Northern Dalmatia

Northern Dalmatia is probably the most underrated region of Croatia in the general public's eyes, eclipsed by Dubrovnik to the south and Split to the centre. Yet it concentrates the finest national parks in the country, two of the most beautiful historic cities on the Adriatic, and a coast so indented it accounts for nearly half of all Croatian islands.

Zadar, the former Byzantine and Venetian capital of Dalmatia, is a revelation for anyone expecting a mere stopover. Its historic peninsula, fortified and protected by UNESCO-listed sixteenth-century walls, preserves a Roman forum (with a 'pillar of shame' still in place), a ninth-century Byzantine rotunda (the Church of Saint Donatus, one of the most important pre-Romanesque buildings in the Balkans) and a first-rate museum of sacred art. But the city's contemporary soul plays out on Alfred Hitchcock's quay (he called its sunset 'the most beautiful in the world') where architect Nikola Bašić installed two unique works: the Sea Organ (Morske orgulje), an instrument that turns the movement of waves into melody, and the Greeting to the Sun (Pozdrav suncu), a 22-metre luminous disc that lights up at dusk.

Šibenik, 1h30 to the southeast, is the only major Adriatic city founded by Croats themselves (not by Romans, Venetians or Greeks). Its Saint James Cathedral, UNESCO-listed, is an absolute masterpiece of Gothic-Renaissance architecture: built entirely of local stone without any mortar or wooden framework, with a technically unique dome, it was raised by Juraj Dalmatinac and Niccolò Fiorentino in the fifteenth century. Four fortresses dominate the city and offer striking panoramas of the Krka delta from their heights.

The national parks are the region's other strong identity. Plitvice, UNESCO-listed, is one of the most beautiful aquatic ensembles in Europe: 16 lakes terraced in steps, linked by travertine waterfalls, in a mountain cirque covered with beeches and firs. Krka, 1h from Zadar, offers a different aquatic spectacle — seven main falls on the Krka river, including the famous Skradinski buk, and the monastic islet of Visovac. The Kornati archipelago, a set of 89 bare limestone islands and islets, is a lunar landscape unique in the Mediterranean, accessible only by boat from Murter or Zadar. And the island of Pag, connected to the mainland by a bridge, is famous for its sheep cheese (Paški sir), its ancient salt pans and its bare landscapes battered by the bora wind.