 |
| Sailing into Korcula, Croatia |
Easter Sunday followed our day in Korçula, Croatia. According to the program we received the
night we left Kotor, we were supposed to have rain in Korçula, Croatia. So we were absolutely delighted to discover
partly sunny skies as we sailed into this lovely town the next morning!
This was a new port in Croatia for us, having visited Split
and Dubrovnik back in 2008. Each of the
Croatian towns are very charming in their own way, and we thoroughly enjoyed
our visit to Korçula (the ç has the “ch” sound in Croatian, so the name is
pronounced Korchula).
This was my second day in a row of shore excursions,
something I’ve done very seldom on this cruise, and it is always quite
tiring. Once again I was doing a boat
ride, which is relaxing in many respects, but with the extra fresh air, it really
does make me sleepy! Chuck commented
that this excursion, Dalmatian Riviera
Cruise, is his first (and quite possibly only) excursion that is a boat
ride. Alice was also on the same trip,
so we were glad for the extra company.
Because Korçula is a tender port, we had to plan an extra
half hour at each end of the excursion and were down at the meeting place quite
early. I once again took my walker
rather than my wheelchair as it is easier to deal with on the small boats they
use for the excursions. Once ashore, the
group of about 60 people split into two smaller groups. We sent Alice ahead to get us a seat on the
boat. Each boat had tables that seated
four people, so we were happy to have a table for three plus the walker.
Our guide Edith explained that Croatia has about 1200
islands, of which Korçula is in the top six (my guess then is that it’s the 6th
largest island, though I can’t be sure).
Korçula was originally named by the Greeks and has the exact same word
root as the island of Corfu in Greece.
It was later taken over by the Romans and became part of the Byzantine
empire.
Because there was such a fear of pirates during its early
days, most people lived inland and away from the coast. Nowadays there are many, many settlements
along the coast as well as those that remain inland. Those people who live along the coast are
mostly part of either the tourism or fishing industry.
Those who live inland make their living through
agriculture. The most common crops are
grapes and olives with the most important products being wine and olive oil. Children are taught to drink wine at a very
early age as parents add a very small amount of red wine to their water making
it into a kind of juice. Slowly the
amount of wine is increased as children grow older. Even as adults they still often add water to
their red wines, which they drink with fish.
(I’m pretty sure I got that straight – I just know I was quite surprised
as our culture usually associates white wine with fish. Even though I don’t like or drink wine, I do
know that much about it!) Their white
wines are stronger.
I certainly wouldn’t make a very good Croatian since they
drink so much wine, and their main food is octopus! (Thanks, but no thanks! I don’t like calamari so I’m sure I wouldn’t
go for octopus!) They also eat sea
urchins, and if I understood correctly, she said they eat the sea urchins
raw! In addition, they eat a lot of fish
as well as lobster (finally something I could live with)!
Our cruise wove through the 20-island Korçula archipelago took us to the village of Orebic
on the Peljesac Peninsula for our first stop. As we approached the dock, one of
the guests cried out, “Dolphins on the left!”
FINALLY we got to see some marine animals! We just got a quick glimpse, but it was our
first marine mammal sighting on the entire cruise!
Orebic is known for being the home of captains. I assume that she meant sailing
captains. Apparently virtually all the
large homes in the village either are or were owned by captains. We had a half hour of free time there, so the
three of us walked along the shore line.
I didn’t go terribly far as the pavement was so bumpy that my hands got
numb trying to push the walker. (I would
have been better without the darn thing, but one never knows!) However I did enjoy the scenery! Alice headed back to the boat with me while
Chuck continued to walk farther along the coast.
Back on the boat, we continued on our way, heading between
islands to our next destination, the town of Lumbarda. However the guide came on with a rather
distressing announcement. She had
counted 32 people on the boat, and that was what she thought she had, but she
recalled counting 33 tickets. So we had
to reverse direction and head back to Orebic to pick up the missing
passenger. The guide was in contact with
her management, letting them know of the interruption in the schedule. Good grief!
One would think people would be on time!
We stayed five minutes beyond when we were supposed to be on our way so
this person really wasn’t very considerate!
The guide hopped off the boat and headed off the dock to the nearby
coffee shop, but no anxious passenger was waiting. When she returned she told us that her
manager had told her to wait five minutes longer and then leave. So that’s what we did.
As we headed back across the water toward Lumbarda, Edith
gave us an update: Apparently someone
had handed in two tickets. One was for
the Dalmatian Riviera Cruise, and the
second was for Bologna & Ferrara which
is an excursion offered in the port of Ravenna, Italy on the following
day. I certainly hope that person gets
the ticket back as it’s for an 8-hour excursion that sounds lovely (though too
rugged for me to do). And I hope that
person appreciates the fact that s/he threw the schedule off for everyone on
that boat! Oh, well, at least it wasn’t
an instance of someone in a state of panic for having been left behind!
As we headed toward Lumbarda, we passed the island of Vrnik
which has become world-renowned for its stone quarry from which white limestone
is extracted. This highly-desirable Vrnik
stone has been used in the construction of famous buildings all over the world,
including St. Sofia in Istanbul and our own White House.
We had an hour to spend in Lumbarda. Lumbarda was once a summer residence for the
medieval patricians of Korçula. Part of our visit to Lumbarda was to be a
walking tour that would take us to a winery.
Chuck did the tour while Alice and I stayed behind. We found a small ice cream parlor where we
each got an ice cream cone – which allowed us to use their facilities. The ice cream was delicious, and we enjoyed
sitting out at a table overlooking the harbor, watching the people go by (and
even a Cairn terrier, bringing back memories of my own two Cairns) and enjoying
the conversation.
As we headed back toward Korçula, we passed the small island
of Badija, where the prominent feature was a Franciscan monastery dating back
to the 15th Century, as well as many other small uninhabited islands. We marveled at how clear the water looked in
each place we visited.
Once back in Korçula, Chuck decided to stay ashore and walk
around to get more of the local flavor, and he certainly did manage to do that! He had quite a conversation with a woman who
got all excited about his Taormina, Sicily t-shirt. She spoke with very broken English, but she
was thrilled to meet someone who’d been to her husband’s native island. Chuck really got a kick out of that chat, and
it sounded like he’d made that lady’s day!
By the time I arrived back on the ship, I was really tired
out, but I was happy to have found an excursion that I was comfortable
doing. We had a very pleasant day in our
first of two stops in Croatia. Our final
stop in this lovely little country comes after our last two Italian ports:
Ravenna and Venice.
BT
No comments:
Post a Comment