Malinska Seafront

Malinska has been a resort since 1866 — the year the first Austrian steamer brought Viennese and Budapest bourgeois to convalesce in its pine-scented microclimate. Today it retains a genteel, family feel that its livelier southern neighbour Baška has partly lost. The pedestrianised seafront, called Šetalište Franza Josefa I in honour of its imperial guest, runs for six kilometres from the small central harbour north to Njivice, winding past a string of pebble and rock coves shaded by Aleppo pines that grow almost into the water. The half-moon of Rupa beach in the town centre is popular with families; walkers preferring quiet should push on twenty minutes north to Vantačići or Rova, where blue-flag pebble coves have room to spread out. Malinska's small old harbour — a working fishing port until the 1960s — is still ringed by konobas serving grilled scampi, black risotto and the surprisingly good local Vrbnička Žlahtina white wine from the island's east side. The town also has an oddity worth an hour: the Dubašnica Ethnographic Collection, a lovingly assembled museum in the historic hamlet of Bogovići, tells the story of the Krk sheep-farming families who once dominated the interior. Ideal base for a slow four-day island holiday.