Zrće Beach

Zrće — a 1.5-km white pebble beach on Pag island near Novalja — is Croatia's most famous party beach and the Adriatic's answer to Ibiza. Backed by open pine-scrub scrubland and three enormous open-air nightclubs (Papaya, Aquarius, Kalypso), it hosts the country's biggest summer music festivals — Sonus, Hideout, Fresh Island — drawing 100,000+ international visitors between June and September. Even by day the beach is beautiful: a long crescent of small white limestone pebbles, crystal-clear turquoise water shelving very gently (safe for families in the morning hours), and a magnificent backdrop of the barren Velebit mountains rising sheer across the channel. Watersports include jet-ski hire, banana boats, parasailing, wakeboarding and a floating aquapark; three beach clubs serve food and drinks all day, and a small hotel-hostel village behind the beach handles accommodation. Come by day in June or September for peaceful swimming and hikes on the surrounding pine trails; come after dark in July or August for one of the loudest nightclub scenes in Europe. Zrće has held Croatia's Blue Flag environmental certification continuously since 2003 despite the party crowds — a testament to good waste management.