The island's quiet blue

Velo Žalo●

Zavala, south coast

pebbles · south coast · tunnel

Velo Žalo at Zavala — white pebbles, pine shade and a quiet south-coast bay — Photo · Topalaska / Wikimedia Commons

Velo Žalo is the south coast after the tunnel: Pitve to Zavala, fourteen hundred metres of unlit rock, then the light changes and the water is a different blue. A handful of stone houses sit on the slope. The beach is pebbles, the entry is clean, and the afternoon belongs to whoever came through. The tunnel is one-way, with the island's only traffic light; that is not a joke.