Greetings from the Island of Pag

This week we drove along the Adriatic coast and saw many of its beautiful natural beaches.

One of them was on the Island of Pag.

The sea was clean with its sand/pebble beaches easily accessible via car or ferry lines. We chose to drive and crossed the bridge near the town of Zadar.

A friend of the family has a summer home and we had an open invitation to stay as many days as we wanted to. We couldn't resist the offer so we spent two days exploring the island. But first lets do some cleaning.
We learned that Pag is the fifth largest island with 270 kilometers of coastline, rich with coves, bays, beaches and capes. It is also unique due to its vegetation, trees seldom grow here. Finally, the island is well known for the production of salt and Pag cheese (Paski Sir).

As we drove to the town of Novalja we found a lady selling the famous cheese. The price was 165 kunas (about 32 dollars) per kilogram and each wheel of cheese was about 2 kilograms. A bit pricey you may say but its taste is unique. Let me tell you what I learned.The Bura, a cold wind, blows from the steep slopes of the Velebit Mountains and blasts across the sea and lifts billions of drops of sea dust, salt and water, and carries them into the air through the Pag fields salting the stones, meadows and fields. The sheep feed from these fields and thus gives the milk its special flavor.In addition, the bura wind also affects the flora of the island. The island's plants and bushes smell beautifully as you can find sage, cypress spurge, wild-oat, araceae and many other aromatic plants. This is pure delight for the Pag sheep.

Its characteristically piquant taste, particular smell, and mildly grained texture makes it one of the best cheeses in Croatia and the world. In fact even Beli asked for more "pash-ke seer." We bought a more mature cheese (about 12 months old) and when grated tasted a bit like Parmesan.
We were sad to leave such a beautiful and memorable place but we had our next destination to visit, the Brijuni National Park, situated about 4 hours north of Pag. We had to get an early start the following day to make it to our 11:30am excursion.