If you come to Zadar you must see the Forum and St Donatus. If you only see one other thing, make it the Silver and Gold of Zadar. It's housed in the Benedictine convent of St Mary's, where it has been guarded by nuns since the end of the Second World War. It forms the Permanent Exhibition of Religious Art, one of the most important cultural repositories in Croatia. The city has enjoyed various periods of flowering of arts and culture, and the work of local gold and silversmiths (including Italians and Venetians resident in the city) is absolutely stunning, spanning the millennium between the 8th and 18th Centuries. The collection includes reliquaries for either entire saints or parts of them (e.g. hands, arms and heads), crucifixes, paintings, and vestements interwoven with gold and silver thread. The collection is presented in intimate and atmospheric surroundings, and is guaranteed to leave the most resolute non-believer awestruck. On the ground floor there is also a reconstruction of the former chapel of St Nediljica and examples of Romanesque masonry.