Day 25: Island of Korcula

I was originally signed up for a trip to the Island of Korcula on our last day in Croatia.  After looking at the details of the tips and talking with a few people I decided to try and trade the trip I had with a similar (a few differences) one that occurred today.  I was able to find somebody to swap and I think it was probably worth it.  We had a very early start and drove about an hour to the town of Trsteno.  It's a smaller Croatian village on the coast and home to some botanical gardens.  We toured the gardens which were filled with all kinds of different plants and citrus fruits, some more common than others.  After leaving Trsteno we stopped in the small (essentially deserted) town of Ston.  Ston was home to some lucrative salt mines back in the day.  We saw a few puddles where you get salt and had the opportunity to buy a 30kn ($6) bag of salt before walking around the town consisting of a restaurant, market, and post office.  We eventually left and arrived at Orebic.

Orebic has a small port that is primarily used for ferries to and from Korcula.  We ferried over to Korcula and had a short walking tour of the island.  We went thorough a few museums of stolen Venetian "icons" (they are past rivals) and a cool little cathedral.  After stopping by the house that Marco Polo was allegedly born in we had lunch at the Hotel Korcula.  The entire meal was comprised of seafood and it was really good.  I mentioned it in Spain also but I find myself venturing further into eating some of these sea critters I really haven't seen much in the past (no problems yet...).  After lunch we had some free time to roam Korcula and some of the shops.  I've come across a few really clever Croatian pens but am still trying to find some of the famous Croatian ties.  We ferried back to Orebic and boarded the bus for the return trip.  There was a stop on the way back to Dubrovnik at a small harbor town with some old defensive walls and a little chapel on top of a hill.  I climbed the hill and got some more great pics of Croatian coastline and countryside.  It was a long ride back the ship and most of us were pretty tired.

It's interesting to hear the stories of many of the small towns on the ocean because there is so much conflict about the lack of coastline for Bosnia and Montenegro.  There is a continuing debate that has the potential to flare in the near future.  I forgot to mention it in yesterday's post but it's also interesting walking around Dubrovnik and see so much obvious damage and restoration from the war in the early 90's.  Tomorrow a few of us have a small day-trip planned to Mostar, Bosnia.   Even though it's only a few hours away it's supposed to be a completely different feel, I'll let you know.  That's all for now, I need to get some rest for yet another early start tomorrow.