The official site of the Tourist Board Split-Dalmatia County

Dalmatia’s Most Unusual Festival? Puhijada, the Edible Dormouse

Travel is about new experiences, particularly food, and some of the most interesting tourist destinations have their own indigenous cuisine, which perhaps you might not indulge in back home, but when on holiday…

High on the list of unusual delicacies in Central Dalmatia is the edible dormouse, or ‘puh’ in Croatian. It is hunted and eaten in only three locations in Croatia, two of them in Central Dalmatia – in Dol on Hvar and Dol on Brac. The practice is to grill the dormouse whole, then pick the meat off the bones.

Several years ago, some enterprising locals from Dol on Hvar decided to celebrate this rather unique culinary tradition, and they founded a festival called Puhijada, which celebrated this and several other traditions of this fascinating inland village. It all starts on August 7 – see the full programme below and a video report of a previous Puhijada. For more information about Hvar, click here.

Puhijada – A Festival of Gastronomy, Culture, Sports and Entertainment
Dol, 7th – 12th August, 2017
PROGRAMME
7th to the 12th August The Dol Open
Balote (Croatian Bowls) tournament on the Balote court in Dol, every afternoon
MONDAY 7th August at 21:00, in the St Anne’s Parish Church
– Exhibition of paintings entitled , “Ča znodu dica“ (“What Children Know”) with musical accompaniment by the D-ante group.
TUESDAY 8th August at 21:00, in the Dom kulture – House of Culture “Vir”
A lecture by dr. sc. Mladen Domazet – “Trebalo je samo izdržati- don Ivan Kuničić 1917. -1918.”
(It just needed to be endured – don Ivan Kuničić from 1917 to 1918)
WEDNESDAY 9th August at 21:00, in the Dom kulture – House of Culture “Vir”
– Presentation of the book “ Dobri naši zahodi“ (“Our Lovely Toilets”) by Damir Carić
THURSDAY 10th August at 21:00, at the Church of Our Lady of the Village
– The premiere of the play “Kako se živilo pri” (“How we lived in the past”), from the book of the same name by Zorislav Posinković. Presented by the Petar Hektorović amateur theatre (junior group).
FRIDAY 11th August at 20:00, at the sports ground next to St Anne’s Church
– The final tournaments of the “Dol Open” Balota (Croatian Bowls) competition. Afterwards a party organised by the football club N.K “Sloga” of Dol.
SATURDAY 12th August,
– in the late afternoon – Puh – Doormouse free climbing, the clowns Bumba and Šarenka
– 20:30 – a performance by the children’s kindergarten group “Sardelice”
– 21:00 – the presentation of the 13th edition of “Tartajun”(the village magazine)
– 21:30 – a performance by the Klapa group Priženca
– 22:30 – a performance by the Bravo band from Split
– Midnight – the band “Mjesni odbor” from Šolta entertains…
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