Skitača

Why it is worth your time

Skitača sits four kilometres south-west of Ravni on a 425-metre plateau ringed by four hills: Goli, Oštri, Brdo and Orlić. The village was founded in the fifteenth century by refugees from the Turks, and its name, probably of Vlach origin, means people who move, wanderers. Only a few families live there now, the stone houses stand scattered across the plateau, and in the middle is the church of St Lucy, built in 1616, with a plain front and a bell gable. Around the church runs the St Lucy trail, a three-kilometre educational path with boards on the karst, the plants and the legend of the saint who wept here until the villagers built her a church.

On her feast day, 13 December, people from the whole Labin area come for mass and the blessing of the water. In summer Skitača is the coolest place around: two hundred metres above the coast, always with a breeze, with the Kvarner showing between the hills. The road from Ravni is narrow and paved, ten minutes' drive.

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