| Pag Town |
| The Kvarner Gulf |
 PAG TOWN originally lay about 3km south of its present site - the Pag salt industry was an attractive target for predatory neighbours and the inhabitants of Pag were able to play one aggressor off against another until the town was sacked by forces from Zadar in 1395 and many of its leading citizens killed.
The Venetians, who had taken control of the area by the 1420s, hired the architect Juraj Dalmatinac to build a new island capital from scratch, creating the present town with its tight grid of narrow streets along one side of a deep bay. Abbe Fortis, visiting in the late eighteenth century, called it a dismal place, adding that "I found not a single man of good sense in all that town; everybody is interested in the salt pits, and whoever talks not of salt is not regarded." Pag is the venue of two carnivals: the first an authentic local event immediately before Lent; the second, in late July or early August, a re-enactment of the first for the benefit of tourists. Both feature parades and a good deal of folk music and traditional dancing, and the pre-Lenten carnival culminates with the burning of the effigy known as Marko, whose ritual death is claimed to rid the community of all the bad things which have happened over the previous year. Both carnivals traditionally featured performances of Paska robinja ("Slave Girl of Pag"), a play of Renaissance origins concerning a captive of the Turks who is purchased and freed by a good Christian knight. Made up of rhyming couplets delivered in a monotone, it's nowadays considered too boring for the average audience, and is no longer performed every year.
The Town Flanking the town's central square, Trg kralja Petra Kreširnira IV, are two of Dalmatinac's original buildings: the Rector's Palace (Knežev dvor), now a cafe and supermarket, and the Parish Church (župna crkva), on the other side of the square - the rose window on the church facade echoes the patterns found in Pag lace, while a relief above the main door shows the Virgin sheltering the townspeople (some wearing traditional Pag skirts) beneath her cloak. Inside, the columns sport capitals bearing a variety of carved beasts, including griffins, and dolphins drinking from cups. A causeway-like strip of land connects central Pag with its suburbs on the western side of Pag bay, where you'll also find the town's main, pebble, beach. Behind it lies the Lokunjica, a muddy lagoon, and the saltpans, which stretch south for 6km. Walking along the west bank of the saltpans for 2.5km brings you to Stari grad (Old Town), the original town which was abandoned in the 1440s. There are a few ruined buildings here, including the cloister of a Franciscan monastery, and a church dating from 1392 with a fine Gothic relief of the Virgin above the portal - it served as the model for the relief adorning the parish church in the new town. A statue of the Virgin inside the old town church is taken in procession to the new parish church on August 15 (Assumption), where it's kept until September 8 (Birth of the Virgin). |
