The Church of the Holy Cross, Nin

Nin is a small town on a round islet in a shallow lagoon, joined to the shore by two stone bridges, and in the middle of it stands a white pre-Romanesque church only about eight metres across. The Church of the Holy Cross was built around the ninth century on a cross plan with a low dome, and it is sometimes called the smallest cathedral in the world because bishops once used it. Its windows and walls are set out so that light marks the solstices and equinoxes, which is why it also gets described as a stone calendar. Around it are Roman foundations, working salt pans and a lagoon of shallow warm water.

What you actually see

• The Holy Cross church - a small whitewashed ninth-century building on a cross plan with a low dome.
• St Anselm's church and treasury - a collection of Croatian medieval reliquaries in gold and silver.
• The salt works - traditional evaporation pans on the lagoon with a small museum and shop.
• The lagoon and sandbanks - shallow warm water, seagrass and the mud flats behind the beach.

When to go

April to June and September, when the lagoon is warm but the town is not busy. Nin is a short trip from Zadar and works as a half day. Midsummer brings warm shallow water and a lot of families to the beaches. Church hours are shorter out of season and the door is sometimes locked between groups.

Honest expectations

The church takes ten minutes, being one small empty room, and the ticket feels steep for the time. The town is very small and heavy on souvenir stalls in July and August. The lagoon is shallow, warm and full of seagrass, and the celebrated medicinal mud is a modest pool that most visitors find underwhelming. Mosquitoes at dusk are a real problem.

Nearby

Zadar is twenty minutes south-east, and the Velebit range rises across the water to the north.