Talijanova Buza Aqueduct

Why it is worth your time

Talijanova buza is Novalja's most unexpected attraction: a Roman aqueduct of the 1st century, a tunnel carved by chisel into the living rock beneath today's town, by which water flowed from the Novalja field toward the ancient harbour. The builders drove through the stone more than a kilometre of corridor a man's height, with vertical shafts for air and cleaning that surface in courtyards to this day; the name, the Italian's hole, the tunnel received in newer times after the workers who rediscovered it. Part of the aqueduct is fitted for visits through the City Museum: one descends straight from the exhibition into the cold, narrow corridor, where chisel marks two thousand years old show on the stone; for the claustrophobic the view from the entrance suffices.

The museum also keeps amphorae from sunken ships and the island's ethnographic collection, so the whole visit takes a pleasant hour, with air-conditioning that comes as a reward in summer. This is Novalja's best rainy or hottest hour: the town most know for clubs shows it was conducting water two thousand years ago.