Jakljan Island

Jakljan is one of the quieter stops in the Elaphiti Islands, the small archipelago strung out just northwest of Dubrovnik. It is an uninhabited islet - no village, no permanent population, just dense pine forest, old olive terraces and a rocky shoreline - sitting between the open Adriatic and the larger island of Sipan. Ferries do not call there, which is most of the point.

The Shape of the Island

The numbers are modest. Jakljan covers 3.4 km2 with a coastline of 14.6 km, runs a little over five kilometres from end to end and rises to 222 metres at its highest point. Most of that coastline is forested right down to the water, which is part of why it feels wilder than its more-visited neighbours, and there is a freshwater spring on the island, a genuine rarity out here.

The archipelago it belongs to takes its name from the Ancient Greek elaphos, meaning deer. Pliny the Elder recorded the Elaphites in his Naturalis Historia in the first century AD and the name has stuck for two thousand years, despite there being no evidence that deer ever lived on them. Of the thirteen islands in the group, only three carry a permanent population: Sipan, the largest at 15.8 km2 with around 419 residents; Lopud; and Kolocep, five kilometres from Dubrovnik with roughly 163. Jakljan and its immediate neighbours Tajan and Olipa have none at all.

The Graves of 1945

Jakljan's history is heavier than its scenery suggests. In May 1945, at the very end of the Second World War, Yugoslav Partisans executed a group of German and Croatian prisoners of war on the island; the figure usually cited is 204 men. The site then went unexamined for most of a lifetime. Excavation began in mid-February 2013, and by the end of that month the remains of 214 men had been recovered. They were reburied in a joint grave at the Home Guard cemetery in Dubrovnik on 1 March 2013, and a memorial was unveiled on the island itself on 24 May 2014.

The island saw military use again within living memory. During the Croatian War of Independence, the bay of Veliki Jakljan served as a base for Dubrovnik's armed boat unit during operations to break the blockade of the city.

A Roman Cargo on the Seabed

There is no archaeological record of anyone actually living on Jakljan before the twentieth century, but the water around it has been busy far longer. In 2003, three sarcophagi with their lids were found lying at a depth of 37 metres off the island, together with stone blocks and a stone container: the cargo of a late Roman ship carrying half-finished stonework from the quarries of Brac, most probably bound for Salona, the capital of Roman Dalmatia. It is one of only three known sarcophagus-cargo wreck sites on the eastern Adriatic, alongside finds off Mljet and Brac itself, and it is being studied by the underwater archaeology department of the Croatian Conservation Institute.

The Island Today

The one substantial building on Jakljan is a children's holiday camp put up after the Second World War. It operated from 1957 until 1991 and has stood derelict ever since, though the site has more recently been leased with a view to redevelopment. Otherwise there is nothing: no shop, no road worth the name, no crowd on the jetty.

That is the appeal. Sitting outside the main ferry routes, many charter guests anchor here for the afternoon - a swim stop away from the crowds that gather on Lopud or Kolocep in July and August. Outside peak season, it is often just you, the pines and the water.