Brela Stone - the symbol of Brela

A trademark of Brela shown in the municipal crest is Kamen, the smallest Adriatic island – a lump of breccia, unique in its vegetation in the whole Croatian coast.

Breccia is as rock composed of broken fragments of minerals or stone stuck together. The name, of Italian origin, means “free gravel” or “rock of cemented gravel”.

On Brela stone today grow seven Aleppo pines, older and younger, and alongside them 11 different species of plant characteristic of forests, but with no traces of plants of the littoral. The oldest and biggest pine on Kamen is in the final years of its life; the circumference of the trunk at a height of 60 cm is 122 cm. Pioneers in the flora of the Mediterranean, pines colonise many habitats in which other vegetation cannot thrive. Cracks in the rocks with just a minimum of soil offer a place in which these long-lived plants can survive. And Brela’s Kamen provides just the most picturesque example.