Korcula: Island of Wine, Water Taxis, and Sword Dances

Korčula: Island of Wine, Water Taxis, and Sword Dances

Greetings friends, family, and fellow travelers,

We left Dubrovnik on the morning of July 12th, after spending our final full day touring Fort Lovrijanic and the extremely endearing Love Stories museum (www.lovestoriesmuseum.com). We made several stops on our journey to Korčula - an island off the southern coast of Dalmatia - including a highlight of our trip thus far, a visit to an oyster farm in Mali Ston. We'll let the kids take the lead on relaying their experience, but suffice it to say, the guide was very impressed by their enthusiasm for raw oysters and mussels. Please see Calla living her best life of luxury here:

After the tour, we tried stonska torta ("Ston cake") at the restaurant, Bota Sare, which is made of pasta, nuts, and chocolate. Delicious! Calla and I ate most of it. 

We continued our drive to the Orebić ferry terminal - with a couple of quick vineyard stops along the way - and ferried over to Korčula . Our hotel was a swift 10 minute walk from the Old Town, which we explored later in the evening. We have one large room, which means utter chaos at bedtime (and at all the other times).

Our time in Korčula was glorious. We spent our first day here taking the water taxi among three islands: Badija, where we saw several deer by the pier, Vrnik, filled with small, stone-lined beaches, and back to Korčula, where we walked around Lumbarda. Lumbarda is the only place in the world which produces Grk, a dry and acidic white wine. As the wine isn't exported, you can only find it here, and my gosh is it delicious! Throughout our travels over the years, we've noticed that smaller wineries in Europe have the most incredible white wine, and we happily sampled several small producers' versions of Grk and Posip, as well as roséand Plavac Mali, around the island. The first winery we visited was called Lovric. We arrived an hour and a half before their actual opening time after walking a half mile in 90 degree heat, and the owner kindly opened for us to give us a tasting. Thanks to our love of wine and a language barrier, our "tasting" effectively included four full glasses of wine apiece, which I obviously didn’t even remotely finish. Calla draped me in a towel so she could give me a "haircut," and the boys hung out on the patio, maybe playing video games on their father’s iPhone. We were there for a couple of hours, and it was a lovey way to spend the afternoon. 

It's been wonderful watching the kids explore in their own ways. At the 11th hour before departing the US, we bought a snorkeling mask for Calla, which covers her entire face. We weren't sure how she'd take to it, but she'd been talking nonstop about snorkeling on this trip, so it seemed worth a try. Happily, she's been practicing snorkeling whenever possible. She saw a couple of fish in Badija, and we're hopeful she will be strong enough to actually go in the water when we snorkel the Great Barrier Reef next spring. Simon enjoyed wandering the large rocks on the beach looking for small critters. Jonah is less enthralled by going in the water, but occupied himself with walks in the shade and taking photos.

Two evenings ago, we saw the moreška, a sword dance that originated hundreds of years ago around the Mediterranean, but is now only performed in Korčula. The dance tells the story of the Red King and the Black King fighting over a veiled princess, and honestly exceeded my expectations. We sat in the front row, and there were times we could smell the sparks from the swords, see the sweat dripping off the performers’ faces. The whole thing was beautifully choreographed and stunning to watch. Yesterday morning, we packed up and ferried back to Orebić, where we’ve continued on to Split. I promise that future posts will be less wine-centric. I make no similar promises about lengthy descriptions of meals.

Sara's Statistics: 

Planes: 2 

Busses: 8 

Boat Trips: 8

Gelatos: 4 (top spot still goes to Peppino's in Dubrovnik) 

Books read: 2 

Justin’s Thoughts:

Day Eight. The effects of continuous heat & wine are beginning to set in…

Korcula is a much more relaxed vibe than Dubrovnik, but it still has a lot of seaside activity. Around each turn in the road is a different bay with its own unique combination of sand, rocks, crystal clear blue water, and picturesque sailboats on the docks. A handful of medium size yachts perpetually stalk the waters here as well. It’s been a nice couple of days here and we’ve had a lot of time to swim and enjoy the sun.

Was front-loading all these wineries a good idea? Time will tell, as will the several bottles of Grk (I’ll never get tired of saying “Grk”) currently in our mini fridge. We’ve certainly gotten a taste of the island’s flavor and history, even if we’re beginning to enter a period of testing our family’s limits in terms of how much we can take on in any given day.

Case in point, we scheduled a buggy tour for Sunday afternoon and only 3/5 of us were able to make it. Korcula has a few different motorized tours like this where they basically put you in a two-seater go-kart, tell you to do your best not to crash, and then have you drive around caravan style to different areas to see the sights and some different beaches. A bit of a touristy fling? Sure. But still fun. However by the time our caravan was ready to depart Jonah was feeling the heat of several days and had to opt out, so he and Sara headed home. Calla and Simon traded riding shotgun in our pink buggy or cruising in the passenger seat of the lead guide’s car. The buggy driving itself was fun enough, if not particularly remarkable, but it culminated in a wonderful pre-dinner get together at the host’s home with a delicious and varied spread of tapas, wine, grappa, and some unique homemade liquors.

At some point after some more reflection and experience, I’ll probably write something longer about my feelings on the way some of these tour hosts open their homes and share their tables with people like us on a regular basis, and the significance that has both for us on the trip, as well as what it may mean for them. Certainly these type of moments remain the highlights so far of the trip (and we have had a similarly wonderful experience in Portugal), but they also make me think about the complexity of obligations here, and my ongoing hope that we can be good representatives for ourselves in these type of situations, especially as this kind of thing is relatively new for the kids. I’ll return to this subject a little later on!

Justin’s Statistics:

Number of bottles of wine left behind on a water taxi: 1

Number of bottles of wine recovered after being left behind on a water taxi: 1

Jonah: 

July 12, 2024: Today we woke up and went to an oyster farm. The guide showed us how he grew oysters and farmed them. Yes, that's right you can basically grow an oyster. The way you do it is you just put ropes in the right type of water and they grow. It takes about 2.5 years for one to grow but when they do grow they grow in the hundreds. We had some oysters and mussels and then drove to a new place; the island of Korcula. It was a long drive but we eventually made it to the dock. At this dock we went on a fairy boat which took us to Korcula. We settled in a new hotel and got pizza for dinner and went to bed.

July 13th, 2024:Today was our first day in our new hotel. We got up, had breakfast and went on a taxi boat and went to an island with a lot of deer. They were very friendly and people were able to approach them without them running away. Although people weren't allowed to touch or feed them other people didn't care and did it anyway.

On our next island Simon, Calla and I got popsicles and my mom got some fries for the family. On the NEXT island we went to a winery. While my parents had some samples Simon and I played a game on my dad's phone. My parents brought back a bottle to have later. Finally we got dinner, which was really good, and took a long boat ride back to the hotel. BUT it wasn't done yet it turned out my parents had left the wine on the boat. They weren't very happy about that.

July 14th and 15th, 2024: The last few days, we haven’t really done much. I wasn’t feeling well yesterday afternoon, so I didn’t go on the buggy tour. Calla, Dad, and Simon went while Mom and I stayed in the hotel and rested. The wineries were very boring.

Simon:

These are the two things I want to talk about in my blog post: oysters and snails.

We went to an oyster farm. We got there by taking a boat, where they gave us candied orange peels and sugar almonds. It turns out that oysters are grown like plants. They were in a net. I ate oysters and mussels. The experience was an "S," which is better than an "A" in my ranking. It was an S because the oysters were really yummy and there were a lot of them, and then we went on a motorboat. 

When we went to Korcula, we went to lots of beaches and I saw snails on every one. They were on the rocks in the water and they moved very slowly. I liked picking them up and putting them back. I liked looking for the really big ones.

Calla:

On the boat we ate oysters and mussels, and we ate sweet peels and almonds and stuff. And I had a nice time. We also did snorkeling. I would like to do more snorkeling please and I love seeing all the fishes and stuff. We went "wheee" on the buggies. I had fun on the buggies. 

~

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