Islands In Europe

A unique opportunity to acquire your own island with freehold land! On the island, there is a holiday home of about 58 square meters, a charming guest cottage, a stylish gazebo, docking platforms, and even a small neighboring island included in the purchase! Make your dream a reality, enjoy magical views in every direction, and listen to the gentle lapping of the water all night long! This offers visitors the perfect archipelago feeling, yet close to both the mainland and the city center. The most exciting way to travel from the city center to Drottningholm is, of course, by sea through the beautiful Lake Mälaren. Boat trips to Drottningholm are available on the historic vessels S/S Drottningholm or M/S Prins Carl Philip. Back on the mainland, there are parking and boat mooring opportunities (a queue system applies), and these spots are part of a community facility shared by the property. From the island, one can glimpse the Drottningholm Palace area. Drottningholm and its gardens, modeled after French examples, were created during the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1991, Drottningholm was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

Isola delle Femmine (Island of the Women), also known as Isolotto, is another Italian island steeped in history – from the provenance of its name to the relics it features. One legend tells that Turkish maidens were sent from their homeland on ships and left adrift in the middle of the sea. In time, the ships came to wreck on a small island, and it was there that they lived for seven years. The island in question became known as Isola delle Femmine. A derelict watchtower is the island’s centrepiece – a remnant of the 16th-century defence system that protected Sicily from the attacks of Corsair ships. Whilst currently in ruin, there is potential for conservative restoration – a process that could pave way for a private residence or archaeological museum. Genuine intent to rebuild the structure would require cooperation with local and national bodies. There is also a possibility to obtain funding from the European Union or the Ministries of Cultural Heritage, Activities, and Tourism for a cultural development program on the isle. Though further details on such a proposition would have to be gleaned. As is, the island could also serve as a valuable preservation piece. Isola delle Femmine also benefits from its premium location on the Sicilian coast – the city of Palermo, and its airports, are less than 20 kilometres away.

Isola Lunga, also known as Isola Grande, is the largest of the four islands of the **Stagnone Lagoon Nature Reserve** on Sicily's western coast, opposite the city of Marsala. It is a long, low landmass running roughly ten kilometres north to south, forming the natural barrier that creates the shallow protected waters of the Stagnone. Without Isola Lunga, the lagoon and the salt pans that depend on it would not exist. This listing covers approximately **88 of the island's 120 hectares**. --- ## What Is For Sale The 88 hectares offered comprise the substantial majority of the island's land area, although not its entirety. Other portions of Isola Lunga are held under separate ownership or commercial concession, including the working salt pans on the western shore and the strict-protection sections of the nature reserve. The land for sale includes: - **Twenty bedrooms and twenty bathrooms** across the existing ruined structures, requiring full restoration - **A dirt road** running through the maritime pine forest that covers much of the island's interior - **A private dock** with direct sea access on the lagoon side - **The "Tahiti" beach**, a fine white sand beach on the island's east side, one of the most distinctive coastal features of the property - Several smaller secondary buildings in varying states of preservation, distributed across the southern reaches of the island The Italian planning framework for this kind of property is the *recupero* (recovery) approach, which permits the restoration of existing structures to residential or hospitality use within protected nature reserve contexts where new construction would otherwise be prohibited. With twenty existing rooms across the ruined buildings, the restoration potential is substantial. --- ## The Setting The Stagnone Lagoon is one of the most distinctive coastal landscapes in Italy. Sicily's largest lagoon, designated as a nature reserve in 1984, with four islands within it of which Isola Lunga is the largest. The shallow protected waters between Isola Lunga and the Sicilian mainland have supported salt production for centuries, and the lagoon today is recognised both as an ecologically significant Mediterranean wetland and as a culturally significant historic agricultural landscape. The island itself carries the characteristic landscape of a long Mediterranean barrier island: maritime pine forest covering much of the interior, halophytic vegetation along the lagoon margins, low scrub on the higher ground, and Mediterranean herbs filling the air with the particular dry-summer perfume of western Sicily. The wildlife is the bird life of the lagoon, including the **pink flamingos** for which the Stagnone is well known, alongside herons, egrets, and the migratory species that use the lagoon as a Mediterranean rest stop. The southern portion of the island operates as a strict nature reserve. The remaining acreage is the cultivable land where the existing buildings sit and where any restoration project would centre. --- ## The Salt Operation, As a Neighbour The active salt operation on the western coast of Isola Lunga is the defining current activity on the island, and it is important for a prospective buyer to understand exactly what it is. The salt pans are owned and operated by **Sei Saline**, a Sicilian company that has run the Ettore and Infersa salt works on the island and the adjacent mainland for decades. Since 2005, the company has also operated a **Salt Resort on Isola Lunga itself**: a small hospitality operation with rooms, a restaurant, and the historic restored windmills, marketed as part of their Sicilian salt-tourism experience. The Salt Resort takes bookings, hosts guests, and forms part of the existing island economy. This is not a sleepy commercial concession in the background. It is a working hospitality and agricultural business already operating on Isola Lunga, with its own dedicated team, branding, and guest flow. The salt pans, the windmills, and the Salt Resort footprint are not part of this 88-hectare offering. For a buyer evaluating Isola Lunga, this fact pattern matters in two ways: **As an asset.** The presence of a refined, established salt-tourism operation already on the island provides a working model for what high-end experiential hospitality looks like in this setting, validates the buyer demand for it, and offers a potential strategic partnership for the right kind of new ownership. **As a competitive consideration.** A new development on the 88 hectares that positioned itself as a salt-and-wellness destination would directly overlap with Sei Saline's existing operation. A new development positioned around different ground (a private estate, a wine-and-agricultural project, a marine-and-cultural retreat, a kitesurfing-oriented offering) would complement rather than compete. A buyer should understand the existing operation in detail before deciding on a development direction. --- ## What Could Be Built Here Three positions are credible for a thoughtful next owner of these 88 hectares. **A private estate.** Restoration of the existing structures into a primary residence with guest accommodation, retaining the remaining acreage as private nature reserve. The dirt road, the private dock, and the Tahiti beach all support a serious estate-scale residence with the architectural and emotional advantages of a near-uninhabited 10-kilometre Sicilian barrier island as the setting. **A boutique hospitality concept differentiated from Sei Saline.** The 20-bedroom existing footprint, restored, could carry a refined boutique operation positioned around themes the existing Salt Resort does not occupy. The east-side Tahiti beach lends itself to a beach-and-pine-forest positioning. The lagoon's reputation as a major European kitesurfing destination supports a watersports-oriented positioning. The proximity to Marsala wine country, to the Phoenician archaeology at Mothia, and to the Greek temples of Selinunte supports a cultural-tourism positioning. **A marine-and-agricultural estate.** The Marsala wine region surrounds this property. A vineyard establishment on the appropriate parts of the island, paired with a restored estate residence, would create a Sicilian agricultural property of unusual character: vineyard, sea access, and the cultural and natural reserve context of the Stagnone. Any combination of these is supportable across the 88 hectares. --- ## The Wider Region Isola Lunga sits in one of the most layered cultural and natural landscapes in Italy. **Marsala**, four kilometres east on the Sicilian mainland, is the cultural and commercial anchor of the region. The city is internationally known for **Marsala wine**, one of Italy's most famous fortified wines, with DOC protection and a long export tradition. **Mothia (Motya)**, a small neighbouring island to the east, is one of the most important Phoenician archaeological sites in Italy, with a substantial museum and significant surviving ruins. **The Stagnone lagoon itself** is one of the world's premier **kitesurfing destinations**, with shallow flat water, constant winds, and international competitions held in the surrounding waters annually. **Selinunte**, an hour south, holds one of the finest preserved Greek archaeological sites in the Mediterranean. **Erice**, a medieval Norman hilltop town above Trapani, is within day-trip range to the north. **Palermo**, the Sicilian capital, is 90 minutes east by car, with its UNESCO-recognised Arab-Norman architecture, the markets, the restaurants, and the international airport. --- ## A Note on Italian Ownership Italy is a member of the European Union, and **EU citizens** purchase Italian property on the same terms as Italian nationals. **Non-EU buyers** are welcome to acquire Italian property subject to bilateral reciprocity rules with the buyer's home country, which apply to nearly all major economies. For properties within a designated nature reserve such as the Riserva Naturale Orientata Isole dello Stagnone di Marsala, the standard Italian planning controls apply alongside additional environmental restrictions. New construction is generally prohibited. The path to development is through the **recupero** (recovery) framework, which permits restoration of existing structures to residential and hospitality use. The 20-bedroom existing footprint of this property is what makes the restoration path viable. The **Italian Golden Visa** programme is available to qualifying non-EU investors and provides a residency pathway that pairs naturally with significant Italian property acquisition. A licensed Italian property lawyer with specific experience in Sicilian rural and protected-area transactions should structure any acquisition. --- ## Access - **From Palermo Falcone Borsellino Airport (PMO):** approximately 90 minutes by car, with direct international flights from London, Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid, Munich, Vienna, and most major European hubs - **From Trapani-Birgi Airport (TPS):** approximately 15 minutes by car, with seasonal direct flights from London, Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt, Eindhoven, and other northern European cities - **From Marsala to the boat dock at San Teodoro:** approximately 10 minutes by car - **From San Teodoro to Isola Lunga:** approximately 15 minutes by boat across the shallow Stagnone lagoon, with direct landing at the island's private dock - **By private yacht:** the lagoon's shallow depth limits direct yacht access; the deep-water port of Marsala accommodates yachts of significant size, with onward tender transfer --- ## The Position Isola Lunga is the kind of property that essentially does not come to the open market: a substantial Sicilian island, in one of Italy's most protected coastal nature reserves, with twenty rooms of existing ruined structures available for restoration under the recupero framework, a fine white sand beach on the east coast, a private dock with direct sea access, and a maritime pine forest interior. It comes with the working salt operation of Sei Saline as a neighbour, not as a partner or a competitor by default, but as a defining piece of the island's identity that the next owner will need to understand and work with. For a buyer with the patience for a long restoration project, the cultural literacy to appreciate what they would be stewarding, and the means to honour a Sicilian landscape that has supported human activity for centuries, Isola Lunga is a position that few properties anywhere in the Mediterranean can match.

Spanning 54 acres within the blue waters of the Aegean Sea, Stroggilo Island presents itself as an ideal sanctuary for sailors and island hoppers. Stroggilo, or Strogylo as it is locally named, hosts generous anchorage alongside three natural beaches. These features foster curiosity as to the island’s development potential. While an old house and a well with groundwater currently sit in ruin on the property, future efforts to redevelop or expand would be subject to planning permission and approval from the relevant authorities. As such, diligent inquiries into Strogglio’s affairs would be recommended. Notwithstanding questions of Strogglio’s commercial availability, the property is attractively proximate to other recreational landmarks. The serene beach destination of Marathi is a short boat journey away and offers access to a selection of tavernas.

Selma Lagerlöf called Sörmland *Sweden's pleasure garden*. From Myrholmen's docks, you understand why before your coffee cools. The island sits in Djulösjön, the lake at the heart of a province that holds 400 lakes and as many castles. Across the water, the white facade of Stora Djulö Manor has stood since the 1720s, on grounds first recorded in 1334. Lagerlöf wrote that very view into *The Wonderful Adventures of Nils* as the *Beautiful Pleasure Garden*, where Nils Holgersson rested on his journey across Sweden. From your dock, you see what he saw. ## What Myrholmen Is A small island. The name itself tells you so. *Holmen* means islet, and Myrholmen earns the word. You can walk its perimeter in minutes. But small means intimate, not constrained. There are docks in three directions: east for morning light, south for the long Swedish afternoon, west for sunsets that linger past ten in June. Wherever the day puts you, the sun is there too. ## The Buildings Four structures, each doing its job without apology. **The main house** holds the master bedroom, with space for a double and a single bed, and the kitchen. The kitchen runs on gas: a stove, a fridge, and a freezer compartment, all powered without a wire to the mainland. Off-grid by design, not by compromise. **The guest cottage** adds three more sleeping places. Six guests in total, with no one giving up a bed. **The sauna** is wood-fired. The cool Nordic summer night demands it; the lake, three steps away, finishes the job. Swedes built an entire summer culture around this single ritual, and on Myrholmen you have it to yourself. The fourth building houses a dry toilet, the unglamorous detail that makes a freshwater island work. ## The Setting You are three kilometres from the centre of Katrineholm, and a short row from Stora Djulö Manor itself, which now operates a café, restaurant, and ice cream bar with outdoor seating along the same shore you wake up to. The Djulö canoe club shares that shoreline. So does the manor's medieval stable, now a folk museum, and a hostel run inside the old red estate buildings, the oldest dating from the 1600s. Beyond Djulösjön lies all of Sörmland: roughly 400 manor houses (more than any other Swedish province), the 1,000-kilometre Sörmlandsleden hiking trail, deer and wild boar in the forests, and the white water-lily (the provincial flower) opening in the quieter bays of your own lake. The regional tourism board calls it *Stockholm Country Break*. It is the countryside that Stockholm itself escapes to. ## The Practicalities - **Stockholm Central to Katrineholm:** 52 minutes by direct train, hourly service, every day of the year. - **Skavsta Airport** is closer still, with flights to most of Europe. - **Mainland easements:** three parking spaces and a private dock, so you and your guests reach the island the same way the original owners did. - **Included in the sale:** a rowboat. - **Utilities:** gas-fired appliances throughout; the island is off-grid by design. The arithmetic is simple. You leave Stockholm after a Friday meeting, reach Katrineholm in under an hour, row across, and have your feet in the lake before the sun touches the pines. ## What You Are Buying Not a mansion. Not a compound. A small island with everything a thoughtful Swedish family would build for a hundred summers, and nothing they would not. Selma Lagerlöf was right about the pleasure garden. Myrholmen is the part she did not put in the book.

Nestled between its sibling islands – West Calf and East Calf – Middle Calf Island offers a prime location in the middle of County Cork’s Roaring Water Bay. Of similar size to its western neighbour, which is also listed on the private island market, Middle Calf has a history of human habitation and agricultural usage. Once home to numerous families and a school, the island now only supports a herd of grazing Kerry Bog ponies – though numerous ruins endure as reminders of the land’s heritage. The paperwork did exist to support the reconstruction of dwellings on the island, but those applications have since expired – new investors would be encouraged to renew any development paperwork. Of the island’s natural bounty: several small lakes proliferate the ~64-acre landscape, as well as several beaches.

St. Athanasios is the smallest island in the Greek market. But, its manageable size, flat land, and picturesque location provide ideal conditions for private residential development. The island lies just one kilometre from the shore and can be reached by boat from the nearby coastal town of Itea. Olive and pine trees inundate St. Athanasios’ interior, while a small sandy beach marks the northwestern coast. Though, perhaps the island’s greatest asset is its unrestricted freehold title. The property also boasts an indispensable ensemble of supporting documents from all relevant public authorities. Lastly, for investors with an eye towards development, St. Athanasios is free of Natura 2000 area restrictions. As such, there is scope for the construction of a private residence. St. Athanasios’ profile and potential surpasses its modest size.

In the second book of the *Iliad*, Homer lists the ships that sailed for Troy. From a place called Dulichium, in a chain of islands he calls sacred, Meges son of Phyleus brought forty. The *Odyssey* returns to Dulichium repeatedly: a kingdom rich in wheat and grass, ruled by Acastus, the homeland of Penelope's most courteous suitor Amphinomus, and the source of fifty-two of the suitors who occupied Odysseus's palace during his absence. Where was Dulichium? Scholars have argued the question for two and a half thousand years. The British topographer William Martin Leake, surveying the western coast of Greece in the 19th century, proposed an answer. He identified Dulichium with the largest of the Echinades, an island called **Petalas**, on the basis of three things: its size, its two well-sheltered natural harbours, and its position opposite the fertile alluvial plains of the Achelous river, which would account for Homer's "wheat-bearing" epithets. Strabo, and most modern authors, prefer the nearby island of Makri. The debate is genuine and ongoing. What is not in dispute is that Petalas is the largest island in the Echinades, that it is one of a small number of candidates for Homeric Dulichium, and that for two and a half thousand years it has been part of a maritime geography sung in the foundational poem of European literature. It is also the largest privately-owned island in Greece, and it is for sale. ## The Land Petalas covers approximately **5.5 square kilometres (1,335 acres)**, rising to a maximum elevation of **251 metres** above sea level. The island sits in the Ionian Sea, between the western coast of mainland Greece and the larger Ionian islands of Cephalonia and Ithaca, at the geographical centre of what Homer called the Ionian maritime network. The landscape is the classical Mediterranean idiom in its purest form. Low scrub on the rocky higher ground. White limestone cliffs and beaches along the coast. **Approximately 4,000 olive trees** distributed across the cultivable land, an agricultural inheritance built up over generations and the kind of established Mediterranean canopy that simply cannot be created from scratch within a single human lifetime. Native pine, wild thyme, oregano, and the sage-and-rock-rose perfume that has scented this coast since the Bronze Age. **Two well-sheltered natural harbours**, the same harbours Leake noted in the 19th century as the basis for his Dulichium identification. Several sandy beaches, small bays, and natural anchorages. Winding coastline that opens new vantages every few hundred metres. The seasonal settlement on the eastern shore is the only built footprint on the island. There are no roads, no electricity infrastructure, no water mains, and no permanent residents. The island has been kept this way intentionally for decades. ## The Setting The Echinades archipelago takes its name from **ἐχῖνος** (*echinos*), the Greek word for sea urchin, for the sharp, prickly outlines of the islands as seen from the sea. The chain is divided into three groups: the Drakoneres in the north, the Modia in the middle, and the Ouniades in the south. Petalas sits within the Ouniades, the southern group. **The mainland is two kilometres east**, at the small harbour of **Platygiali Port near Astakos**, in the Etoloakarnania region of Western Greece. This is one of the rare private islands in the Mediterranean whose mainland is genuinely close at hand: a ten-minute boat ride, not an open-water crossing. **Cephalonia and Ithaca**, the Ionian islands of Odysseus's home kingdom, lie to the west and north-west. Both are easily reached by yacht. **Lefkada** and **Zakynthos** lie further north and south respectively. Together these four islands and the surrounding archipelagos comprise one of the world's most celebrated cruising regions, where the same waters that carried Homer's heroes now carry the summer charter fleets of the Mediterranean elite. **The Achelous river delta**, two kilometres east of Petalas on the mainland, is among the most ecologically significant wetlands in Greece, with the protected lagoons of the Mesolongi National Park supporting migratory bird populations and a quiet, slow-developing rural Greek coast that has preserved a genuine sense of the country's older agricultural character. ## The Neighbours A note worth knowing. The wider Echinades archipelago is in the early stages of becoming the most distinguished private-island region in the Mediterranean. **Six of the surrounding islands**, including the larger Oxeia, were purchased in recent years by **Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani**, the former emir of Qatar, for a reported sum of £7.3 million sterling. The wider region is increasingly being acquired by sovereign and private buyers attracted by the combination of Homeric geography, sailing access, and the rare combination of large freehold acreage with mainland European proximity. A buyer of Petalas joins this small and growing cohort, with the position of the largest private island in the country. ## The Battle of Lepanto The waters around the Echinades hold one of the most consequential naval battles in European history. On 7 October 1571, the Christian Holy League and the Ottoman Empire fought the **Battle of Lepanto** at the eastern entrance to the Gulf of Patras, a few nautical miles south of these islands. The Holy League's victory checked Ottoman naval expansion in the Mediterranean for a generation. Among the wounded was the young **Miguel de Cervantes**, who lost the use of his left hand in the battle and went on to write *Don Quixote*. The Venetians referred to the Echinades for centuries afterward as the *Curzolari*, after the islands closest to the battle site. Owning an island that overlooks both the geography of the Trojan War's outgoing fleet and the site of the Christian-Ottoman struggle for the Mediterranean is a position that does not exist anywhere else in private real estate. ## Development Considerations The Greek planning environment for private islands has historically been complex, and Petalas's development scope reflects a property that has been kept thoughtful and patient through that complexity. **5,100,000 square metres** of the island's total **5,400,000 square metres** have been **declassified by the Greek Forestry Bureau**, a designation that opens the path to future construction subject to the standard regional planning approvals. Within the declassified area, there is established precedent for the parcelling of land into **10,000-square-metre lots, each accommodating a 130-square-metre principal residence**. This precedent does not guarantee specific approvals for a given project, but it establishes the framework within which a future development plan would be evaluated. What this means in practice for the next owner is that a private estate, a discreet boutique resort, or a small low-density villa community is each viable under Greek law, with the legal and forestry groundwork meaningfully more advanced than is typical for Greek private islands of this scale. The island's ownership is currently approximately **85% held by the Tsaoussis family** through Petalas Corporation SA, with the remaining **15% held by the municipal entity of Cephalonia**. Due diligence for the transaction includes the full title chain, the consolidation of ownership through the transaction structure, and the standard Greek property and forestry compliance documentation. ## A Note on Greek Ownership Greece is a member of the European Union, and **EU citizens** purchase Greek property on the same terms as Greek nationals. **Non-EU buyers** are also welcome to acquire Greek property, with the additional pathway of the **Greek Golden Visa** programme available to qualifying investors. A licensed Greek property lawyer should structure any transaction of this scale before deposit. ## Access - **By aircraft to Athens International Airport (ATH):** the principal international gateway, with direct flights from every major European hub, plus New York, Dubai, Singapore, and Beijing - **From Athens to Astakos:** approximately 3.5 hours by car, or by short domestic transfer to Aktion Airport (PVK) near Preveza, followed by a 90-minute drive - **From Astakos / Platygiali Port to Petalas:** approximately 10 minutes by boat - **By private yacht:** the two natural harbours accommodate yachts of significant size; the island is on the standard Ionian summer cruising route ## The Position Petalas is the property that does not exist anywhere else. It is the largest private island in Greece. It is a credible candidate for Homer's Dulichium. It overlooks the site of the Battle of Lepanto. It has 4,000 olive trees, two natural harbours, and 5.1 million square metres of declassified land available for thoughtful development. It is two kilometres from a mainland European harbour, and ten minutes by boat from a working Greek coastal village. For the buyer with both the means and the temperament for a project of this kind, Petalas is the position from which to make a significant cultural statement in private Mediterranean real estate, in a region that the global ultra-wealthy are only just beginning to recognise. Homer is the foundation of the European literary tradition. To own a serious candidate for the home of one of his named kingdoms is to step into a frame of reference that money alone does not usually buy.

This contemporary masterpiece sits on 60 acres, overlooking Dunmore Bay and a private island. With 3 reception rooms, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and an indoor pool, it offers panoramic sea views extending to Loop Head Lighthouse and Kerry Head. Built to exacting standards, this home blends striking architecture with classical influences. Ornate decorative ceilings, a stone staircase with brass-coated balustrades, and exquisite Bossi chimneypieces merge seamlessly with modern design. A helipad, sea, and road access ensure convenience. Nearby amenities include Kilbaha Bay Harbour, Carrigaholt village, Kilkee, Kilrush, and access to Kerry. Electric gates lead to secure parking, an oval-shaped reception hall, a magnificent reception room, and a study with ocean views. The lower level features a pool room, ‘Champagne Room,’ and changing rooms. The master bedroom suite, two more bedroom suites, and a guest bedroom suite complete the picture, with a lovely courtyard, integral garaging, laundry, and back kitchen.

Isola Ravaiarina is a property with untapped tourist potential. The property has two defining features – a once-operational restaurant and a collection of purpose-built fish farm lagoons. A potential investor could once again harness the surrounding lagoon’s natural bounty for use in Isola Ravaiarina’s restaurant. An injection of capital is arguably the spark needed to bring the return of paying customers. Ravaiarina benefits from a fully functioning harbour, making transport to and from the mainland viable – the port at Grado is approximately one kilometre away by boat. The property’s unique features and pre-established facilities make it one of the more intriguing private islands for sale on the Italian market.

The Istrian Peninsula is the corner of Croatia closest to Venice, and the bay of Medulin is the corner of Istria closest to the open Adriatic. Ten small islands sit scattered across that bay. Ceja, at forty acres, is the largest of them, and the only one currently for sale. Pula, ten kilometres north-west, holds the sixth largest surviving Roman amphitheatre in the world, two thousand years old and still used for summer concerts. Brijuni National Park, a short cruise around the headland, was Marshal Tito's summer residence and hosted Khrushchev, Castro, Sophia Loren, and Elizabeth Taylor through the decades when it was the most exclusive address in the Mediterranean. The waters between them are some of the clearest in the Adriatic. This is the part of Croatia that the wealthy of Vienna, Milan, and Trieste have come to since the Habsburg era. ## What Ceja Is, and What It Could Be Ceja is currently a working commercial island, not a private retreat. It is on the standard Medulin excursion-boat route, with daily public visitors arriving by water taxi and tour boat through the summer season. A 300-square-metre restaurant and bar operates on the island, serving lunches and drinks to those visitors. A smaller 40-square-metre residence, in need of renovation, sits elsewhere on the property. This existing operation is, depending on the buyer's intention, either an asset or a starting point. For a buyer interested in turning the island into a **fully private estate**, the existing infrastructure provides immediate occupancy and access points that would otherwise take years of permitting to build from scratch in Croatia. The public-visitation pattern is governed by the current ownership's hospitality licence and is not a structural fixture of the title. For a buyer interested in a **boutique-hotel or exclusive-use rental conversion**, the foundations are stronger still: a commercial F&B operation in place, established water and boat access from Medulin, a built clientele who already know the island by name, and 25 acres of developable private land on which to build accommodation. What the existing tour traffic confirms is the fundamental question every island development must answer: is there demand to come here? The answer at Ceja is already yes, several thousand times each summer. ## The Land - **Total area:** approximately 40 acres (16 hectares), measured at 183,396 square metres of land mass - **Coastline:** 1,643 metres - **Private freehold:** 25 acres of the upland, available in this transaction - **State-managed coastal zone:** 15 acres, comprising the foreshore and tidal land The state-managed portion reflects Croatian property law rather than a limitation specific to Ceja. The narrow coastal strip below the high-water mark is state-owned across the entire Croatian coastline, and is leased or licensed to property owners for moorings, beach access, and adjacent uses. The 25 acres of private freehold are the entire usable upland of the island. The island has several beaches, distributed around the coastline, including rocky swimming coves with the clear blue Adriatic water that has made Istria one of Europe's most travelled summer destinations. The lighthouse at Porer sits less than three nautical miles to the south, a working Austro-Hungarian-era beacon that anchors the seascape. ## Existing Buildings - A **300-square-metre catering and hospitality building**, currently operating as a seasonal restaurant and bar - A **40-square-metre residence**, requiring renovation to current standards - Several smaller service structures associated with the hospitality operation The condition of the residence and the precise placement of buildings between private and state-managed land are documented in the property's due-diligence file. ## The Setting Medulin itself is a coastal town of around 6,500 residents that has quietly become one of Istria's preferred resort destinations, with the longest pebble beach in the region, a marina, the Bijeca sand beach, and a year-round community life. Three kilometres north of the island. **Pula**, ten kilometres north-west, is the regional capital of Istria. The Roman amphitheatre is the headline, but Pula is also a working harbour with restaurants, museums, the Brijuni-bound ferries, and a wine and olive-oil culture that is now drawing the same sommeliers who have championed Istria's neighbouring regions for the past decade. **Pula Airport** is seven kilometres north, with seasonal direct flights to London, Frankfurt, Vienna, Brussels, Stockholm, and most Eastern European capitals. From Vienna or Milan, the island is reachable for a long lunch. **Cape Kamenjak Nature Park** sits at the southern tip of the peninsula, five minutes by boat from Ceja, with protected cliffs, sea caves, and the southernmost lighthouses of Istria. **Brijuni National Park**, the former Tito residence and current presidential summer estate, lies twenty minutes by boat north of Pula. Tours run daily during the season. ## A Note on Ownership Croatia welcomes foreign buyers under two different paths depending on nationality. **EU and UK citizens** purchase Croatian property on the same terms as Croatian citizens, with no additional ministerial approval required. **Non-EU buyers** have two routes. The first is direct purchase, which requires Ministry of Justice consent under Croatia's reciprocity rules with the buyer's home country, typically a two- to four-month process. The second is purchase through a Croatian company, available to citizens of any country and frequently the simpler route for commercial or development plans. A Croatian property lawyer should advise on the appropriate structure before deposit. ## Access - **By boat:** 800 metres from the Medulin shore, a five-minute crossing by private launch or tender - **By car:** Medulin town centre is 3 km from the nearest mainland mooring - **From Pula Airport:** 7 km north, a 10-minute drive - **From Pula city centre:** 10 km north-west - **From Trieste, Italy:** 2.5 hours by car - **From Venice:** 4 hours by car or one hour by helicopter ## The Position for the Next Owner Ceja is the largest island in Medulin Bay, and one of the few private islands of meaningful size still available on the Adriatic. The combination of existing infrastructure, commercial F&B operations already in place, proximity to two of Croatia's leading cultural destinations, and the underlying scarcity of forty-acre island freeholds in the Mediterranean make this a property with two distinct positions available to its next owner: a private estate carved out of an island that already welcomes visitors, or a refined hospitality concept built on foundations already laid. The Adriatic has been one of the slowest-moving luxury markets in Europe through the past two decades, and Istria has been the slowest-moving region within it. Both are changing. Ceja sits at the inflection point.

Half a mile of deep tidal water lies between Shore Island and the County Clare shore. Ten minutes by small boat. Far enough that the cattle grazing here have no neighbours, and the silence has nothing to interrupt it. This is the west of Ireland in its older form. A working agricultural island in the broad estuary where the River Shannon, the longest in Ireland, meets the Atlantic. The Shannon has carried Vikings, monks, and trading ships for fifteen hundred years. Today it carries you. ## The Land Thirty acres of grassland, used year-round for cattle. The island sits in the Fergus arm of the Shannon Estuary near the parish of Kildysart, in the same scatter of low, green islands that includes Canon Island with its medieval Augustinian monastery, and the larger Inishmacowney, inhabited until 1976. You are buying into a landscape that people have worked since the early Middle Ages, and have only recently let return to quiet. Fresh water has already been piped to the island. The shell of an old dwelling house remains, along with several other ruins. Those ruins are not just atmosphere. In a country with strict rural development rules, they are the legal foundation for building a habitable home, subject to planning approval. They are the difference between a project and an impossibility. ## What You Build Most island listings sell what was built fifty years ago. This one sells the right to make something thoughtful from raw ground, on land where Atlantic light arrives from one side and sheltered estuary water from the other. A traditional Clare stone farmhouse rebuilt from its own footings. A glass and timber retreat. A small working farm. A writer's house far enough from any road that no road can find it. The choice is the buyer's. ## The Setting You are in County Clare, which means more than a postal code. North of the island rise the Cliffs of Moher and the lunar limestone of the Burren. South across the estuary lies County Kerry. West along the coast runs the Wild Atlantic Way, one of the longest defined coastal touring routes in the world. The estuary itself is a designated Special Area of Conservation. It is also home to Ireland's only resident population of bottlenose dolphins, which surface in the channels between the islands on most still mornings. Closer to the island you have the ruins of Canon Island monastery, the Napoleonic-era Kilkerrin Battery Fort near Labasheeda, the harbour villages of Kildysart and Killimer, and the music sessions of Ennis, the county town of Clare, twenty minutes from your mainland mooring. ## Access By small boat (15 HP engine): - Crovraghan, Kildysart: 5 minutes - Rosscliff, Ballycully: 10 minutes - Kildysart Pier: 15 minutes - Foynes, County Limerick: 30 minutes - Kilrush Creek Marina: 60 minutes By car from the mainland mooring: - Ennis: 20 minutes - Shannon Airport: 40 minutes - Limerick City: 60 minutes - Galway City: 90 minutes Shannon Airport sits 3.5 miles east of the island as the boat travels, with daily direct flights to London, New York, and Boston. A buyer leaving Manhattan after lunch can be standing on Shore Island before midnight. ## Who This Is For The buyer who wants land more than a building. Someone who has owned villas and is now looking for something a villa cannot offer. Someone willing to row. Half a mile of deep tidal water. Thirty acres of quiet. The rest is yours to decide.

Ardoilean Island is a unique investment opportunity. The property, also known as High Island, is an expanse steeped in history, with archaeological artefacts inundating the ~79-acre plot. Foremost, church remnants on the island correlate with early Iron Age settlements. There is also the foundation of a monastery on Ardoilean’s southwestern edge that dates back to the seventh century. Other examples of historical relics are the remains of an old water mill, a granite globe, and a long-disused copper mine shaft. Beyond its historical reputation, Ardoilean endures as an island of immense natural value – serving as a haven for a vast array of birdlife. Fulmars, petrels, shearwaters, gulls, and oyster catchers live on the island. Barnacle geese also visit during the winter. There is a more modern building near Ardoilean’s southern landing area. A septic tank also suggests future building potential, though any construction would be subject to the necessary planning constraints. Due to its historical value, the resident monastery is not part of the sale. Regardless, the opportunity to own the surrounding island – one of such historical significance – is nothing short of rare.