Bri­juni

Overview

Bri­juni or Brioni is a group of twelve small islands in the Croa­t­ian part of the north­ern Adri­atic Sea. These twelve islands are sep­a­rated from the west coast of the Istrian penin­sula by the nar­row Fazana Strait. The largest island, Veli Bri­jun lies 2 km off the coast. The Bri­juni islands were pro­claimed a National park in 1983. They cover an area of 2,700 acres. The island’s abound with Mediter­ranean and sub-​Mediterranean veg­e­ta­tion. The island has a zoo, pheas­ant farm and safari park with numer­ous diverse forms of ani­mal life. Traces of human inhab­i­ta­tion on the island date back to the ear­lier neolithic period. Among the many archae­o­log­i­cal sites, the most sig­nif­i­cant is the pre-​historic set­tle­ment on Grad­ina hill. On the west­ern coast of the island are located remains of a typ­i­cal sum­mer res­i­dence and tem­ple from Roman times in the Verige Gulf, and on the west­ern shore, very valu­able ruins dat­ing from the late ancient-​Byzantine period and the Byzan­tine basil­ica of St. Mary dat­ing from the 6^th century.