Blaca Hermitage – a remarkable cultural site

In the hermitage, you can buy souvenirs and honey. There are no restaurants, but the monastery surroundings are ideal for a cosy picnic. You can also get recommendations for restaurants to try out in the evenings.

Fleeing from the Ottoman invasions in the 16th century, a group of Glagolitic priests built a well-hidden monastery undetectable from the sea: the Blaca Hermitage on the Croatian island of Brač.

It is in fact a magnificent monastery complex, which during the time the priests lived there included a school and a printing office. The hermitage is one of the largest cultural attractions of Brač. For a while, the Monastery of Brač served as an agricultural establishment, but in time it got abandoned. It came back to life again in the first half of the 20th century, thanks to the monk Nikola Miličević. Father Miličević was a learned mathematician and an astronomer who set up an observatory in the Blaca Hermitage. Some important astronomical discoveries, which during that period attracted a lot of attention, were made in that observatory. Today, the Blaca Hermitage is a remarkably famous museum. Its various exhibits, some of which date back to the observatory age, give insight into the old times. Among these exhibits is Father Miličević’s telescope, which he had delivered to the monastery on donkeys since there was no adequate infrastructure for it to be brought over there by any other means.