The best museums in Zadar

Zadar packs an unusual amount of history into a small peninsula — Roman, Venetian and modern — and its museums are walkable from one another in an afternoon. Here are the ones worth your time.

The Museum of Ancient Glass

A standout. The Museum of Ancient Glass, in a 19th-century palace above the harbour, holds one of the world's finest collections of Roman glass — vials, vessels and jewellery recovered from the region's tombs — with live glassblowing demonstrations. Beautifully done and surprisingly moving.

The Gold and Silver of Zadar

Inside the Benedictine convent of St Mary, the permanent exhibition known as the Gold and Silver of Zadar displays centuries of gold- and silverwork, reliquaries and religious art — including relics tied to the city's patron saints. A quiet, glittering counterpoint to the Roman stone outside.

St Donatus & the Roman forum

The round, 9th-century Church of St Donatus stands on the old Roman forum, its bare stone and remarkable acoustics making it a summer concert venue rather than a working church. The Archaeological Museum opposite fills in the rest of Zadar's ancient story.

The installations you shouldn't miss

Not museums, but unmissable: at the tip of the peninsula, Nikola Bašić's Sea Organ plays an ever-changing chord as waves push air through pipes in the marble steps, and the adjacent Greeting to the Sun glows at dusk. Hitchcock called Zadar's sunset the most beautiful in the world; time your visit for it.

Pick a base from our boutique hotels in Zadar, and see how to get in from the airport.