Croatia's oldest native city — St James Cathedral and four Venetian fortresses
Šibenik is the oldest native Croatian city on the Adriatic — founded by the Croatian kingdom rather than Greek or Roman colonists — and home to a UNESCO-listed cathedral that is the only large Gothic-Renaissance church in the world built entirely of stone with no wood or brick. The Cathedral of St James took 105 years and three architects to complete; its frieze of 74 stone portrait heads — the faces of ordinary 15th-century citizens — rings the exterior walls. Four hilltop fortresses (St Nicholas, St John, Šubićevac, and the clifftop Fortress of St Michael) guard the approach to the city; th…
Šibenik was first mentioned in a charter of the Croatian King Krešimir IV in 1066 — making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited Croatian settlements. The city passed from Croatian to Venetian control in 1412 and remained Venetian for almost four centuries, during which the cathedral was built and the ring of fortresses constructed to repel Ottoman attacks. The 1991-95 Croatian War of Independence heavily damaged parts of the city and surrounding villages; reconstruction and UNESCO listing of the cathedral in 2000 began a cultural and tourist revival. The fortress of St Nicholas was ins…