Sturič occupies the next bay east of Lopar's headline beaches, accessible by a coastal path that winds through scrub and wild rosemary. The sand here runs just as fine, the same blonde grain that made Lopar famous, but the absence of rental chairs and beach bars changes the atmosphere entirely. You spread your towel under tamarisks, their thin shade moving across the sand as the sun tracks overhead.
“It delivers Lopar's famous sand and shallow water without the commercial beach infrastructure that defines Paradise and Sahara beaches.”
Credit: UnsplashPerson walking on a sand spit
The water maintains Lopar's characteristic shallow entry—wading depth extends twenty meters offshore before the sandy bottom finally slopes away. Small fish gather around your ankles, nibbling at dead skin. Across the channel, the island of Goli Otok rises bare and brown, its abandoned prison buildings visible as white rectangles against stone. The view carries history's weight, but the beach itself exists purely in present tense: warm sand, cool water, cicada song from the inland brush.
By afternoon, a handful of locals claim the western rocks for fishing. A kayaker might paddle past, following the coastline toward secluded coves further south. The beach empties by six, when the light goes golden and the water turns mirror-flat. You'll walk back toward Lopar village as shadows lengthen, passing the crowded beaches now littered with forgotten toys and footprints, grateful you walked the extra fifteen minutes.
