Ston - Virtual Tour 360°

Fairytale views, gastronomic delights and a sea of oysters.

On the Croatian coast, about sixty kilometers from the pearl of the Adriatic, Dubrovnick, and along the road that leads from Slovenian Istria to Montenegro, the "Jadranska-Magistrala", is set in a small bay of rare beauty the delightful Dalmatian town of Ston (in Italian Stagno).

A small town crisscrossed by picturesque alleys, in which stand out beautiful Renaissance buildings that most often house, today as in the past, as colorful as they are fragrant orange gardens.

The town of Ston has always been a center of considerable artistic importance for the County of Dubrovnick, and even more so for the whole of Croatia.

In fact, in this delightful town, in addition to the characteristic historic center, the royal palace, also five kilometers of perfectly preserved walls of inestimable architectural value are visible which, in centuries now passed, served as protection for the prosperous salt pans and the rich possessions of the Republic of Ragusa on the Peljesac peninsula.

Click to see Croatian artist Ana Rucner as she plays on a different stage than usual: the Walls of Ston.

Ston's old town is also incredibly beautiful. It has been under UNESCO protection for many years. Walking through the beautiful alleys, among the low stone buildings, and ending in small squares, it seems to be in a place where time has stopped for several years.

The salt pans, in particular, were an invaluable resource for this area. Once, in fact, Ston was a very important center for the production of salt, so much so that the Croatians, somewhat improperly, called it "white gold" to distinguish it from that of the nearby Bosnian mines.

Today, when the "white gold" is completely exhausted, one of the most beautiful natural paradises in Europe remains in the small Gulf of Mali Stone: the "Malo more".

In Croatian, "small sea", actually a very clear and fairly wide expanse of water, in which innumerable remains of corals were discovered, but also oysters which attested, in the latter case, the importance of a region in which these molluscs were raised for at least a thousand years.

And today, after such a long time, the breeders continue to produce them with the classic means of the past.

That is some old wooden bases placed in the sea, from which they are taken only when almost three years have passed and the time has come to transfer them, at cheaper prices than elsewhere, to the tables of half of Europe.

But in this land, where oysters, shellfish and delicious fish are one of the few sources of income for the local population, even the wines of the nearby vineyards of the other centers of the Peljesac peninsula are the masters in a relatively poor economy that here , as in neighboring Dubrovnick, suffered for decades from the aftermath of the war with Great Serbia by Slobo Milosevic.

Will this land know, to attract a tourism of yesteryear, that can relaunch an economy now in disarmament? Looking at Stone, with its beautiful beaches and crystal clear sea, one would say that these pristine beauties cannot lead to anything else.

But who knows, what will become of this corner of Croatian land in many years? For now we let you discover this strip of Dalmatia, "dreaming" with a PHOTO GALLERY available on the Ston Tourist Office website: click

Map: Ston - Virtual Tour 360°