Island of Krk

Island of Krk is situated in Kvarner bay a bigest Adriatic island with 409 sq/km ( 38 km long and about 20 km wide ). There are 68 populated places on island among them Krk, Malinska, Baška, Njivice, Punat, Omišalj, Vrbnik, Šilo and Dobrinj are most significant. On island live appx. 16.500 inhabitans.

Island of Krk offer a lot of variety so you can reach the full feeling of island if you plan also visit to other places beside your accommodation place. As it’s over the Krk bridge connected with Adriatic coast it can be used as base for excursion to other turist destinations along the coast and islands Cres (Lošinj) and Rab over the direct ferry connections.

How to reach

Island of Krk is closest island to central and west Europa among all Mediteranian island. It’s connected with coast over the Krk bridge. There is international airport located in the middle of island capable to accept arival of jumbo jets too.

Only 30 km far away from Rijeka and train station enable you to use daily connections to Italy, Austria, Deutchland and Hungary. There are also daily bus connections to the following cites: Trst, Muenchen, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Budapest, Zurich, Koeln and other european capitals.

Less than 30km away from the island you can join the highway as a part of european highway network.

In the city of Rijeka there is also international port operating 24 hour per day with port authority and custom office accepting arrival and deparuture of all type of ships under the foreign flag.

On the island there is the bigiest marina in Croatia well equiped with all needed services, located in bay of Punat protected from any type of wind.

Punat is on the south of Krk bridge appx. 30 km and 8 km south of place Krk. From the main motorway going along island Krk from Omišalj to Baška you have to turn right at the chappel Dunat located on the north of Punat bay.

About Punat

Punat lies in the southern part of the island of Krk, in one of the most beautiful and well-protected bay on the Adriatic.

Specific adriatic atmosphere to the place Punat is given by narow streets and rows of old stoned houses ( called “kala” ) in the old core of the place. There are number of white stoned beaches near to the place outside the Punat bay. In the place live a total round 1700 inhabitans. Proposed name Punat left from belive that sometimes there was bridge (lat. pons) bridging narow entrance in Punat bay with oposite east coast making short way to vineyards and main city on the island named Krk. Nowdays economic of the place is based on agriculture, olive oil production, fishing, shipyard and turismus exeptional nautic.

Punat is one of the leading nautic centar on the Adriatic coast, well known among nautic turists by Marina Punat one between three best ranking Marina on Adriatic see. In front of Punat in the middle of Punat bay there is located small island Košljun home of Franciscanus row with Conventus covered from view by pine trees.

Climate

Visitors to Punat, particularly those who come more often and stay here longer, will clearly notice many enjoyable characteristics of its climate. Compared to the climate of other places and areas of the island, as well as with the coastal area of Kvarner, Punat has a larger number of sunny days, the temperature is higher, there's less precipitation and windiness is less acute. According to its latitude, the expected temperature in Punat would be 4,6 °C lower than the actual annual temperature of 14,5 °C. This is mainly due to the influence of the warm sea. Positive temperature aberration in relation to the average temperature of the parallel on which Punat is situated is especially noticeable in winter, when, for example, in January the temperature reaches 7,4°C. Sea characteristics of the climate in Punat are visible in autumn which is warmer than spring - approximately 2 °C. On average January is the coldest month with the average temperature of 5,4 °C, while the hottest, July, reaches 24,2 °C, which befits to hot Mediterranean summer.

Flora & fauna

Rocky lizard (Podarcis melisellensis) - autochtonous croatian species. Together with her in good neighboring relations there lives another interesting endemic species - tawny scaly lizard. Their males are attracting the attention with an axpressive blue throat and orange-coloured belly. Usually they rest upon the overgrown walls.

The fig - To us very known fig originates from west of Asia. The biggest cultivators of that tastefull fruits are Mediterranien states such as Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey. There are many sorts of figs but the most known is named by our sea - the Mediterranien sort. It is a very old fruit-according to biblical notification originated from garden of Eden where Adam and Eve have probably used it as food and also have made clothes from it's leaves. The old Egiptians have knew fig as an explicitly nutritive plant, and the ancient Greeks at their very first Olympic Games not only eat it but also wore it as a part of trophy for their merits.

The olive - is an evergreen plant cultivated for thousand of years as food or raw material for oil making. In Mediterranien area people trained olives since 4000 years B.C. Olive tree continually gets young set for planting so it is easy to rejuvenate the old tree. Therefore the olive tree is considered the tree of long life. It is known the biblical report that after the flood the hen-pigeon has brought to Noah an olive branchlet as a sign that the water was starting to stroll. The motif of the olive branchlet in the bill of a white hen-pigeon also today known as the symbol of peace. In the Bible olive is mentioned many times specially because of the oil which was considered, besides the grain and vine, the basic good for Israelits and neighbouring people.

The donkey- He is the animal on which you will stumble upon very rarely He is known as the most stubborn and indolent animal on the world, but he was indispensable for hard roads of the Island of Krk. Some 50 years ago every place had at least one donkey, but today he is an attraction both for strangers or native people.