The island of Korcula

view of Korcula's old city

Korcula was the third Croatian island we visited, one where we spent 2 nights overlooking the Mediterranean in a charming hotel with gorgeous views, but also requiring about 100 steps up the narrow street to get to our room.  Good exercise, but not for everyone.

the sea between Korcula and the mainland

Korcula land gate

Like the other Adriatic islands, Korcula is a mountainous limestone island, about 30 miles long and 4 miles across.  It is known for its excellent white wine, Pocip.  We drove all over the island, visiting villages and beaches as well as a winery where the next tourists to walk in were Don's nephew and his wife, completely shocking all of us since none of us knew the other two were traveling in Croatia and we haven't even seen them in 2 years.  That was fun!  And the wine was very good.
The old city of Korcula has a charter that specified how the town would be built, managed and lived in.  For example, it required windows on houses opposite each other to be offset from one another so that people in one house couldn't peer into their neighbor's windows.
Between two houses in the city, there had to be a space where garbage and sewage could be tossed so it wouldn't go directly into the street.  That does sound very smelly and rather disgusting, so I imagine the city (and probably all cities of that era) smelled terrible by our standards.

cathedral door

At night, the city gates were closed and no one was allowed inside once they'd closed.  The drawbridges over the moat were raised and the huge gates locked.  If you arrived late, you simply waited outside until morning.

Eve reminding Catholics of their sins

The cathedral is not very exciting, but it does have interesting statuary on its facade.  Unlike most Adams and Eves, these are squatting, naked, displaying their genitals.  This was to show everyone entering the church that they needed to recognize their sins when they went inside the cathedral.

Adam--also a sinner

The beaches are mostly rocky, but there are a couple of small, sandy beaches that are very popular with islanders and tourists alike.  Now, they are nearly empty and Korcula is mostly closed for the season.  Our hotel closed the day we left and almost no restaurants were still open.  But, the clear water was still lovely and we did get to see a small octopus enjoying a respite from the beach's crowds of summer swimmers.

octupus on sea bottom