Yugoslav Military Tunnels

The military legacy of Vis is everywhere if you know where to look — and increasingly accessible thanks to a small group of local operators running off-road tours. The most impressive sites are the submarine pens at Rogačič (just south of Vis town), carved into a cliff with steel doors and a freshwater channel; the rocket-launcher tunnels above Stončica; and the round artillery emplacement on the ridge above Komiža, with its 360-degree view of the open Adriatic.

Military Tours Vis and Alternatura both run guided 4x4 tours covering the main installations; they take three to four hours and cost around €50. Going on your own is possible but you'll miss most of the smaller installations, and some require keys or climbing equipment. The submarine pens are the easiest to find unguided — there's a footpath from the road around the bay.

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Vis was closed to all foreign visitors from 1944 to 1989 because the Yugoslav People's Army used it as one of its most important Adriatic bases. The cliffs around the island are honeycombed with submarine pens, missile silos, and rocket-launcher tunnels carved into the rock, all built between the 1950s and 1980s and abandoned almost overnight when the bases closed.