A Day Trip From Sibenik to Zlarin Island by Ferry
Zlarin is just one of many of thousands of islands dotted around Croatia’s coastline. It’s just a 30-minute ferry ride from Sibenik, so we decided to check it out.
Getting tickets was easy, as there is a small ticket office near the pier.
The ferry is only for passengers, as there are no cars on Zlarin island. All we saw were golf-style buggies.
The tickets cost just 2.39 EUR each way. You can’t get a much better bargain than that.
The ferry was pretty full, with the majority of passengers being school children that were visiting a different island. After the ferry drops off passengers at Zlarin, it then heads to another island.
If you always wanted to know what a ferry engine looks like, now you know.
The Crossing
There are some interesting sites along the way to Zlarin. One is the abandoned WWII ship tunnel.
“This construction allowed military boats and torpedo boats to access or to leave the city of Šibenik by water and to bypass underwater-located mine barriers during war times.” Source: Atlas Obsura.
A little further along, we passed St. Nicholas Fortress. This is one of four fortresses in Sibenik and the only one at sea. We had already walked to Barone Fortress and St. John’s Fortress.
Zlarin
Zlarin was smaller than we expected. The town is just a few houses around the marina.
Most of the restaurants seemed to have permanently closed, perhaps as a result of the pandemic.
We only saw two restaurants and one coffee shop that were open. We also saw a small supermarket, and two small stores that were open.
When we first got off the ferry, we were greeted by these two very friendly cats.
The town is very picturesque and peaceful. Just being there helps you to feel very relaxed.
If you prefer adventure to relaxing, you may like these to cycle paths. One is 4.9 km long and the other is 7.3 km. We didn’t see anywhere to hire bikes though. You could always walk the route.
You can walk around the whole town in minutes rather than hours. We had 2.75 hours to spend there, so relaxed at a local café.
There are only a few ferries each day. We got the 09:30 ferry that arrived in Zlarin at 10:00. The return ferry was at 12:45. This arrived back in Sibenik at 13:15.
Getting the ferry from Sibenik to Zlarin is a great way to spend a few hours if the weather is good. If you enjoy walking, you could spend longer in Zlarin and walk one of the cycle paths.
I read that Zlarin only has a population of 284 during winter and around 1,500 during summer. That explains why it’s such a quiet place.
Book your hotel in Sibenik
When not staying at Airbnb apartments, our favorite booking website is agoda.com.
