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Super trouper: the harbour in Vis town.
Super trouper … the harbour in Vis town. Photograph: Danita Delimont/Getty Images
Super trouper … the harbour in Vis town. Photograph: Danita Delimont/Getty Images

Vis island, Croatia: how can I resist your Mamma Mia charms?

This article is more than 5 years old

This tiny Croatian island gets star billing the Mamma Mia sequel. And, with beautiful beaches, 17th-century architecture and great seafood restaurants, it’s easy to see why

Croatia can feel like an actor that, despite talent and charisma, never quite makes it to mega-stardom. If it’s the case of needing the right role then Mamma Mia 2, due out next week, might just do the trick for Vis, an island off its coast: last year the film’s cast and crew refashioned it as the “Greek” resort of Kalokairi that serves as the backdrop to the films.

If you’re rich enough, you can arrive on Vis by helicopter, but a ferry from Split takes a little over two hours and costs just £6.40 for foot passengers. However you come though, the arrival feels filmic. After a series of small islands, a harbour lined with a jagged mouth of creamy white houses emerges. As you get closer up, they appear to have a satisfying ratio of balconies, washing lines and tiny jetties.

If you’re staying in Vis town (and there are compelling reasons why you should) you don’t need a car. It takes about 20 minutes to walk around the harbour to Kut, the oldest and prettiest part, where most people stay.

Built by the Venetians in the 17th century, Kut is a series of courtyards and passageways in limestone, overhung with balconies, with steps rising up into the hills behind. There are no smart clothes boutiques; instead there are mini-marts and boat chandlers. The water is achingly clear, the food, Italian in influence, majors on seafood. Particularly in Kut, Vis has a winning way of creating restaurants within the walls of ruined palazzos. Stellar examples include the pizzas at Lambik and the smarter, Spanish-influenced Lola (lolavisisland.com). Prices are reasonable; a meal at Pojoda, widely regarded as the island’s best restaurant, costs around £30.

‘The water is achingly clear’: Stiniva beach, Vis island. Photograph: Matthew Baker/Getty Images

Vis feels like Greece designed by the Dutch: mellow but practical and efficient. It’s not a big island; it takes about 15 minutes to drive from Vis town to the other main hub of Komiža. Equally pretty and where the Mamma Mia 2 production was largely based, its harbour was taverna-ed up to allow for a couple of big dance numbers. Komiža is still a major fishing port and there are a series of good restaurants here. Jastožera (jastozera.eu) specialises in lobster, while Konoba Bako (konobabako.hr), nearly next door, does the same but has a collection of ancient amphora. Komiža also has more beaches – of the pebbly Croatian variety – than Kut.

The island of Vis is a lot sleepier than Hvar, its club-minded neighbour to the east. While Vis has 3,000 beds, Hvar has over 30,000. A large part of me hopes it will stay at this number, for Vis is in a very sweet spot right now. Cruise ships can’t drop in, and there’s just one smart hotel – the 10-room San Giorgio, tucked down an alley in Kut – although there are an increasing number of meticulously renovated villas and apartments.

A few things have helped keep Vis under the tourism radar. When the rest of the country started to open up to tourism in the 1960s, Vis was kept off limits by the Yugoslav army. There’s still a legacy of 16 abandoned army bases across the island, though most people expect at least a couple to become resorts in a decade or so.

Despite its low-key vibe, Vis has enough sights, including an archaeological museum and churches, to avoid beach-centred boredom. Above all, on neighbouring Biševo island, a series of caves have pools of iridescent blue light (which feature in the film), thanks to a shaft of sunlight meeting pure white sand on the seafloor. There’s an action side to Vis, too: the harbours are lined with every type of boat, from excursion vessels to sailing boats and Ribs. Cycling is big here, so is exploring a network of tunnels built by the Yugoslav army, alongside abseiling and diving – wrecks include a B-17 from the Second World War.

Vis is getting smarter though. Fort George (fortgeorgecroatia.com), a British legacy of the Napoleonic Wars high on the hill just north of Vis town, is now an upmarket party venue. The superyacht set are beginning to circle, too. Last year David Guetta held a yacht-hopping party (Guetta DJ-ed, naturally) just offshore near the Blue Cave.

Street life: old stone houses in Vis town. Photograph: Natasa Kirin/Getty Images/iStockphoto

A certain amount of Yugoslav army-issue barbed wire remains on the island but the sense of lushness with scrubland of wild rosemary, capers and sage more than makes up for it, alongside that pleasing oddness that the best islands have. Vis also has its own variety of carob tree alongside oranges and lemon trees, while all around are vineyards and olive trees, the former recently planted after Phylloxera devastated wine production in the early part of the 20th century.

There’s also a pragmatism on Vis that possibly comes with the territory. This is an island that has been scrapped over and requisitioned on a regular basis – the Greeks brought wine and, a bit later, the Romans did their usual baths and logistic input. The Venetians left their mark with architecture and food while the British and French both occupied it during the Napoleonic wars. Later on, the Austro-Hungarians added some fine roads with Tyrolean-style bollards and a sense of efficiency that still pervades today, according to Siniša, a geography teacher at Vis’s only secondary school and who offered to show me around.

“Somebody asked me how delayed ferries were. I had to tell him that this was Croatia and they leave on time,” he told me.

But the island is not without its problems. House prices are rocketing and many are becoming holiday lets. There’s a lack of jobs so the young are leaving, but others are returning. Niko Rokis is an Australian of Croatian descent who decided to come back and create a vineyard, which also has a very good bar and restaurant (rokis.hr). He also created a cricket pitch, which means that this little island (population 3,500) is represented on the national squad.

“We’re starting to get pub teams visiting from the UK,” said Siniša, who has played for the national team and is the opening batsman. “They can go to the West Indies and definitely get beaten, or come here where they probably won’t.”

Way to go

Return flights with Croatia Airlines (croatiaairlines.com) start at £207. Ferry information: jadrolinija.hr. Rooms at the San Giorgio start at £149 (hotelsangiorgiovis.com). Vis Villas: visvillas.com. For more information, visit croatia.hr and dalmatia.hr

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