lit windows. From the Placa you are a minute from the waterfront, two from the cathedral, three from Kamplin: in a town this compact, the square is both start and goal.