Podaca

Location of Podaca in Croatia

Podaca is a tourist locality in southern Dalmatia, Croatia, located between Makarska and Ploče.

History

Podaca is a village located on the southern part of Makarska Riviera, beneath Biokovo, 35 km away from Makarska. It is made up of three neighbourhoods: Kapec, Viskovica vala and Ravanje. Nowadays, Podaca as a part of the Makarska littoral is completely oriented towards tourism. There are about 660 inhabitants living at Podaca mainly engaged in tourism. The locality has available about 1100 beds in private rooms and suits, ca. 300 beds in the tourist village Morenia and about 600 accommodation units at the camping site "Uvala borova" (The pine bay). Beautiful beaches in the peacefulness of the pinewood and the gastronomic offer of Dalmatian folk – cuisine as well as the vicinity of attractive daytrip destinations make Podaca a very desirable place for vacation.

Podaca was founded on the rocky slopes of Biokovo, on a defensible location, and there are traces of human habitation since Stone Age, like a stone mallet for mixing grain, which is kept in a Franciscan monastery at Zaostrog. Many stone ruins beneath Biokovo bear witness to the period of Illyrian habitation (2000 years BC - 1st century).

During the Roman rule this area was administrated from Narona. There are many artifacts from that period like a broken jar with a silver coin with a Roman emperor Sever (193-211AD), which were found here. Other remains from the Roman age include a part of the walls, near which a Christian tone tablet was found, dated from the Middle Ages. During the Large migrations Croats inhabited these parts (7th - 8th century). They founded their settlements high on the hilltops, in order to have a more defensible position and to make use of mountain pastures.

The Middle Ages were marked with a constant struggle between Croats and Venetians. Croats were at the peak of their naval might during the dominance of Kacic dynasty, with their decline (1280) Croatian naval dominance also declined. One of the remains from that period (11th-12th century) is an old Croatian church of St. Ivan with tombs of Kacic family at Gornja Podaca, which were Kacic ancestral lands. The church of St. Ivan at the Podaca cemetery was built in pre-Romanesque period in the 11th and 12th centuries. Not far from the church of St. Ivan, built in 1492, stood the church of St. Stjepan, which was razed to the ground in the 18th century to make room for a present-day church built in 1762. After an earthquake in 1962, almost the entire population migrated to the coastal area where a new church was built to Our Lady of Annunciation. Near the church there lies a cemetery with ancient tombstones.

Coordinates: 43°07′44″N 17°17′53″E / 43.129°N 17.298°E / 43.129; 17.298