Sailor Pino Vojković is late for our rendezvous at the harbour of Komiža village. “I’ll be five minutes,” he promises, when I call. He arrives in 20. I can’t pretend I mind. It’s almost a decade since my last visit to Vis and I’d forgotten how beautiful Komiža is.
The island has recently acquired a cachet as a bohemian bolthole, its reputation bolstered as the filming location of 2018’s Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Why create movie sets that illustrate feel-good escapism when they’re ready-made on Vis?
Despite the Hollywood kudos, Croatia’s most distant inhabited island, 34 miles from Split by direct ferry, remains pleasantly low-key. On Komiža’s charming green-shuttered square, villagers are as garrulous as starlings over morning coffee. Stone houses jostle along the shore and a stubby castle guards the harbour where fisherfolk in sun-faded overalls sort nets. Romantic, nicely scruffy, Vis feels touched by magic.
Time on this island feels elastic. It stretches. Unspools. Maybe that’s why tour operator Intrepid named it among its annual ‘not hot’ list of 10 overlooked destinations to visit in 2026. And although tourism on the island remains small scale, international developers have started to take note.
It’s my desire to slow down and learn more about the island’s heritage that’s led me to meet Pino — founder of Alternatura tour company, which owns two of only four remaining falkuša sailing boats, the traditional wooden fishing vessels of Komiža. They were resurrected to run sailing trips for visitors, but also to rekindle an important facet of local history. When we meet beside them on the harbour, surrounded by modern boats, their swooping black hulls and sails swagged along varnished spars give the impression of something from The Odyssey.
A falkuša is an “endless poem”, Pino tells me as he prepares for sea; tightening the ropes that support the mast and loosening sail-ties. For centuries, the eight-metre sardine boats were the pride of the Adriatic. While other Mediterranean fishermen hugged the coast, those of Komiža sailed across open sea to claim the richest fishing grounds.
After the last falkuša sank in 1986 — replaced by more modern motorised, fibreglass boats — a replica was built by a Komiža research project, Cultural Association Ars Halieutica, for the 1998 World Fair in Lisbon. The reaction was astonishing. Within a year, Unesco had put the falkuša on its World Heritage List. Within 20 years, two more boats had been built. More
By James Stewart https://www.nationalgeographic.com/
