Lastovo Island
Lastovo island is the most distant inhabited island of the East Adriatic Sea, specific for it's natural beauties and untouched nature, the reason why it's declared a NATURAL PARK. With the Mljet National Park, which is a nearby island, Lastovo is the most wooded Adriatic island. It's surrounded by perfectly clean sea rich with fishes and lobsters like no other part of the Adriatic Sea.
With it's natural bays island has been providing refuge to seafarers since ancient times. Greek sailors and traders named it LADESTON or LADESTA as it had been common stop on their journeys. After them, Romans took that name to call it LADESTRIS.
Natural and cultural beauties of the island are all in number 46. There are 46 islands of the Lastovo's archipelago, 46 cultivated fields of olive trees and grape vines, 46 churches and chapels, the best known being the Renaissance church of Ss. Cosmas and Damian. The church has a rich treasury, open to visitors. Island Lastovo provides rich cultural and historic heritage, beginning with remains of Illyrian structures and villas from Greek and Roman times, as well as many other sacral monuments dating to the 11th century. The Romans called it Augusta Insula, meaning the Emperor's Island.
Lastovo town on the Lastovo island is perhaps one of the most beautifully old settlements in the Adriatic. The entire village is a protected cultural monument because of it's unique Renaissance architecture and amphitheatric way of building. The town is hidden from the sea in the inland which is a proof of pirates activities and stormy past (the first settlement was destroyed by the Venetian Dodge, Peter II Orseolo, in the year 1000). In 1310, the people of Lastovo won their first Statute, which clearly indicates a rich cultural and political life at the island. The Lastovo carnival feasts recall every year in a symbolic manner their victory over the Ottomans.
Links with info about Lastovo Island