Sibenik

Stone slabs were slotted into one another and neither timber nor brick went into it. Seventy one faces of people of that time are carved around the outside from life.

It sits on the rock over the old quarter and its courtyard was rebuilt as an open stage. From the seats the islands and the sea show right past the platform.

Raised in 1646 within two months, its walls came out rough and low. Grass now covers the interior and a market for local produce is held there.

At one stretch the water drops over lime barriers in seventeen stages. A boardwalk cuts across its face and carries walkers into the thick of the noise.

The cloister was replanted from old drawings with medicinal herbs in marked beds. Box hedging edges the beds and a well stands at the centre.

Built as a triangle on an islet where the inlet meets open sea, it is reached by boat alone. The gun ports sit low to the water, set to aim beneath a hull.

A cistern was dug under the square next to the cathedral with four well heads over it. The heads are capped now and summer performances take place above them.

One monastery takes up a river islet, ringed by cypress. Visitors go in by boat, stay 30 minutes and leave on the same boat.

Broad stone steps run along the quay and serve as seating. So narrow is the inlet that houses on the far slope look close at hand.

Boats into the Krka falls leave from this small village where many yachts tie up. Restaurants crowd the narrow lanes, so waiting for a boat is spent sitting down.

Some 20km south of Sibenik, stone houses ring a small peninsula that a causeway links to the coast. Behind it, Babic vines climb terraces walled in dry stone. The hilltop churchyard looks down on village rooftops and open sea at once.

About thirty minutes from Sibenik harbour by passenger boat, and car-free. It made its name harvesting red coral, and village workshops sell coral jewellery. Before the boat back, people swim from the pebble beach under the harbour pines.

Faust Vrancic, the Renaissance inventor who sketched a parachute, is buried here. A memorial centre opened in Prvic Luka in 2012 with models of machines from his book. The story of his 1617 jump from a Venice campanile is legend, unproven.

Upstream in Krka National Park, rows of low cascades run on before one final drop. Old watermill houses stand beside it. Skradinski Buk below draws the crowds, so here you can stroll slowly with just the roar of water.

In a pine wood at Dubrava, east of Sibenik, this centre nurses injured and sick hawks and owls, then frees them. Visitors meet the birds up close and watch falconry displays. Individual visitors are taken only on fixed days, so look up the schedule first.