STORY: Artists created massive sand sculptures reaching up to 15 meters in length at the 15th Sand Art Festival on Croatia's Rajska beach in Lopar on Friday (July 3).

The festival featured large sculptures including a giant squid, Mediterranean monk seal, turtle, and beach toys, each weighing approximately 20 tons.

Drone footage showed the impressive scale of the sculptures, with artists working to shape and maintain the towering sand creations. Festival manager Paula Banic Vudrag said that each sculpture told its own "sand story" as part of this year's theme.

"To make a sculpture like this, as big as 15 meters, it takes four full days of hard work," Banic Vudrag said.

Academic sculptor Jelena Azinovic worked on a Mediterranean monk seal measuring between 8 and 10 meters. "This is a new medium for me to work with, sand, so I wanted to try it out a bit," she said.

This was the fifteenth annual Sand Sculpture Festival in Lopar, which aims to promote the town and the island of Rab as a tourist destination with its 22 sandy beaches - a rarity on Croatia's rocky Adriatic coast.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

SHOWS: LOPAR, CROATIA (JULY 3, 2026) (REUTERS-Access all)

1. (MUTE) VARIOUS OF DRONE VIEW OF GIANT SAND SQUID SCULPTURE BEING CREATED BY ARTISTS

2. (MUTE) DRONE VIEW OF SAND SCULPTURES

3. VARIOUS OF ARTIST CREATING GIANT SAND TURTLE SCULPTURE

4. (SOUNDBITE) (Croatian) SAND ART FESTIVAL MANAGER, PAULA BANIC VUDRAG, SAYING:

“The sculptors, all academics, create large sand sculptures that reach up to 10 to 15 m and weigh approximately 20 tons. This year, the theme of the festival is sand stories, so each sculpture tells its own sand story."

5. (MUTE) DRONE VIEW OF GIANT SAND TURTLE SCULPTURE

6. (SOUNDBITE) (Croatian) SAND ART FESTIVAL MANAGER, PAULA BANIC VUDRAG, SAYING:

"So, to make a sculpture like this, as big as 15 meters, it takes four full days of hard work. Of course, it takes a lot of shovelling, modelling that big pile of sand, and lots and lots of water to soak the sculpture and the sand so that it doesn't collapse, that is, so that the sculpture doesn't fall apart, which also happens."

7. (MUTE) DRONE VIEW OF GIANT SAND TURTLE SCULPTURE

8. (SOUNDBITE) (Croatian) SAND ART FESTIVAL MANAGER, PAULA BANIC VUDRAG, SAYING:

"And we have five sculptures, of which the large squid, the Mediterranean monk seal, the large turtle, beach toys, and we also have Totem (from Christmas Island)."

9. (MUTE) DRONE VIEW OF SAND SCULPTURES

10. (MUTE) DRONE VIEW OF ARTIST WATERING SAND SCULPTURE

11. VARIOUS OF ACADEMIC SCULPTOR JELENA AZINOVIC WORKING ON SAND SCULPTURE

12. (SOUNDBITE) (Croatian) ACADEMIC SCULPTOR, JELENA AZINOVIC, SAYING:

“I'm working on a Mediterranean monk seal between 8 and 10 m in size. This is a new medium for me to work with, sand, so I wanted to try it out a bit."

13. AZINOVIC WORKING ON SAND SCULPTURE

14. (SOUNDBITE) (Croatian) ACADEMIC SCULPTOR, JELENA AZINOVIC, SAYING:

"Well, it's demanding, it's fun, it's beautiful, but it's challenging with the sun, the wind, the storm, the heat."

15. MAN TAKING PHOTO OF SAND SCULPTURE

16. ACADEMIC SCULPTOR WORKING ON SAND SCULPTURE

17. (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACADEMIC SCULPTOR FROM POLAND, JOANNA (NO SURNAME GIVEN), SAYING:

“So we're doing three toys for children. There is a bowl, a fish, and what is it, what is in English, (meaning rake).

18. (MUTE) DRONE VIEW OF BOWL, FISH AND RAKE SAND SCULPTURES

19. (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACADEMIC SCULPTOR FROM POLAND, JOANNA (NO SURNAME GIVEN), SAYING:

“It's around 10 meters big, so it was quite hard to start it because you have to put a lot of a lot of sand in one place, and then form it to the shape.”

20. VARIOUS OF JOANNA WORKING ON SAND SCULPTURES

21. WOMAN WALKING BY SAND SCULPTURE

22. PEOPLE WALKING ON BEACH

23. (MUTE) DRONE VIEW OF SAND SCULPTURES