Moving On To Korcula

You know a trip is going well when you sadly leave on place and then love the next place even more, or at least equally. We really loved being in Hvar, but Korcula was amazing, as well. It's a little quieter and not as young and hip as Hvar. Not as many young people half-naked walking around, but more like the Monte Carlo of the Adriatic, older and more moneyed. As I mentioned, the Russian billionaire was docked in the bay, his boat was as long as a football field, talk about crazy.

We took the evening ferry to Korcula and landed around 9:00. We met the landlord who took us to our room, which for the record, was really nice. These apartments seem to be the way to go, people rent out rooms in their house or rooms they own, and they do a fabulous job of decorating them. The landlord was really cool, as well, because he gave me a Euro adapter for my computer. It's the little things in life that make it nice.

We walked around a bit and let me tell you, the town is really beautiful, like a walled in fortress that has been converted to a city, not unlike Siena or Pienza, except newer and nicer. You don't realize it, but this part of the world was engaged in a vicious war about 20 years ago, the Croatian War of Independence. The city of Debrovnik was bombed extensively.

We also learned that Korcula was where Marco Polo was born, and where he started his famous voyage. That's a cool homeschool fact. There are stores and wonderful bakeries on the island, where we got to try out local delights, especially burek, which we chowed on for breakfast. In the morning after breakfast, we walked across the street and down to the shore and found a nice beach to swim off of. It was really warm, so we were able to swim for several hours and watched the ships coming in and out of the bay. The boats would create wakes that sent waves to our little beach, which were essentially ripples, but we had fun with them.

Afterward, we went up to the main drag and had lunch, then kicked back until our next adventure, which happened later that day when we took a water taxi to another island, Badija, where we did some snorkeling and swam, but what we enjoyed the most was the boat ride. There is also a native deer population on the island, and they're really tame and come right up to you looking for handouts. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but it's kind of cool, either way.

More on Badija later. Until then, thanks for reading, and thanks to RIC for the pics.