October the 30th, 2023 – One Croatian street has been listed as being among the narrowest in the entire world at a mere 43 centimetres wide.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, although it this Croatian street isn’t officially the narrowest one in the whole world, it’s particularly special because it actually is functional. Despite being just 43 centimetres wide at its narrowest part, people do live along it and it isn’t just a passage.
The Tourist Board of the Municipality of Vrbnik claims that the Croatian street to make the world’s narrowest – Klančić – is only 43 centimetres wide at its narrowest part. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the narrowest street in the world, Spreuerhofstraße, is located in Reutlingen in the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg. It isn’t much more narrow than the Croatian street, at just 31 centimetres wide in its narrowest part, while its average width is 40 centimetres. Although the aforementioned German street is officially the narrowest in the world, this street is actually, unlike Klančić, merely a passage between two buildings.
The Vrbik Tourist Board revealed for Večernji list that a very large number of tourists visit Klančić on a daily basis. At one time, according to a statistic made before COVID-19 struck, Vrbnik was the second city in Croatia in terms of the number of tourist buses, right after Dubrovnik.
“In current times, this little phenomenon is often not only an attraction for visitors, but for the residents of the old city’s core, it represents a challenge because it creates a lot of noise and crowds. Everyone naturally wants to take a picture and see this tiny little Croatian street for themselves. For this reason, we like to say that Klančić is one of the old town’s attractions, and we try to refer guests to other locations as well, in order to somewhat maintain the focus on the values of the destination as a whole,” Marijana Jadro, director of the Vrbnik Municipality Tourist Board, explained.
As for other peculiarities in the vicinity, Vrbnik isn’t lacking at all. The origins of the Frankopan family is connected to the town, and the Municipality is also the cradle of Glagolitic heritage. On top of all of the above, the Croatian National Tourist Board (HTZ/CNTB) also shared an interesting legend related to Vrbnik.
“According to local legends, numerous mysterious beings lived in Vrbnik and its surroundings. Among them were strange little men who knew how to do all kinds of unseemly things. One of the most famous of them all is the story from the house in Roč Street, where a little boy demanded macaroons for lunch every single day from the tenants, food that is usually only eaten only during the festival period,” they claimed from the CNTB.
