Duare Fortress, Guardian of the Ancient Road

If you are exploring the lower course of the river Cetina, Zadvarje is an unavoidable stop along the way. We have already written about the viewpoint that offers spectacular views of the Cetina canyon and the Gubavica waterfall. If you are already there, it would be a shame not to also visit the fortress that gave Zadvarje its name. This is the Duare Fortress.

Duare, in Old Croatian, means a gate, a passage, a doorway. Since time immemorial the road from the Dalmatian hinterland towards the coast has passed through these “gates”. The road leads to the Dubci pass, the most convenient point of access to the sea, because here the Omiška Dinara peters out while the mighty Biokovo is only just awakening. To secure and control this passage, a fortress was built on the ridge. Its name is first mentioned in 1408. It was the scene of many battles fought by the local population and the Venetians on one side and the Ottomans on the other. It was destroyed and rebuilt several times.

Particularly noteworthy is the multi-day Ottoman siege of 1685. The battle was so important that the then archbishop of Split, Stjepan Cosmi, sailed by ship to Vruja to await its outcome. The commander who especially distinguished himself was Augustin Tartaglia, a man of Split, who carried out a bold breakout from the fortress and drove the Turks into a panicked flight.

In the first half of the 18th century the fortress lost its importance, but a garrison remained until the early 19th century. The fortress has been undergoing restoration since 2007.

Just before the fortress there is the main waterworks. On the rise to the right of it there is a small turning area, but after a steeper climb there is a sharp break in the slope, so we would not recommend it for longer or lower cars.

A little lower down, by the transformer station, there is a small widening that can serve as parking, but it may be best to leave the car on the other side of the main road, where there is a proper car park for the Križ viewpoint. If it is full at the peak of the season, the car park in Zadvarje, from which you set off for the previously mentioned viewpoint, is not that far either. Only about 700 m.

Križ Viewpoint

Since we have already mentioned the Križ viewpoint, or whatever it is actually called, we do not know what to say about it without coming across as too harsh. The viewpoint is certainly impressive because of the view it offers of the bend in the Cetina canyon. The hydroelectric power plant located below is not exactly something that delights with its aesthetics (the reservoir somewhat), but power plants have to be somewhere. The cross, the chapel and the building beside it, as a whole, are of very questionable aesthetics that flirt with kitsch, while the aforementioned “building”, further adorned with ugly white doors, does not merely flirt with it but reflects a lack of any basic sense of beauty. The architect surely did not envisage it that way, but why would anyone spend money on doors that at least looked as though they were made of wrought iron, if these ones were so much cheaper?