Stari Grad is the collective name for several small towns which grew and were later abandoned at the same place. The plan of the Greek Pharos, reconstructed hypothetically, resembles a Roman town-planning scheme with an orthogonal screen. Only the south eastern angle of the town has been archaeologically investigated. The remains of the ancient town walls have been presewed in the cellar of the house of Tadić Gromotorov, but they are also visible to the south of the early Christian complex of the double basilicas of Sts John and Mary (with the baptistery from the 5th/6th centuries) decorated with floor mosaics. Archaeologists have discovered the corner of the original Greek Pharos or lighthouse there.

The stereometry of the cleaned town walls, numerous remains of Illyrian, Greek and Roman settlements, as well as early Christian, early Croatian and Romanesque layers have confirmed what the archaeologists supposed for centuries - that the Pharos, in its stratigraphy, is probably the richest locality of our archaeological heritage, and that the whole island experienced an apogee at the end of ancient times.

Roman inscriptions and reliefs on the Baroque bell-tower in front of the parish church and at the town square next to it, as well as the more recent secular and sacral inscriptions built on to the walls of various houses, confirm the importance of Stari Grad throughout history. The bust of Milo of Croton (the best known Greek athlete) with a club in his hands and the bull on his shoulders once stood in the square. Stari Grad experienced its second high point in the l8th century with the development of maritime trade and wine-growing.

Modern Croatian painters from Stari Grad include: Juraj Plančić, Bartol Petrić, Jakov Bratanić, Juraj Dobrović, Ivo Dulčić. Their works are exhibited in the mansion of the Croatian Revival entrepreneur, Juraj Bjankini, to the west of The Tvrdalj, together with some archaeological finds discovered at Pharos in the last twenty years. This is also the building where some intemational summer archaeological seminars take place.