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Mamma Mia! They found out about Vis!
Friday, 27th July 2018Oh no! After the latest Mamma Mia movie was filmed on the Croatian island of Vis, they’re expecting tourists to flock there in their thousands. Is this the end of the delightful, sleepy island we love…?
Because of its strategic position in the Med, the island has a long and bloody history, and has been owned by everyone from the Romans, the Russians, and even the British (there’s an old British fort on the island!).
Most notably, the island was a Yugoslav military base from the 1950’s to 1989, when it was out of bounds for most people – which checked its development and means that the island is still largely uninhabited (population in 2011 was just over three thousand) and, crucially, the beaches and cliffs are unspoilt. In fact, there’s still large parts of the island that you can’t even get to on foot!
And whilst they didn’t film in the blue cave, they did loads of filming (including the Greek tavern scene, where the guy falls into the sea from a restaurant) in Komiza, which is the main start-point for land-lubbing tourist boat trips to the cave, so you’ll almost certainly be queuing longer to get into the cave.
There’ll also be more ferries making the 2-hour voyage from Split town that us sailors will have to watch out for!
Properties prices are also expected to take a hike – the Greek island of Skopelos (where the first movie was filmed) has seen property prices quadruple, which has led to most of the locals being priced out of the market.
So if you haven’t been to Vis yet, you might want to get out there before it transforms from small and cute to big, ugly and corporate. Or you might even be too late…