Punat

Punat is a town and municipality on the island of Krk, in the Kvarner Gulf and part of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County — on Croatia's northern Adriatic coast, well outside the Zadar area. The settlement is first mentioned in writing in 1377, though its exact founding date is unknown, and today it has 1,900 residents according to the 2021 census.

Just off Punat's bay lies the islet of Košljun, barely 300 metres across and covering 6.5 hectares, reached by taxi boat from the harbour. It is home to a Franciscan monastery built in 1447 on the site of an earlier 12th-century Benedictine abbey, with two churches — the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Bernard — and a library holding more than 30,000 volumes. Its small museum houses ethnographic, sacral-art, natural-history and archaeological collections, and the islet's dense vegetation supports around 540 recorded plant and mushroom species.

Punat itself is one of Croatia's oldest and largest nautical centres, its marina long serving as a hub for yachts and charter boats cruising the Kvarner islands.

Given how well known it is among sailors, Punat is worth a visit if you're chartering a gulet in Croatia.