Short and brutal. Have only been to, like 3 closest ones. Plaža is the word, by the way. So.
Novalja. Sucks the hardest of them all. It’s your stereotypical horrible spring-break type of place, full of drunk youth, looking to get more drunk. The place would be beautiful otherwise, with the mountains in the back, a cosy town with a pretty big marina, but somebody decided to build this beach bar culture along at least half of the stretch of the coast here and we have what we have. The beach is tiny, very dirty – dust from the road nearby and full of cigarette butts and all manner of things. It’s westward orientation doesn’t even help, the sunset is there somewhere, but it doesn’t help much.
Plaža Sveti Duh (Holy Spirit Beach, no less). The closest to where we live, like, a quick dip and back sort of close, east side of the island, under a steep descent from the mountain. Clean and minimalistic. A couple of bars where they also serve decent food, some play things in the water (like a gigantic bouncy castle, very cool, I bounced for a bit), very few people, very little shade. Loved it for a short visit. Shout out to the dude who greeted us at the entrance, It’s 5€ for parking for the entire day! – But we’re only here for, like, 15 minutes… – Ah, ok, then you can pass. I suspect he just didn’t want to have an argument in English, but fine, it worked well for us.
Šimuni is where I am writing this. It’s the next village from ours in the direction of Pag (the town), a 5 minute drive if you don’t miss the turn (I did, still 5 minutes or so). A bigger place, a south-west oriented bay with very little wind or waves, at least right now it is. It’s best feature is a line of trees along the whole beach, so there’s plenty of shade for everyone. The water here is warm and clean, there’s plenty of tiny fish that look like they belong in an aquarium. It’s quite populated, but the crowd is quiet, families with well behaved children, grandparents and so on. You can rent a SUP or any of the usual things to rent at such a place, there’s 2 or 3 very decent eateries, it could very well be perfect for a longer day at the beach. The adjacent parking is paid, but it seems that if you arrive later during the day, nobody cares (don’t come running too me if you get a ticket, though).
To be continued? Eh, maybe, we’ll see…
