Photo: Christian Pirkl / CC BY-SA 4.0
Novalja lives a double life. By day it is a Pag-island harbour town with pebble bays and the moonscape hinterland the island is famous for; by night, in July, its Zrće beach two kilometres away runs Croatia's biggest open-air club strip. The two worlds barely touch: families on the town side rarely notice the festival crowd, who sleep till noon anyway.
Beyond the party postcode, the Lun olive groves at the island's northern tip grow trees a thousand years old, and Pag cheese and lamb do the gastronomy.
10 places.
Start with Lun Olive Gardens, Zrce Beach, and Talijanova Buza Aqueduct. After that it depends on what you enjoy: the guide holds 10 places in Novalja, sorted into sights, activities, food and shopping, so you can skip whole categories that bore you.
Lun Olive GardensFollow the hidden gems: 5 places that rarely make the guidebooks, most of them a few streets off the main drag. Lun Olive Gardens, Zrce Beach, and Talijanova Buza Aqueduct are good ones to start with.
Zrce BeachA focused day covers the essentials. Combine two or three nearby sights with a long lunch, and leave room for whatever you stumble into: all 10 places are grouped by area, so nothing forces you across town.
Novalja WaterfrontDay trips within reach of Novalja, plus the routes and quiet corners our editors keep coming back to.
Millennial olive groves on Pag's northern cape: wild olives over a thousand years old in a labyrinth of dry-stone walls.
Photo: Christian Pirkl / CC BY-SA 4.0
The Adriatic's most famous party beach: a wide shingle crescent with clubs, family-calm by day.
Photo: Andrej Neuherz / CC BY-SA 3.0
Open the category you need now, then take the full set with you in the app.
Millennial olive groves on Pag's northern cape: wild olives over a thousand years old in a labyrinth of dry-stone walls.
Photo: Christian Pirkl / CC BY-SA 4.0
The harbour promenade with cafés, boats and the whole town's evening corso.
Photo: Palauenc05 / CC BY-SA 4.0
Places unlock as you reach them, with a passport that fills up as you explore.
