Šotovento is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

Primorje-Gorski Kotar County Primorje – Gorski Kotar County (, ) is a Counties of Croatia, county in western Croatia, most of it based in the historical and cultural region called Croatia proper and some of it in Istria, including the Bay of Kvarner, the surrounding Northe ...

on the island of

Krk Krk (; ; ; ; archaic German: ''Vegl'', ; ) is a Croatian island in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Rijeka in the Bay of Kvarner and part of Primorje-Gorski Kotar county. Krk is tied with Cres as the largest Adriatic island, depending o ...

in western

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

. Part of the town of

, it is adjacent to

Malinska-Dubašnica Malinska-Dubašnica is a municipality in the Primorje-Gorski Kotar county on the island Krk of in western Croatia. Its centre is Malinska. There were 3,212 inhabitants, of whom 90% were ethnic Croats at the 2021 census. It was established as a mun ...

Geography

Sotovento covers of the western town of Krk, on the island of Krk. According to the 2011 census, there were 1,206 inhabitants in 10 settlements: Valbiska port

Other settlements and sites include Brozici, Kapovci and Glavotok, and the ferry port of Valbiska. Glavotok, the island's westernmost point, belonged to the

Frankopan family The House of Frankopan (, , , ) was a Croatian noble family, whose members were among the great landowner magnates and high officers of the Kingdom of Croatia in union with Hungary. The Frankopans, along with the Zrinskis, are among the most ...

during the 14th century. At the beginning of the 16th century, the Franciscan

Third Order Regular of Saint Francis of Penance The Third Order Regular of St. Francis of Penance, also known as Third Order Regular of St. Francis () or TOR Franciscans, is a mendicant order of the Catholic Church, rooted in the Third Order of St. Francis, which was founded in 1221. The TOR c ...

built a monastery and several houses. Near Glavotok is an oak forest. Valbiska has been a dock for ferries on the Valbiska-Merag line, from

to the island of

Cres Cres is an Adriatic island in Croatia. It is one of the northern islands in the Kvarner Gulf and can be reached via ferry from Rijeka, Krk island or from the Istrian peninsula (line Brestova-Porozina). With an area of , Cres has the same si ...

, since 2009; this followed ferry lines from Baška to Lopar and Valbiska to Lopar, on the

island of Rab Rab �âːbis an island in the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County in Croatia, located just off the northern Croatian coast in the Adriatic Sea. The island is long, has an area of and 7,161 inhabitants (2021). The main settlement on the island is the ...

. It has a catering facility and a gas station. The boundary between Šotovento and the rest of Krk begins at the bay of Cavlenet in the northwest and passes the Klobučac and Vrhura mountains, the border with Dubašnica in the north. From Vrh Vrh the boundary runs south to Valbiska, separating Sotovento (in the east) from Vrh and the Picik region. In the west and south are the Middle Gate, the sea channel between Krk and Cres.

Name

Šotovento derives from the Italian ''sotto'' (below) and ''vento'' (the wind). Located below several small mountains – Vrhzur, ; Kukurik, and Skrlat, – it is protected from the bora. This protection, and its southwest orientation, favored vegetation.

History

Šotovento has always been part of the town of Krk. When the

Croats The Croats (; , ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and other neighboring countries in Central Europe, Central and Southeastern Europe who share a common Croatian Cultural heritage, ancest ...

arrived on the island of Krk during the 7th century, they settled on its eastern part. Many place names in the west, therefore, remain

Romance Romance may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings ** Romantic orientation, the classification of the sex or gender with which a pers ...

rather than Slavic in origin. When Ivan VII Frankapan (who owned the island of Krk) decided to expand his holdings during the 15th century to increase tax revenue,

Vlachs Vlach ( ), also Wallachian and many other variants, is a term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate speakers of Eastern Romance languages living in Southeast Europe—south of the Danube (the Balkan peninsula ...

had settled in Dubasnica, Šotovento and northern Dobrinj. They spoke the Krčurumunj language, whose last speaker (Mate Bajcic) died in 1875. The island was divided into seven municipalities in 1992, and Šotovento remained within the town of Krk.

Attractions

Šotovento has a number of churches and other religious buildings: * Franciscan monastery in Glavotok * Svete Kuzman church in Poljice * Church of St. Francis in Skrbčić - Built during the late 16th or early 17th century, it has been renovated and expanded twice. * Chapel of St. Peter in Brzac – Built in 1693 by Juraj Nenadić Matov and his wife, Kate Zako. * Chapel of St. Leonarda in Bajčići - Built in 1769 * Chapel of St. Cecilia in Brusići - 1565 Ruins remain of a number of other chapels. Near the monastery at Glavotok is a protected one-hectare oak forest. Several large oaks grow near Cavlent Bay; the largest is over 400 years old and in diameter.

References

Sources

* Bolonić, Mihovil and Žic-Rokov, Ivan. "The Island of Krk through the Centuries". ''The Christian Present'', Zagreb (2002) * ''The Island of Krk is a Western Part''. Historical Society of the Island of Krk (1986) * Lešić, Denis: ''The Island of Krk: A Guide in Words and Pictures'' (2003) {{DEFAULTSORT:Sotovento Krk Populated places in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County