Even though Dobrinj has always been the administrative and cultural centre of this region, the proud champion of tourism in Dobrinjština is one of the more recent settlements in this part of the island. This is the village of Šilo, whose name is based on the exact thing rooted into its origin and existence. According to linguists, its name is semantically related to a cape or a sea rock.
The beginnings of tourism date back to 1928, when Društvo Šilo (Šilo Company) was founded. However, Šilo is not only the champion of local tourism. It was exactly this picturesque village that the first ferry in this part of the Adriatic, “Bodulka”, set sail from on 12th April 1959, which marked the opening of the first ferry line Šilo – Crikvenica and the beginning of a new era in the development of Šilo, the island of Krk and the north Adriatic.
Bodulka’s predecessor was much older; at the beginning of 1905, the Krk Steam Shipping Company (Krčko parobrodarsko društvo), the first such company on the island of Krk, was founded. The company soon bought the “Dinko Vitezić” steamship, which set sail on the first day of June that year towards Crikvenica, thus paving the way for the future Šilo – Crikvenica line.