Senj – The Place Where Wind Was Born And Raised

When you go to Senj, and even in the middle of summer, you can forget all except the long sleeves clothes. “There is wind blowing again”, writes on the wall of one building. In Senj?! Impossible! 🙂 –

What to see in Senj

Fortress Nehaj

Symbol and pride of Senj is fairytale fortress Nehaj, which stands defiantly on a hill called Trbusnjak. You can see this fortress from afar in whichever part of town. In some moments, when everything is set perfect, it acts as the tops of the five towers of the fortress are hooked to the sky – there is nothing around it, not below it, only some rare pine tree and stingy greenery that was left behind strong wind.

When is good weather, from the fortress Nehaj can be seen island Rab, Goli, Prvic, Cres, and Krk, as well as mountain Ucka and a big part of Velebit.

These are the official names of the permanent settings in the exhibition areas of the fortress’s museum: Senj’s Uskoks, Senj’s Coastal Captaincies, Senj’s Churches throughout History and The Town Nobleman’s Coats of Arms.

The fortress was built in 1558, a tradition, and even some documents, said that was built of stone of several destroyed churches and monasteries and houses which were located outside the city walls. On all sides around the fort are gravel paths, a few kilometers of them, and between the paths and the pines are a stage, a tennis court, way of the Cross and a partisan monument. It’s a little bit weird, but there is so much space that nothing matters.

Old Core of Senj

Senj is a little bit weird small city. Senj has everything that other cities have, such as huge anchors and cannons arranged on the waterfront, and much more than others could be proud. Let’s say, all around are scattered gates and doorways, stone gates and triumphal arches, if it could be together in one place, the exhibition would be as representative as it is in Istria or in Tuscany. But not with this one, there is no table with which one could know when it was built, for what was used, who was the builder and the like. Please do not count the Great Gate, built in 1779, with the crown on the upper doorway and the inscription of Josephina Finis, which means that the Josephina road, which started in Karlovac, was here in Senj. In the left side of the gate, in German miles, carved distance from Senj to Karlovac, Zagreb, Varazdin, and Vienna. And this is the only “information for tourists” from 1779 until today.

Cathedral

Along the fortress Nehaj, the brightest point of Senj is the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The archaeologists found the remnants of the pagan shrine and a small paleo-Christian building, built sometime in the 4th or 5th centuries. Today’s church in some form was built in 1169, and then, of course, it was rebuilt several times. In one of these projects was incurred the Romanesque columns on the facade and the southern side of the church, two lateral navies were added and built today’s altars.

Some notes one, the other notes some other things in the church, but they all agree that the most important detail in the cathedral is masonry Gothic tomb of the local bishop Ivan Cardinalibus, deceased in 1392. Below the main altar are, however, three other tombs of later Senj’s bishops, and in the floor of the right nave is underground crypt with many tombs of Senj’s notables who died from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. There is also the Holy Trinity, taken from the old church of St. Peter, with the coat of arms of the noble family Perovic from 1491, which is a version of the Croatian coat of arms, the oldest known for it. During the Second World War, a lot of interesting things were destroyed in the bombing, but luckily, many others remained.

An interesting detail in the cathedral is that on each bench for the faithful standing one Glagolitic sign. The Senj’s people are very proud of the fact that their fellow citizen Blaz Baromic, in the year 1494, only fifty years after the invention of the printing machine, made the first known Croatian Glagolitic printing company in Senj.

Velebit

Velebit, part of what connects to Senj. Sparkling, spruce and pine trees, growing from a rock, a colorful tables that showing the geological history of the mountain, Premuzic’s path, a botanical garden in which each plant is described in detail in small planks tucked in the grass, a church with an altar on a wooden stump, a mountain draw-well that can also serve as a mirror, Modrica Dolac on 1477 meters and the “Zavizan” mountain range at 1594 meters above sea level, from where we reach those terrible heights of “snow cover” 🙂

Beaches

Lukovo

Want to quite enjoy at sea with children, the best choice is Lukovo Otocko. This is a small place that was named after the church of St. Luke from the 18th century. To the village leads winding road with a viewpoint where you can stop and enjoy the beautiful view of the stone islands of the Velebit Channel. The beautiful pebble beach and peninsula of Malta, where the ethnographic museum is located is a location that makes this place a special place. Apart from the main beach, the place is surrounded by the small isolated bays of Vlaska, Anzina, and Biluca, only ten minutes’ walk away.

Prva Draga

Prva Draga beach is located minutes from the center of Senj and is visible to all passerby from the foot of the Adriatic highway. Prva Draga is an accessible small gravel bay with crystal clear sea. The disadvantage of this beach is the lack of natural shade during most of the day. At the entrance to the sea is small pebbles and sand that goes into more rounded stones in the deeper waters.