The church of St. Agnes (Stari Rakalj)

Legend has it that one dark, stormy night the Venetians brought their ships into the harbour “pod Starin Rakljon” (below Stari Rakalj). The Venetians were subjects of the Venetian province of Istria, from the days when the peninsula was politically divided between Austria and Venice. They slipped into the town, took the bells down from the church, carried them down the cove and loaded them onto the ships. But Saint “Agnija” would not let them take the bells away – the ships went down with the bells and every last sailor at the deepest point in the sea, right below the church itself.
And when the Jugo wind whips up and beats dully against the rocks, the sound of bells can still be heard from the sea. Old women say that on stormy nights the ringing from the deep can be heard to this day.

Stories of bells ringing from the deep are not rare. We have one in the legend of the sunken town beside Vrulja near Brela. Such tales must have been giving people the shivers and firing their imagination since time immemorial. There was once no electricity and no modern entertainment. In the evenings all manner of stories were told around the fire, and on stormy winter nights they gave the walk home an extra dose of adrenaline. Those were times when werewolves, fairies and witches walked abroad at night. Every branch, every bush seemed suspicious, and many a person probably imagined they heard bells ringing from the bottom of the sea.

The church / chapel of St. Agnes dates from 1495 and stands on a hill above Cape Sv. Mikula, beside Raša Bay. Right next to it are the ruins of the old castle of Stari Rakalj. The castle probably dates from the 11th century, and after it fell into ruin its inhabitants moved to the “new” Rakalj, which is still inhabited today.