Old town of Pirovac

Everyone who has stayed in one of the comfortable and modernly equipped apartments, rooms or holiday houses in Pirovac, can hardly imagine that this tiny Dalmatian town was called Zloselo (Evilvillage) until 1930. Zloselo was mentioned in 1298 for the first time in documents confirming the formation of the diocese of Sibenik. There are several theories about the origin of the name; according to one "evil" comes from some disease that has devastated the village, maybe plague, while others claim that the Zloseljans were wise people and that the Turks has begun to call them like that in their numerous attempts of conquest. Still, Pirovac was small and not particularly crowded thus the Turks won Pirovac twice. The people were running away to the nearby Murter island, and the Venetians were returning them by decree to the fortress that was built in the 15th century and whose remains we can find today in the labyrinth of Pirovac streets and the vistas of this Mediterranean town. The fort was erected by Petar Draganić, the nobleman of Šibenik and the Venetian navy commander in Dalmatia, to protect his peons and possessions in the hinterland from the Turkish invasion after the fall of neighboring Bosnia. Draganić took a small island in front of the coast and raised the fortress there with its walls, church, parish and the house for his people. There is the old Pirovac town core today, with its remains of medieval times; The gate of the village with a part of the wall, the church of Our Lady of Carmel, which was built in 1506, and reconstructed in baroque style in the 18th century, the castle of Draganić-Vrančić family and other reconstructed and upgraded traces of the 15th century. Discover them in romantic walks through the centuries of mysterious and marvelous legends of the Old Town of Pirovac.