Welcome to Gornje Selo!

Below the highest point of the island, Vela Straza, nestles the ancient settlement of Gornje Selo, dominant with its location and appearance. Once populated with limestone workers, it is now inhabited by seamen and fishermen.

In addition to other,mostly touristic places,Gornje Selo is beautiful and peaceful place ready to give you a pleasant time of relaxation, and to let you enjoy in untouched nature beauties.

According to the oldest known written documents,Gornje Selo was founded at the beginning of the 15.th century at location about 2 km North from its present location.At that place,today we can find the remainings of the small castle with two rounded towers.The castle was probably built there to protect village and its habitants from ruffian attacks in the late middle age. This attacks probably caused moving of the village to its present location.

A cultural center of the village is the church of St.John the Baptist. The history of that church is rather interesting.In the 19.th century,one man from Gornje Selo,a noble Knight Bavcevic,being close to the Napoleon, used the fall of his empire and collected a great amount of gold and treasure after retreat of Napoleon's general Marmont from Dalmatian islands.He wanted to leave something to his village and his people,so with this money he decided to build a monumental church equal to greatest churches in Europe. He had enough gold to do this.He gave a plans of the building and gold, enough to build a church he wanted,and left the island.When it was time for church to be finished,he come back to Solta.And it was a big disappoint for him to see.Instead of a great monumental building he ordered to be made, he found a simple church,almost equal to the other churches in the region. Sad and disappointed,he left the village,and had never came back. But,his dreams about the monumental church come truth. With the rest of his gold he built a great church of St.Maria,but not in his hometown. It was built in Carigrad.

The bays on the southern side of the island, which gravitate towards Gornje Selo (Livka, Travna,Stracinska, Grabova and Senjska) are priceless natural resources suited to specific touristic activities as well as maritime culture. The habitants of Gornje Selo have been using these bays as their's fishing harbours,and there you can still find a few small houses used by a local fishermen. They still use this small one-room houses to keep their's fishing tools such as nets,hooks,spare parts for boats and boat engines etc. At the present time this beautyful bays are also used by a local population as a natural place to run away from everyday rush and work and to enjoy in heavenly environment...