Podaca - Makarská Riviera

Podaca is a tourist locality situated in the south park of the Makarska riviera at the foot of Mt Biokovo, about 35 km distant from Makarska. The locality is divided in three hamlets: Kapeća, Viskovića vala and Ravanje. Podaca has developed upon the rocky slopes of Biokovo, in a position suitable for defence, and its histoey reaches far into the Stone Age which is documented by archeological fnds, such as a stone grain mortar preserved in the Franciscan monastery at Zaostrog.

There are many burial mounds at the foot of Biokovo as a testimony of times when this area was inhabited by the Iliyrians ( 2000 BC- 1 st-century). At the times of the Roman Empire this area was governed by Narona, which is documented by many archeological fnds, such as a broken urn with a silver coin of the Roman emperor Severio ( 193- 211 AD) found in this region. A testimony of those times is also a wall fragment next to which was also found a medieval stone capital very similar to the capitals of our early Croatian churches.

When the Croats during the great movement of the peoples setted in the Makarska littoral ( the 6th- 8th-centuries) they had inhabited also this region, but high above in the slopes of the mountain for easier detence and also in order to make good use of the Biokovo pastures. In this region the Croats had constantly fought battles against the Venetians and the Croatian maritime power reached its peak during the era of the kačić clan from Omiš, and their fall ( in 1280) was also the end of the Croatian maritime power. At Gornja Podaca, dating from the 11 th and 12th- centuries, there is the early Croatian church of St. John with the tombs of the Kačić family, which was a votive foundation of the Kačić family.