St Nicholas Chapel, Prahulje

St Nicholas stands alone on a low mound in the fields at Prahulje outside Nin - a small church of the eleventh or twelfth century built on a trefoil plan, with a battlemented top added in the Ottoman period when it doubled as a lookout, which gives it its odd crown-like profile. The mound beneath it is a prehistoric burial tumulus. Tradition holds that newly crowned Croatian kings rode out here from Nin to be shown to the people from the four sides of the church, a story that is repeated everywhere locally and is not documented in any contemporary source. The setting, alone in flat fields, is most of the effect.

What you actually see

• A trefoil church of the 1000s or 1100s - small and pre-Romanesque.
• A battlemented top - added later, when it served as a lookout.
• A prehistoric burial mound - the rise it stands on.
• A coronation tradition - repeated locally, not documented.

When to go

April to October. An hour.

Honest expectations

The interior is almost never open, so this is an exterior visit. The track across the fields is muddy after rain. There is nothing else at the site and no facilities. It is small - fifteen minutes covers it.

Nearby

Nin is a couple of kilometres away across the fields; Zadar lies down the coast.