Novalja City Museum

Why it is worth your time

The Novalja City Museum is a small house with an unexpectedly large story: a collection proving that today's capital of summer clubs was a serious Roman harbour two millennia ago. The ground floor and the storey hold amphorae raised from sunken freighters that went down on the way to Cissa, coins, ceramics and tools of Roman Novalja, and the island's ethnographic layer: sheep-keeping, the olive, salt and the labouring life that lasted until yesterday. The museum's star is the entrance to Talijanova buza, the Roman aqueduct into which one descends straight from the display, so history here is literally walked.

Everything is concentrated, the visit with the tunnel takes a pleasant hour, the captions are bilingual, and the staff gladly add what the boards do not say. In summer the museum works evening hours too, which is the smartest slot: air-conditioning instead of heat, and after the viewing the waterfront five steps away. The ticket is symbolic. For families this is the easiest way to show children that Novalja did not begin with the first festival but with the first Roman amphora.