Best of Bol pick · Things to visit · on the harbour
Branislav Dešković Art Gallery
Bol's art gallery, in a Renaissance-Baroque palace from 1694 on the harbour. It holds more than 400 works, the finest collection of 20th-century Croatian painting and sculpture on any Adriatic island, from Meštrović and Rendić to Job, Vidović and Murtić.
Why it is a pick
- More than 400 works: the finest collection of 20th-century Croatian art on the Adriatic islands
- Sculpture by Ivan Meštrović, Ivan Rendić, Antun Augustinčić and Branislav Dešković himself
- Paintings by Ignjat Job, Emanuel Vidović, Juraj Plančić and Edo Murtić
- A palace from 1694 on the harbour, with exhibitions by living artists in summer
Good to know
- Branislav Dešković was a sculptor from Pučišća on Brač, known for his dogs and other animals in motion
- The Small Format Gallery is a short walk along the waterfront
To do To confirm: Dešković gallery: opening months, hours and ticket price (Fodor's gives €4 and closed on Mondays), and the street address.
Also our pick for things to visit
Dominican Monastery and Museum
The Dominican monastery on the Glavica headland at the east end of Bol, founded in the 15th century on the site of a late Roman castle. Its church holds an altarpiece of Our Lady with saints from Tintoretto's workshop, and its museum, renovated in 2021, shows archaeological finds, rare ancient coins, Glagolitic books and Venetian paintings.
Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Bol's Baroque parish church, Gospa od Karmela, built between 1668 and 1788 a few steps from the harbour. Look for the carved rose window and the stone angel holding Veronica's veil over the door, then step inside for the ornate Baroque altars and the marble pulpit.
House in a House (Paloc)
A 19th-century house in Bol whose walls were built around a poor farmer's house when he refused to sell. The brothers building it drowned on the way back from Venice, the house was never finished, and the little house still stands inside it.
Small Format Gallery
About 350 works by 260 Croatian painters and sculptors, from Bukovac and Vidović to Murtić and Ana Opalić, on the first floor of the old Croatian Reading Room of 1897 on the waterfront in Bol.
Church of St John and Theodore
The oldest church in Bol, known locally as the Templar chapel: a tiny stone church about a thousand years old, beside the Dominican monastery on the Glavica headland. It was built over a late Roman building, and traces of early frescoes and an old water cistern lie at its foot.
Blaca Hermitage
A 16th-century monastery built into a cliff in a remote valley west of Murvica by Glagolitic priests fleeing the Ottomans. It is now a museum: the priests' rooms and kitchen, their library, clocks and weapons, and the instruments of its last priests, who were astronomers, left much as they were in 1963.