Kukljica

Kukljica sits at the southeastern tip of the island of Ugljan, in the Zadar Archipelago, close to the Zdrelac Strait that separates Ugljan from the neighbouring island of Pasman. The 2021 census recorded 628 residents, down from 714 a decade earlier.

The village's name first appears in a document from 1106, recording a donation of olive saplings to the St Krsevan monastery in Zadar. Its oldest church, dedicated to St Jerome, stands in Kostanj bay and is generally dated to the 13th or 14th century. In the village of Zdrelac, part of the same municipality, a votive church known as Our Lady of the Snow was built in the 17th century after a local legend of a snow-related miracle in 1514; every year on 5 August a boat procession carries a statue of the Madonna from Kukljica's church of St Paul to the Zdrelac church, a tradition documented in Croatian academic research.

Boats calling here can moor at the roughly 100-berth Marina Kukljica, sheltered from the bora and other northerly winds, or anchor off the village's beaches at Kostanj and Sabusa. Given its position between Ugljan and Pasman, Kukljica is worth a visit if you're chartering a gulet in Croatia sailing this part of the Zadar Archipelago.