Lastovo Village (Lastovo Town)

Lastovo Village, usually called Lastovo Town, is the only real town on Lastovo, the most remote inhabited island in the Croatian Adriatic, far out to the south-west of Korčula and closer to Italy than to Dubrovnik. The population of the whole island is well under a thousand, and the town sits not on the coast but inland, on a south-facing slope inside a natural bowl of land. Its position is deliberate: from the sea you cannot see the houses, which protected the settlement from pirates and raiders, and the narrow lanes fall away down the hillside like a natural amphitheatre.

The island has an old history. In antiquity it was known as Ladesta to the Greeks and Augusta Insula to the Romans, and traces of Illyrian, Greek and Roman presence have been found. In the Middle Ages it passed through Byzantine and Slavic influence before coming under the Republic of Dubrovnik, which governed the island for several centuries and left a statute that granted local self-government. That history of a small community running its own affairs still shapes how the island sees itself.

Walking through the village, you find houses of grey and cream stone, tightly packed along lanes and stairs, with small squares, churches and the unusual round-topped and decorated chimneys known as fumari, which are one of the architectural signatures of Lastovo and appear in different shapes on almost every roof. The village is also known for its winter carnival, Poklad, a ritual with a doll that is paraded and burned, said by tradition to recall a victory over raiders in the Middle Ages, and it is one of the most distinctive carnival customs on the Adriatic.

Lastovo was a military zone during the Yugoslav period and was closed to outsiders for decades, which kept it from the building boom that changed other islands. That isolation helps explain why the landscape, forests, fields and bays are so well preserved, and why the whole archipelago is now protected as the Lastovo Islands Nature Park. With so little artificial light, the nights are very dark, which makes it a rewarding place for stargazing.

Services are limited: there are a handful of restaurants and rooms, a shop or two and a small number of services, and connections by ferry or catamaran run to the ports at Ubli and elsewhere. The village suits slow travellers who want walking, cycling, swimming from rocky coves and an authentic island atmosphere. Plan ahead, bring cash, and allow a full day or more. Skrivena Luka, the Struga lighthouse and the rest of the archipelago are listed separately for further exploration.