Lun Olive Gardens

Why it is worth your time

The Lun olive gardens are Pag's oldest living inhabitants: on the island's far northern cape, around the village of Lun, grows a protected garden of tens of thousands of wild olive trees, among which many are older than a thousand years, and the oldest trees measure their age in a millennium and a half. The landscape is unique on the Adriatic: silver crowns rise straight from white karst, kilometres of dry-stone walls braid between them, laid by generations without mortar, and sheep pass to this day through the same gaps as hundreds of years ago. Through the groves lead arranged paths with boards, lookouts and resting spots, so the visit composes itself as an easy walk of an hour or two; in summer set out earlier, shade is rare and the stone hot.

By the entrance work tasting rooms of Lun olive oil, which owing to the wild variety carries a sharper, richer taste than the tame ones; a bottle from Lun is northern Pag's smartest souvenir. From Novalja one drives half an hour to Lun on a road along the sea's very edge, itself an experience. Few places show so convincingly how old the Mediterranean is.