PREHISTORY

Archeological findings testify about life in the area of today's Baška Voda around 4.000 BC, and the main motif of inhabiting this area was the source of fresh water. In the Bronze age, in the times of cattle farmers moving to the Mediterranean, there comes to conflicts among different tribes around the water source and pasture-grounds, so at the elevation Gradina in the centre of today's town, for the defense of the water source, a forted settlements were formed which bulwark were made of dry-wall.

The ancient times

In the ancient times on the position of Baška Voda there was a settlement called Aronia; besides the archeological findings, scientists corroborate their claim with Tabula Peutingeriana, a map on which a homonymous settlement is marked right on the place of today's Baška Voda. In the late antiquity, from the end of the IV to the VII century there comes to the invasion of the barbaric peoples so the inhabitants rise a fort on Gradina to hide from the attacks, but also to control the entrance to the Brač canal. The residues of the walls of the settlement are visible on Gradina even today, and the numerous findings of amphoras and other ceramic material speak about the trade relations with the north Africa, the east Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Not far-away from Gradina a considerable amount of graves from the late ancient times are found, with multitude of grave supplements (lucernes, jewelery, glass dishes, little statues of Euterpa and Cupid etc). Beside the Roman, some tomb-stone writings state Illyrian names, by which it can be concluded that along with the Romans, there was a numerous autochthonous Illyrian population. Archeological findings on a wider area testify about the existence of multiple villae rusticae. In the VII century there comes to the breakthrough of the Slavs who conquer Aronia and it ceases to exist.
During the subsequent thousand years there are no traces of an urban life by the sea. Only the sheppards from Bast lead their cattle to the seaside and watered them at bascza voda, a source of fresh water and it is needed to be assumed that the first constructions were built as shelters for the sheppard.

New era

In the end of the XVII century, with the disappearance of the danger from the pirates and after the expulsion of the Turks in 1684, the population is returned to the coast and slowly builds a new settlement , which name, Baška Voda, is mentioned for the first time in 1688. The first public construction is the late-baroque St. Lawrence's church, built in 1750, on the foundations of an ancient construction. Along with land farming, the population also turns to the sea, to fishing and navigation. The first school is opened in 1845, the St Nicolas' church in neoromanesque style is built in 1889 and the first post-office in 1900.
With the construction of the pier in 1912, Baška Voda becomes an important harbor of the area and the intensive trade between the islands and the hinterland was led through it.

Baška Voda today

In the 1930s the Sikavica brothers build the first hotel in Baška Voda called Slavija which in 1936 on The World exhibition in London receives the recognition and gold medals for comfortness, cuisine and fine wine. The society for beautifying the town is founded in 1933, and the considerable development of tourism starts after the Adriatic road was built. Over the last twenty years Baška Voda has been the most popular tourist destination in the Middle Dalmatia, and with the new millennium also one of the best decorated tourist places on the croatian Adriatic and several years in a row Baška Voda is receiving the «Blue flower» with the golden mark, the most prestigious prize for tourism in Croatia.

GASTRONOMY

THE FRITULAS
Make a compound of flour, sugar, oil, potato, apples, baking powder, sugar vanilla, warm water, rum, grated lemon and orange peel, rasins. Balls of the blend fry in plenty of oil, take out and spring with sugar powder.
Ingredients: 0,5 kg of flour, 3 apples ran through a strainer, 2 boiled potatoes, 3 tea spoons of sugar, 1 baking powder, some warm water, 3 spoons of oil, 0,003 l of rum, 1 bag of sugar vanilla, some lemon and orange peel, some rasins.

BAŠKA VODA RAFIOLI
cakes made of nuts, almonds and dough.For 300 pieces use: 3 kg of flour, 2 kg of sugar, 36 eggs, 0, 3 kg of almonds, 0, 36 kg of butter, 1, 5 kg of nuts, 0, 3 l of rum, 0, 2 l of maraschino, 0, 2 kg of powder chocolate, 2 lemons, 2 oranges, 6 packs of vanilla sugar.
Make a dough of flour, eggs, sugar, a few drops of lemon and orange juice, butter and vanilla sugar.
Fill the dough with filling made of nuts, almonds, chocolate, vanilla sugar, rum and maraschino.
Moon-shaped cakes smear with mixture of sugar and water and bake till they get nice colour.

BIOKOVO PEKA
mixed meat with potatoes baked under peka (peka = a special ball-shaped iron lidover which live coal ash is placed). Put in a roast pan veal, lamb and chicken, home made sausages and peeled potatoes. Decorate with strips of prosciutto, slices of onion and bay leaf and bake under peka.For six persons use: 1/2 kg of baby lamb, 1/2 kg of home grown chicken, 1/2 kg of veal, 3 pairs of home made sausages, 1, 5 kg of peeled potatoes, onion, salt, pepper and 1 dcl of beef soup.Bake for hour and a half. Served with salad.

BOILED FROG-FISH
Onion, parsley, garlic, carrot and potato with added salt and oil boil for an hour in the water. Add fish and slice of lemon and cook for additional 15 minutes. Take the fish out and pour it with a spoon-full of soup in which it was boiled, pour over with olive oil, sprinkle with chopped parsley, garlic and pepper. Soup run through a strainer, add rice and a spoon-full of Vegeta and boil for additional 10 minutes. With fish serve boiled potato or Swiss chard.
Ingredients (for 4 persons): 1 kg of fish, 2 dcl of oil, a string of parsley, 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 carrot, 1 potato, 1 spoon-full of Vegeta, salt, pepper, a slice of lemon, rice.

FISH STEW MADE OF GROOPER
Chopped onion braise in home-made olive oil, in a wide shallow pot. Add pealed chopped tomato and braise it for 10 minutes more. Add parsley, garlic and fish in pieces; pour all with home-made white wine (to cover the fish). Boil on light fire for twenty minutes. Shake occasionally, do not stir. At the end add some pepper. Serve with hard-boiled polenta.
Ingredients (for 4 persons): 1 kg of fish, 2,5 dcl of oil, 3 onions, a string of parsley, 1 slice of garlic, 2-3 tomatoes, 2,5 dcl of white wine.