Stari Grad Plain
Ancient agricultural landscape
A Greek land division from 384 BC, still farmed today, representing the best preserved ancient cadastre in the Mediterranean.
When Greek colonists from the island of Paros founded Pharos, today's Stari Grad, in 384 BC, they divided the fertile plain east of the town into precise rectangular plots separated by dry stone walls. Twenty-four centuries later, that geometry is still visible, still walked, and still farmed.
The plain has remained in continuous agricultural use since antiquity, growing largely the same crops: grapes and olives, joined over time by lavender and figs. Its network of walls, small stone shelters (trims) and rainwater cisterns testifies to a system of land use that has survived every empire that passed through the Adriatic.
UNESCO inscribed the Stari Grad Plain on the World Heritage List in 2008 as a cultural landscape of exceptional universal value, the best preserved example of the ancient Greek chora system anywhere in the Mediterranean.
Walk or cycle the marked paths between Stari Grad and Vrboska. The flat plain is ideal for a slow morning ride among vineyards and olive groves.
See it with someone from here.
Our private experiences weave the island’s heritage into real days out, with local guides who grew up beside it.