Rab Town has very unique beauty that sets it apart from just about every place I have ever been. It is the largest town on Rab Island, it is still a very small and intimate place. Part of the Kvarner Island Group, it is the ninth largest island in the Adriatic. It has a reputation of being one of the sunniest and one of the most heavily forested islands in the Adriatic as well. The town was established during the Roman Empire, when it was made a municipality by Emperor Augustus in the 1st century b.c. The Latin axiom "Felix Arba" - the happy place - is still used today to describe this idyllic island.
The town itself is built on a peninsula that juts out from the central southwest coast of Rab Island. There are three main passageways that parallel each other as they cut across the town - Gornji Ulica (upper street), Srednja Ulica (middle) and Donja Ulica (lower). There are no cars on the peninsula save for the road that lines the harbor, so strolling the narrow cobblestones streets is a joy. Most shops and restaurants are located in the lower section of town. Once you begin to climb the steep flights of stone stairs to the upper town, you will find primarily private homes and churches. The famous 4 bell towers belonging to St. Mary's Church, St. John's, St. Justine's and St.Andreas loom over upper town. Town architecture is fairly consistent, with buildings and streets made of stone and stucco.
Outside of Rab Town, there are several very large, modern-style resort complexes that cater to European vacationers and provide various outdoor that make good use of the island's geography, such as camping, hiking, sailing and windsurfing, and biking. Suha Punta, Lopar, and Supetarska Draga are all popular sights for this type of tourism. The Kampor section of the island is the most sparsely occupied, and has an extensive network of biking and hiking trails.
In drastic contrast to the lush, wooded southwestern side of the island (where all of the above places are located), the inland side of Rab Island is composed mainly of karst rock, and looks much like the surface of the moon. Desolate and inhospitable, the karstic landscape is the first thing you see when you get off the ferry from Jablanac - not terribly inviting. It provides a dramatic contrast to the cool green forests that await you on the other side of the island.