Zagvozd

Zagvozd lies in the hinterland north of Biokovo, between the mountain’s inland slopes and the Imotski region, yet the Sveti Ilija Tunnel gives it a direct road link to Bast and the coast near Baška Voda. The 4,249-metre tunnel passes beneath the Sveti Ilija massif as part of the D76, while the Zagvozd interchange also connects with the A1 motorway. Stone hamlets, surviving stećak tombstones and the parish Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, built in 1963, preserve the settlement’s inland Dalmatian character. Zagvozd gained national cultural recognition through the Actors in Zagvozd festival, launched in 1998 through the initiative of actor Vedran Mlikota and the local community. Plays, concerts and exhibitions take over Actors’ Square in summer; the 2026 programme again runs across July and August. Zagvozd itself has no seashore or beach, despite sometimes being grouped with coastal destinations. Swimmers travel through the tunnel to Baška Voda’s pebble beaches, returning beneath Biokovo to a starkly different karst landscape. This rapid transition between a theatre village, a major mountain and the Makarska Riviera makes Zagvozd an unusual base for central Dalmatia.

Zagvozd is an inland settlement below Biokovo’s northern slopes, dispersed among hamlets between Orljača, Sridnja gora and the karst edge of the Imotski region. Its position beside the D62, D76 and A1 interchange has transformed an old mountain passage into an access point between inland Dalmatia and the Makarska Riviera. The Sveti Ilija Tunnel cuts through Biokovo between Rastovac in Zagvozd Municipality and Bast in Baška Voda Municipality. Each summer the village changes character when Actors’ Square becomes the stage for Actors in Zagvozd, bringing Croatian theatre companies, musicians and visual artists into this small karst community.