Šibenik. Things to do, map and hidden gems

St John's fortress was raised in 1646, at the same time as Barone, on a hill a hundred and fifteen metres above the town, as Sibenik prepared for an Ottoman siege. It was built in the shape of an irregular star, with low walls and earth ramparts that absorbed cannon fire, since tall medieval towers no longer counted against artillery. Together with Barone and St Michael it formed the defensive triangle that in 1647 turned back a siege of several weeks. Later it lost its military role and decayed, and in recent years it has been partly restored and opened to visitors. From it comes the widest view of the town, the channel and the islands; the climb from the old core takes half an hour.

The cathedral of St James was built between 1431 and 1536 and is the only large European church raised entirely of stone, without brick, timber or mortar: the stone slabs were cut so that they hold one another by grooves, like assembled furniture. From 1441 the work was led by Juraj Dalmatinac, who devised both the dome and the stone vault, and after his death Nikola Firentinac completed it. Along the apses runs a frieze of seventy-one human heads, portraits of real people of 15th-century Sibenik, among them women, children and bearded men in caps. The baptistery below the choir is one of the summits of stone carving. The cathedral was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2000; a visit takes half an hour.

The lighthouse on Cape Jadrija stands on the northern side of the entrance to the St Anthony channel and marks the passage for ships entering the harbour of Sibenik. It was raised in the 19th century, when the Austrian maritime administration was fitting out the eastern Adriatic with a chain of lighthouses, since without a light a night entry into so narrow a channel was dangerous. The tower is low and white, with a light visible several miles off, and beside it stands the house of the former keeper; today it works automatically. The cape is low and rocky, with the Jadrija bathing place right next to it, so the lighthouse is taken in on the same walk. The sight is at its most telling when a large ship passes through the channel.

West of Sibenik, in a withdrawn position by the sea, stand the remains of the Renaissance summer residence of the Vrancic family, one of the most prominent families of 16th-century Sibenik. From it came Antun Vrancic, archbishop and diplomat, and his nephew Faust Vrancic, inventor and lexicographer, who in 1595 published a dictionary of five European languages and in 1615 the book Machinae Novae with designs for bridges, mills and a flying device with a parachute. The estate was built as a fortified country seat with a house, a farm section and a wall toward the land. Today the walls and parts of the openings are visible, while the interior has collapsed. A field track leads to the site, and there are no signs and no arranged access.

Srima-Prizba is an early Christian site on the peninsula between Vodice and Sibenik, one of the best researched on this part of the coast. A complex of two churches built side by side in the 5th and 6th centuries was uncovered, with a shared narthex, a baptistery and tombs; such twin building was usual in late antiquity, when separate spaces served the rite of baptism and the eucharist. Fragments of mosaic, stone furnishings and inscriptions were also found. The site is roofed by a protective structure and arranged for visits with panels explaining the finds. It stands by the road in the village of Srima, and the visit takes some twenty minutes.

Turina is a medieval fortress on the hill above Skradin, raised in the 13th century when this region was ruled by the Subic counts of Bribir, the most powerful Croatian noble family of the time. The site was chosen for control of the mouth of the Krka and the road inland: whoever held Turina held the approach to Skradin, then an important port and the seat of a bishopric. The fortress later passed into Venetian hands, and in the Ottoman wars it lost its military value and was abandoned. Today the defensive walls, the remains of a tower and a cistern are visible. A steep path from Skradin leads to the top, a climb of some twenty minutes, and the view takes in Lake Prokljan.

Skradinski Buk is the largest fall on the Krka and the most visited place in the national park: here the river drops nearly fifty metres over seventeen tufa steps, along eight hundred metres, splitting into dozens of streams that pour over overgrown barriers. Tufa forms as limestone settles among mosses and algae and grows only a few millimetres a year, which is why walking off the paths is forbidden. Beside the falls stand restored mills, fulling stamps for cloth and a smithy, which show how the power of the water was used for centuries. Nearby is the Jaruga hydroelectric plant of 1895, one of the oldest in the world. The round on wooden walkways takes an hour and a half.

Roski Slap lies on the middle course of the Krka, between Visovac lake and the canyon, and drops over twenty-two metres along nearly six hundred. Its upper part is a run of small cascades the local people call necklaces, because they descend in a line like links; below them the river falls in the main cataract into a wide lake. Along the bank stand old mills in which grain was ground for the whole hinterland until the mid-20th century, and some of them still work as a demonstration. Nearby, in a steep cliff, opens the Roski cave, reached by steps. A road from Skradin and Drnis leads to the falls, and the park also offers arrival by boat from Visovac.

The St Anthony channel is the only sea passage into the harbour of Sibenik: about two and a half kilometres long, between two and three hundred metres wide and almost forty deep, so even the largest ships pass through it. It formed when the canyon of the river Krka was drowned as the sea rose after the ice age, and that is why it has steep rock walls on both sides. Because of this natural narrowness Sibenik was easy to defend for centuries, and at the entrance the fortress of St Nicholas was raised in 1540. Along the northern shore runs a laid-out interpretive trail four and a half kilometres long, with viewpoints, remains of Austro-Hungarian military structures and a view of the ships entering port.

Krka National Park was proclaimed in 1985 and takes in about a hundred and ten square kilometres of the course of the river Krka from Knin to Skradin. The Krka runs through a canyon up to two hundred metres deep and in seven places falls over tufa barriers, living deposits formed as limestone settles with the help of mosses and algae and which grow a few millimetres a year. The largest fall is Skradinski Buk with seventeen cascades and a total drop of nearly fifty metres. The park also holds the island of Visovac with its Franciscan monastery, the Krka monastery and the remains of the first hydroelectric plant on the Krka from 1895. Entrances are at Skradin, Lozovac and Roski Slap; half a day is needed for a visit.

The viewpoint above Banj beach is a small terrace on the northern shore of the bay from which the whole old core of Sibenik is taken in at one glance: the cathedral in the middle, St Michael's fortress above the roofs, Barone fortress on the hill to the right and the rows of stone houses dropping toward the harbour. That is why almost every well-known photograph of the town was made from here. The town faces south-west, so the light falls best in the late afternoon and in the first minutes after sunset, when the lights on the fortresses come on. A shore promenade leads to the viewpoint, some twenty minutes' walk from the centre; benches and shade are along the edge.

Prvic is a small island north-west of Sibenik with two settlements, Prvic Luka and Sepurine, joined by a footpath a kilometre and a half long; here too there are no cars. In Prvic Luka is buried Faust Vrancic, an inventor and writer born in Sibenik in 1551, who in his book Machinae Novae of 1615 published designs for bridges, mills and a flying device with a parachute called Homo volans, the first known depiction of such an apparatus. A memorial centre in the village holds working models of his inventions that visitors can operate. Sepurine is a fishing village with a long waterfront and a pebble beach. Boat lines from Sibenik and Vodice run several times a day.