Komiža is located in a deep bay on the western side of the island Vis below the 600 meter high mountain Hum. (1677 inhabitants according to the census from 2001). It is a typical Mediterranean village, which attracts the tourists with beautiful beaches and with narrow roads and houses squeezed together around the harbor. Thanks to the mild Mediterranean climate, the stay in Komiža is pleasant also in the winter months. There are gravel beaches along the whole east coast of the Bay of Komiža with sources of drinking water: Gusarica, Nova posta, Velo zalo.
The name Komiža was mentioned for the first time in the second part of the 12th century. Komiža is a village where the fishing on the eastern side of the Adriatic Sea was born. Its fishers not only ruled with their boats over the Adriatic Sea but they also traded with the neighboring coast creating fishermen’s centres on the Pacific coasts of both Americas. Komiža has always been proud of the fisherman’s history, whose remains can be found in the Fisherman’s museum located in the old Venetian tower on the promenade (riva), the only one in Croatia. The traditional fishing tools are displayed in it.
A copy of the Komiža fishing boat gajeta falkusa represented the Croatian maritime heritage at the world fair EXPO 1998 in Lisbon. A sacrifice boat is burned every year in front of the parish church of St. Nikola on December 6lh during the celebration of St. Nikola, the patron of travellers, seamen and fisherman (which is also the day of Komiža). The whole history of the island of Vis on one hand politically and economically connected to the fishing, and on the other hand with the wine-production, which today is also the basis of economy and the pledge of future.
More than two thousand years passed since the first written laudation of the wine from Vis, and there are only few people who didn’t hear about the wine vugava and plavac mali or didn’t taste it. In the last years the agro tourism has been developed in 10 rural house-holds on Vis and Biševo. The local culinary specialties (domestic bread-komiska pogača, dishes under the baking-lid, pilchards on the grill, beans and noodles on fish stew- brodetto) are offered together with domestic wine. Its not possible to imagine the traditional dishes without these fruits of the sea.