Port
Portus Planaticus
Kvarnerski zaljev (Barrington)
Listen to the story
Portus Planaticus is written not on land but out in the open water, at the head of the Kvarner Gulf in Croatia. Portus means harbour, and the first letter of the second word is damaged: it may just as well have been an F, which would tie the name to the town of Flanona, now Plomin. The Greek geographer Artemidorus already knew a harbour and town of that name and said the whole gulf was called after it. The town itself is missing from the map, and scholars still puzzle over whether the name marks one small bay or the entire gulf.