Mljet

Mljet is an island in Southern Dalmatia, with about 1,000 inhabitants. It is an island of colorful wildlife, and is considered the greenest, most wooded of the Croatian islands. Because of its uniqueness, the western part of the island was declared a national park, while the eastern part is protected as a natural features reservation. The Mljet National Park encompasses two brackish lakes, Veliko jezero and Malo jezero (The Great Lake and the Small Lake, respectively), and a Benedictine monastery, formerly the central one in Southern Dalmatia. The island was populated by Illyrians, Greeks and Romans. It is known as a place where Odysseus and St. Paul were shipwrecked, although that is more often credited to Malta because both islands had the same name in Greek and Roman sources. The island’s ecosystem is damaged by mongooses, introduced to exterminate poisonous snakes, after which they severely endangered both wild birds and domestic fowl. The largest villages are Goveđari, Polače and Pomena.