At the northwestern corner of the municipal territory of Marina, administrative boundaries extend deep into the land. In this corner, away from the traffic and any other bustle on the coast, one can still feel the breath of life of those gentle Dalmatian villages. There are several such villages in the Marina Hinterland: Blizna Gornja, Vinovac, Mitlo, Blizna Donja, Rastovac, Dograde, Gustirna, Najevi, Pozorac and Vrsine. In addition to nature touched only by traditional ecological farming, cattle-breeding, and construction, this area also preserves many valuable profane and sacral cultural goods.
It is a picturesque, centuries-old cultivated landscape marked by olive groves, vineyards and old pastures, intersected by old roads, the most important and oldest of which is the one that passes near the ponds Česma, Bliznica and Bljuščevica and leads from the field Gustrine towards the villages Rastovac and Blizna in the inland of the Marina area. Along the road, hidden in the overgrown vegetation, are the remains of the traditional architecture of the now abandoned modern hamlets of Aman and Starine.
The Church of St. Mary, in the vicinity of Blizina Gornja, built in the 9th century on the foundations of an ancient building, belongs to a small group of important monuments of ancient Croatian rulers’ sacral architecture that was itself under strong Carolingian influence. According to the inscription on the fragment of the partition wall, the church was owned by the County governor of Drid. The necropolis in the surrounding area was likely created after the restoration of the church in the mid-13th century.
