The riva

The seafront promenade that doubles as the town's main square, market and meeting point.

Sight Legendary

Photo: Silverije / CC BY-SA 4.0

Why it is worth your time

The Vodice riva runs for about a kilometre, from the landing where the boats for Prvić leave to the entrance of the ACI marina, and the whole town faces it. The day on it has a clear rhythm. In the morning it is a workplace: fishermen unload the night's catch, the market opens, delivery vans are allowed in only until nine.

Around midday it empties because everyone is on the beaches west of the centre. Towards evening it fills again and turns into what Dalmatians call the šetnja: you walk slowly, from one end to the other and back, meet people you know and stop every fifty metres.

The stone houses behind the riva are lower and plainer than in Šibenik fifteen kilometres east, and that is no accident. Vodice was never an episcopal or noble seat but a fishing and farming village that serious tourism only found in the 1950s.

So the old core has no palaces, just rows of two-storey houses with outside stairs and balconies, and the oldest part gives itself away only by the width of the streets: the narrower they are, the older.

Croatia Atlas tip

For a quieter walk head west towards Plitka punta: the eastern end by the marina is always busier, and the western one leads straight to the beaches.