Cavtat

Cavtat

Danielis

The centre of tourism on the southernmost part of the Croatian Adriatic coast and one of the loveliest small towns on the eastern Adriatic coast. Cavtat is a town with a pleasant climate, lush vegetation, picturesque beaches, recreational and sports facilities, and exemplary cuisine. The bay with the town port is enclosed by Capes Sustjepan and Rat. There are tourist facilities and restaurants in the town port and along the coast of the Tiha Bay. The beach extends to Cape Prahivac. The promenades through the pine forest are 7 km long. The predecessor of the present-day Cavtat was the Greek town of Epidauros.

Around 228 B.C. it came under Roman rule and became a civitas (town), from which it derives its name. In the 7th century, it was destroyed by the Avars and the Slavs. For a long time, it was part of the Dubrovnik Republic. The town was surrounded by a wall, which began to be removed at the end of the 19th century. The remains of the town wall from the 15th and 16th centuries and the Renaissance Rector's Palace from 1558, which houses a library and a large collection of prints by Baltazar Bogisic (1834-1908), have been preserved. The Franciscan Church of Our Lady of Cavtat is a Gothic-Renaissance structure with paintings by old Dubrovnik masters and painter Vlaho Bukovac from the 19th and 20th centuries. The monastery cloister dates back to 1483. The Baroque Parish Church of sv. Nikola (St. Nicholas) from 1732 contains wooden altars, and the parsonage keeps a collection of paintings. On the cemetery stands the Racic family mausoleum, the work of sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. The Rat Peninsula encloses the northern Cavtat port in the Tiha Bay, which provides an excellent shelter from the jugo, but is completely exposed to the bora.

The main port lies at the quay with small piers. There are water hydrants on the coast. The bay provides a good anchorage. The depth of the sea is between 15 and 21 m in the middle of the bay and between 6 and 10 m closer to the coast. The port is well-protected from the bora and the jugo, but exposed to the maestral. The lebic can also be dangerous. When the maestral or lebic blows, boats should be moved to the Tiha Bay.