ReportingDestination n ° 2 in the “Le Monde” 2022 travel list. Along the Croatian coast, ten lighthouses can accommodate tourists for a few nights, for an impression of the end of the world. From the heights of Veli Rat, on the “white tip” of Dugi Otok Island. Or in Sestrica Vela, facing the Kornati archipelago and its lunar landscape.
At the end of the narrow road which turns between brushwood and olive trees, the beam of the lighthouse sweeps the black ink of the sky and the sea. With the lighted window of the house at the foot of the tower, these are the only lights in the sky. ‘darkness. Two hours of navigation aboard the ferry from Zadar, on the Croatian coast, to the island of Dugi Otok, the most distant of the archipelago, thirty-five minutes by road from the landing stage to the lighthouse of Veli Rat and , already, an impression of Finistère. Despite the late hour, Daniela Skvorcevic, the guardian’s wife, greets with a smile and a few words of English.
It has been twelve years since Plovput, the national company which manages the 50 lighthouses installed along the Croatian coast, opened up former staff accommodation to tourism: “ In the past, each lighthouse occupied three or four families. Now, they are automated, only sixteen have a guard, Captain Dino Dellavia explained to us in Zadar, renting apartments helps us maintain the facilities. “
The Veli Rat Lighthouse offers two, with bare walls and simple furnishings. But the real luxury is elsewhere: in the breath of the waves which enter through the windows open to the night, in the landscape at daybreak when the silhouette of the pines stands out against the palette of blues, the sky, the curves of the other islands. , the horizon punctuated by a white sail. He is also almost alone at the end of September, when the campsite in the neighboring cove has closed, when the sea is yours to swim in the mauve reflections facing the afternoon sun.
A string of islets
As everywhere in the Mediterranean, the period is blessed. In each bay of the quirky island, a hamlet of white houses with red roofs calms down around its bell tower. Dugi Otok, “the long island”, is sometimes so narrow that one sees on one side the immensity of the sea, on the other a string of islets between which boats trace their clear wake.
The high season is coming to an end, Daniela and Zvone Skvorcevic will not see many customers pass by until Easter. With their two boys, they will be the only residents of the “white tip” (punta bjanca) where the lighthouse stands. Bandana tied on the skull, all in muscles despite his 58 years, Zvone Skvorcevic will find ” his freedom “.
In the thirty years that he has been in this profession, automation and then computerization have reduced his role. He reads the data from the weather station, climbs the 183 steps leading to the rotunda from where the gaze goes far on the shores to check other beacons, connects the generator in the event of an electrical failure. The rest of the time, he trolls or snorkels in the beautiful seabed. As a child of an industrial town in Slavonia, he learned about winds, currents and ” that you should never oppose the sea “. But he also became a peasant and cultivated the land in the middle of the maquis lent to him by the inhabitants of Veli Rat, now busy in tourism.
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