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Veli Losinj
The Kvarner Gulf
Despite the name (veli means "big", mali "little"), VELI  LOŠINJ is actually a smaller, quieter version of Mali Lošinj, a warren of pastel-coloured houses strung tightly around a tiny natural harbour. It's a forty-minute walk from the centre of Mali Lošinj — follow Brace Vidulica uphill, head straight over the crossroads, and take the path downhill to the right to Baldarka Bay. From here you can pick up a wonderfully scenic shoreline path, which winds past a sequence of rocky bays before arriving at the Punta hotel, with Veli Lošinjs harbour just beyond.

Once you arrive, you can't miss the hangar-like Baroque St Anthony's Church (Crkva svetog Antuna), which contains a fine tempera-on-wood Madonna with Saints (above a side door on the left as you enter) painted by Bartolomeo Vivarim in 1475. Originally commissioned by the Venetian senate, the painting was paraded around Venice every year on the anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto to celebrate the famous naval victory over the Ottomans (October 7), until being bought by a Loknj family shortly after the fall of the Venetian republic. Just behind the harbour, a crenellated Venetian tower, built in 1455 to discourage raids by the Uskoks, peers over the waterside houses. Restored in 2000, it now houses a small museum which tells the story of the island through an attractively displayed assemblage of nautical trinkets and paintings of old ships. The star exhibit is a replica of the Apoxymenos (which translates literally as the "man scraping himself off"), a Roman statue of a sporty youth conducting his ablutions with the aid of a dirt-removing body knife. The original, found off the coast of Lošinj in 1999, is currently being restored in Zagreb, and may well be displayed in Mali Loginj in the near future. The best place to swim is at the rocks beside the path from Mali Lošinj, and there are a few concreted areas near the packagey Punta hotel on Veli Lošinjs northwestern fringes. In front of the hotel, the Mare2 scuba-diving base rents out gear and offers a two-day learn-to-dive programme for about 800Kn.


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