Korčula, Croatia – April 6th

Well, to start, we are on our 87^th day of our 111-day world cruise, heading towards Hamilton, Bermuda.  The North Atlantic Ocean has been pretty rocky since we left Portugal and I even had to forego dinner last night because, after resting most of the day, I couldn’t stand up without feeling dizzy.  Michael nursed me back by bringing me ginger strips, courtesy of my wonderful waiter, ginger ale and ginger tea later in the evening.  I’m feeling much better today so I’ve decided to start on my travel blog, which has been ignored for a couple of weeks. 

From the heading above, we were in Korčula, Croatia, which is a lovely island lying off the Dalmation coast almost halfway between Split and Dubrovnik.  It’s only 108 sq. miles with a population of approximately 15,000.  It was, of course, part of Yugoslavia until 1991 when it became an independent state. 

Because it’s a relatively small port, we had to tender ashore which only took about 10 minutes.  Although our port guide offered excursions to wineries, Vela Luka, another charming Croatian town, Lumbarda, a fisherman’s village and Gabrielli’s Palace, we were content to walk around on our own. 

The town is very quaint and offers a beautiful coastline and I can only imagine if we had arrived a month or so later how many tourists would be visiting.  Because of our early arrival, only one gift shop was open so we were able to buy our magnet, but, other than a small market and a few cafes, there really wasn’t much to see or do in early April.   There were lots of lovely apartments for rent during the tourist season and we peeked inside the windows of several and they were beautiful furnished.  We came across several hotels and a lovely marina with lots of sail boats. 

The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed our walk around the almost completely-deserted little town.  We stopped along the waterfront to sit on one the benches and the coastline across the harbor really was quite spectacular.  We could see our home, the Pacific Princess, anchored a short distance away and after a couple of hours we boarded one of the tenders having spent an enjoyable time in this lovely part of the world. 

Michael’s Observations:   This beautiful setting is understandably why this little town draws so many tourists from all over during the summer.  The town was extremely clean with beautiful vistas of the bay no matter where you stood.  The season doesn’t start for a few weeks so we were fortunate to enjoy this picturesque little town by ourselves.