Island of Korčula

August 20th

Last night at the port in Orebić, we inquired about the ferry connections to the island of Korčula, with its famous old town of Korčula, and immediately started looking forward to today. The old town of Korčula is also known as "Little Dubrovnik," so our expectations were very high, especially after what we had just experienced.

So we packed our backpacks for the day trip, rode our bikes to the harbor in Orebić, and left our bikes there. The ferry arrived on time and took us to Korčula in just 20 minutes.

As we left Orebić behind and it became smaller and smaller, Korčula came closer and soon greeted us with its exterior in the blazing midday sun. We could already see the city walls with the distinctive towers and the harbor that would be filled with impressive sailing and motor yachts throughout the day.

By the way, what we didn't know until today is that Korčula is the birthplace of Marco Polo. So of course, we also had his tiny birth house on our itinerary for today. Arriving there, we just let ourselves wander. The city is extremely manageable, and we had plenty of time. The last ferry was at 23:00... so that should be sufficient. The first round took us through the gate to the remnants of the city walls, where arts and crafts and souvenir stalls lined up on the inner ring. We paid attention to them, but couldn't find anything really nice as a reminder. After this first hot round in Korčula, our water supplies were already depleted, and the desire for shade and cooling was great. The midday sun is simply relentless. But we had prepared and brought our swimming gear. Now we just needed a suitable, shady (!) spot. We had already observed that people here go swimming everywhere, it doesn't even bother anyone in the harbors. So it didn't take long and we found a place. A staircase led down to the water on the outside of the city walls, where there was even a bathing jetty. This place was not a secret tip, as it turned out, but there was still a spot in the shade for two towels, perfect!

We decided to stay until the midday heat was over. Around 5:00 PM, refreshed and completely relaxed, we continued our sightseeing tour. Now we were also fit enough to climb the tower of Marco Polo's house and the Cathedral of St. Mark. Looking down on the city and in this case also at the sea and the surrounding islands from above always has a special attraction. Now it was time to explore the small streets. It felt like we walked through all of them at least once, and the discovery of the small jewelry shops, galleries, souvenir shops, wine bars, and above all, restaurants seemed to have no end. The pleasant wind that had come up by now made this up-and-down tour wonderfully tolerable.

We had seen enough and longed for a nice place with a view of the sea to end the day with a delicious dinner, local wine, and a sunset. We had high expectations and were not disappointed, but we would not compare it to Dubrovnik at all, Korčula has its own, lovable, and above all idyllic charm.