Krk in January

The carnival begins: masks take Krk town at the end of the month and hold it until Lent.

January on Krk is the carnival's opening act. In the last days of the month the flag goes up on Vela placa, the mayor hands the keys of the town to master Kek, and the carnival tent on the waterfront opens for its first parties. The children's carnival Sundays start here and run into February, and the whole thing ends on Shrove Tuesday with the burning of the pust.

That is the one recurring event the island keeps in January, and it is a real one. Everything else is the island in its own clothes: closed beaches, open konobas, and the kind of quiet that people who live here wait all summer for.

• Krčki karneval — Krk town's carnival: masks take the town, children's parades on Sundays, and the burning of the pust to close it.