The observatory
An astronomer-priest''s telescopes, still in place.
Honza Beran — CC BY 2.5 · Argo Navis — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Argo Navis — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Argo Navis — CC BY-SA 4.0
A monastery cut into the wall of an isolated valley in south-western Brač, with no road to it — and that isolation is both why it exists and why people come. It was founded in **1551** by **Glagolitic** monks fleeing the Ottoman advance on the mainland. They chose a cave in the valley wall and built around it, and over four centuries it grew into a complete complex: church, living quarters, library, storerooms, an olive press and a mill. What makes it exceptional is that it **remained inhabited until 1963**, and that its last resident — the priest **Niko Miličević** — was an **astronomer**. He acquired telescopes and instruments and corresponded with European observatories from this isolated valley, and has published observations to his name. His observatory is still in place. It holds a **library of over 11,000 volumes** in several languages, along with clocks, furniture and tools — all **left as they were on the day life here stopped**, not reassembled. Note: **it can only be reached on foot**: about **thirty minutes to an hour downhill** from the car park on a rough stone path, and the return climb is harder. Note: the path is **not suitable for small children or anyone with knee trouble**, and there is no shade.
An astronomer-priest''s telescopes, still in place.
Over 11,000 volumes in several languages, left as they were.
Cut into the wall of a valley no road reaches.
Blaca valley, south-west Brač — about 25 km from Supetar
**Glagolitic** is the oldest known Slavic alphabet, devised in the ninth century by the brothers **Cyril and Methodius** to translate religious texts into Slavic. It died out across most of the Slavic world, replaced by Cyrillic and Latin — **except on the Croatian coast**, where it stayed in use in the church and in documents **into the nineteenth century**, the longest survival anywhere. The reason was a rare privilege: the Pope allowed this region''s church to use **Church Slavonic** in the mass instead of Latin, an exception granted nowhere else in western Europe. ⚠ That is why Glagolitic inscriptions appear on church stones across Brač, Krk and Istria — among them the **Baška tablet** on Krk, the oldest substantial Croatian Glagolitic text and regarded as a founding document of the language.
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