The Fortress of St Nicholas outside Sibenik in Croatia is probably the most decrepit WHS I have visited. Not in the sense of simply being a ruin, but in that it feels entirely abandoned, with no significant attempts at developing it for ‘safe’ tourism. This will probably change over the next few years. The general area seems to be a reasonably popular picnic destination, with a newly constructed EU-funded walking trail along the coast allowing for an easy afternoon walk from the car park, but few bother to actually go inside. This is understandable, as there are two ways to manage this, neither of which are especially practical. Firstly, from the land-side, there is a long wooden plank leading up to a hole in the fortress’ upper walls. This plank is held in place by a rock, and only manages to get halfway up to the entrance. From there, there are two half-metre pieces of timber with footholds loosely nailed to the side that you pick up from the ground and place precariously on the end of the long plank. As there is nothing to really grip onto while you’re up there, given that the wall itself slopes smoothly outwards in a bulge, this felt unsafe, so I did not manage to enter this way. Working together to support and hold each other, a group of three men achieved this goal, so it is not impossible.

Instead, however, there is a sea entrance around the east side, closest to Sibenik. With a boat, this entrance would be simple, but I am not sure where or if boat tours are actually offered. Therefore, the decision was made to swim to this entrance, much to the shock of local picnickers. In practice, however, the fortress has a stone ledge surrounding it that ensured that it was possible to walk around the edge with the water never getting more than mid-chest height. Without a good grip and balance, however, it would be easy to slip and fall into water that required genuine swimming. The molluscs that covered the ground were a little painful, but did not cause any cuts to my bare feet.

The interior of the fortress showed some signs of work being done to stabilise the structure, but still felt abandoned. The views from the roof were impressive, and the metal remains of cannon positions were surprisingly intact. The interior is mostly a series of empty rooms requiring a torch to properly explore, with little indication of what they once contained. In the largest room, metal grates have rusted away, granting access to the exterior of the fortress walls on the ocean-side.

A taxi from downtown Sibenik cost us about 90 kuna one-way. We planned to walk back, but this turned out to be a lot more strenuous than we had expected, so is not recommended. Bicycling each way is a plausible option, but rental was too expensive for our budget, and we didn’t want the pressure of taking longer costing more. In terms of impressive physical remains, St Nicholas Fortress is maybe not the best example within this serial WHS, but the sheer adventure of exploration and its unusual location make it highly memorable.