Komiza

The piece grouped here under Split is actually about Komiža, a fishing town on the far side of Vis island — one of the most remote inhabited islands in the Adriatic, some 45–50 kilometres from the Dalmatian mainland and reached from Split only by a longer ferry or catamaran crossing.

Komiža sits on Vis's western coast at the foot of Hum, which at 587 metres is the third-highest peak in the whole Adriatic archipelago. The settlement was first recorded in the 12th century, and Benedictine monks who arrived from the neighbouring island of Biševo built a monastery and Romanesque church on the hill above the bay in the 13th century. As piracy and naval conflict increased across the following centuries, the town added further fortifications, culminating in a coastal citadel completed in 1585.

Fishing has always defined Komiža — it is often called the birthplace of fishing on the eastern Adriatic coast, and by the Venetian period its fishermen were known across the region for organising weeks-long expeditions to the distant island of Palagruža. Their signature vessel, the falkuša, was a wooden boat purpose-built for those long open-water trips; Komiža's harbour once held 74 of them, and although the last working example sank in 1986, three have since been restored and now race each other in the Rota Palagružana, considered one of the oldest regattas in the Mediterranean. At its peak, in 1910 and again in 1921, the town had nearly 5,000 inhabitants; the 2021 census recorded 1,394 across the wider municipality and 1,261 in the town itself.

The old fish-processing trade has largely given way to tourism, but its traces remain — Jastožera, an 1883 building once used to keep live lobsters before sale, is now one of the town's restaurants. Most visitors today use Komiža as the jumping-off point for the Blue Cave on nearby Biševo, and it can be a popular stop for gulet charter guests exploring Split, since Vis features regularly on longer Split-based Adriatic sailing itineraries.