5 Best Sights in Nin, Northern Dalmatia

Close to Nin and situated 6 km (3¾ miles) east of Benkovac, near the village of Podgrađeare, lie the massive ruins of Asseria, an ancient city. First settled around 6 BC by Liburnians, who built it into one of their most important towns before the Romans came, Asseria—which is nearly 1,640 feet long and roughly a third as wide—was inhabited for more than 1,000 years before crumbling away along with the Roman Empire.

The 18th-century Crkva svetog Anselma, dedicated to a 1st-century martyr believed to have been Nin's first bishop, was built on the site of Nin's former 9th-century cathedral, the first cathedral of the medieval Croatian principality. To the right of the altar is a 15th-century statue of the Madonna of Zečevo, inspired by the appearance of the Virgin Mary to a woman on a nearby island. Though the church is plain—the ceiling is adorned with only a lovely chandelier and a smoke detector—the foundations of the former cathedral are still much in evidence. Beside the church is the belfry, and next door is the treasury, which houses a stunning little collection of reliquaries containing various body parts of St. Anselmo.

Croatia's oldest church, the 8th-century Crkva svetog Križa is also known locally as the "world's smallest cathedral." Indeed, the simple, three-naved whitewashed structure—which has a solid cylindrical top and a few tall Romanesque windows (too high to peek inside)—has an unmistakable monumental quality to it even though it's no larger than a small house. There's little to see inside, though it is sometimes open, erratically, in summer; check with the tourist office or the Archaeological Museum.

Nin's shallow coast and centuries of sand deposits preserved numerous remains from prehistory to the Middle Ages under the sea. The Archaeological Museum has a rich collection for a town of this size, including replicas of two small late-11th-century fishing boats discovered only in 1966 and carefully removed from the sea in 1974. One of these boats has been completely reconstructed, the other only to the extent to which it had been preserved underwater. The main themes in each room are elucidated in clear English translations.

Historically, Nin's riches came from an unlikely source: salt. Making the best of a rare geographical location with lots of sun, wind, and shallow sea basins, Nin Saltworks still produces salt in a traditional ecological way to this day. To commemorate salt's vast influence on the city's development, Nin opened a small but charming salt museum showing how this common table adornment was produced back in the day. While there, make sure to pick up a bag of fleur du sel, or "flower of salt," ultra-rich in minerals. You can take a tour led by a professional guide (offered on the hour) for a fee.