Things to Do in Vrbnik

Krk's wine village, on a cliff above the sea — Žlahtina cellars, a famously narrow lane and a view straight down.

Vrbnik is the wine village, and it is built on the edge of a cliff. Those two facts explain almost everything on this list.

Žlahtina is the white grape that grows on the plain behind the town and effectively nowhere else, and two of the four things here are about drinking it: a tasting in the old town, and a tour of the cellars cut into the cliff itself. If you have driven across the island for one thing, that is usually the thing.

The old town gives you the other two. Klančić is the lane everyone photographs, narrow enough that most adults touch both walls at once. And the cliff edge behind the church looks straight down to the sea, which is a different view from anywhere else on Krk — the island's other viewpoints look across, this one looks down.

Two things worth knowing. All four need a car: Vrbnik sits off on the east coast and is not somewhere you pass through. And all four are open year-round, which makes it one of the better places to spend an afternoon outside the season, when half the island has closed.

This is a short list on purpose. Vrbnik is a place you visit for an afternoon, not a base you stay in.