The Adriatic Riviera's mountain drama — Biokovo rising 1,762m directly behind a pebble beach promenade of baroque churches and Franciscan monasteries
Makarska is the central town of the Makarska Riviera — a 60km stretch of Adriatic coastline where grey limestone mountains drop almost vertically to pebble beaches. The town centres on a palm-lined Riva promenade, a 17th-century Franciscan monastery with one of Europe's most comprehensive shell collections (over 3,000 Adriatic mollusc specimens), and a baroque St Mark's Church. Biokovo Nature Park rises directly behind town: Sveti Jure (1,762m) can be reached on foot from the beach in under 4 hours, with a via ferrata accessible to non-climbers and a glass Skywalk at 1,228m above the sea.
Makarska has been settled since Illyrian times. Unusually for the Dalmatian coast, the town was under Ottoman sovereignty for much of the 15th–17th centuries rather than Venetian — which gave it a stronger Franciscan presence and a more inland-connected culture with the Neretva valley and Herzegovinian hinterland. The Franciscan monastery predates Venetian reconquest and remains the cultural anchor of the old town. The 20th century brought mass Yugoslav tourism infrastructure from the 1960s, leaving concrete hotels behind the old centre but leaving the promenade and monastery intact.