Vis

Vis is the furthest inhabited Dalmatian island from the mainland and the least developed — for political rather than geographical reasons. Between **1950 and 1989** Vis was a **closed Yugoslav military base**, and foreigners were barred from it entirely. While Hvar and Brač were building hotels, Vis had no tourism for forty years. When it opened in 1989 it found itself **preserved by neglect**: no concrete towers, no rebuilt waterfront, just two stone towns, vineyards and farms. The two towns are **Vis** in the east and **Komiža** in the west, with a mountain and one road between them. The island holds the oldest Greek settlement in Croatia: colonists from Syracuse founded **Issa** here in **397 BC**, the first city-state on this coast, which struck its own coinage. Underground are **military tunnels and caves** from the closed period, and above them **Fort George**, built by the British in 1813. Note: the ferry from Split takes about **two and a half hours**, the longest crossing to any inhabited Dalmatian island.