Vis town wraps around a deep, sheltered bay on the eastern side of the island and is the ferry port. The waterfront promenade runs almost two kilometres from the old Austrian customs house through the medieval centre of Kut to the shipyard at the south end of the bay. Most of the old town is sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Venetian stone, much of it austere and weathered, with the occasional church tower rising above red tile.
Kut, at the southern end, holds the best of the surviving Venetian palaces and most of the restaurants worth tracking down. Vis was the Greek colony of Issa from the fourth century BC; the Issa archaeological site, a short distance inland from the seafront, preserves Roman thermal baths and stretches of the original Greek city wall.