Šterna (Village Cistern), Brseč

The šterna of Brseč is the old village cistern on the central square of the old town. Šterna is the local word, from the Italian cisterna, for the covered tanks that stored rainwater in places with no spring or river. Brseč stands on a coastal cliff about 157 metres above the Kvarner Gulf, on the slopes of Učka, and like most villages on this rocky coast it depended on rainwater kept in cisterns. The communal šterna on the square was the village's shared water store.

The cistern forms one group with the old school building of 1868, which stands beside it on the square. The school was a centre of village life for well over a century before it closed. Its closure inspired the stone installation Potezi i rezovi (Strokes and Incisions) by the artist Sofie Thorsen, three carved stone objects in the small park by the bocce court at the entrance to the village, with shapes taken from old school notebooks, graffiti and the handwriting of the writer Eugen Kumičić.

Kumičić was born in Brseč, and his birth house is now a library and the Eugen K gallery. His bust stands in the loggia at the entrance to the old town. The village walls, fortifications and the bell tower of St. George date from the early Middle Ages, while most of the stone houses around the square were built in the 17th century. Look for Glagolitic inscriptions on some of the houses.

There is nothing to pay and no set hours: the square is part of any walk through the village. From the šterna it is a short walk out to the little church of St. Magdalene and its rock viewpoint over the Kvarner, with the island of Cres across the water.