We have two full days here, so had a slow lazy start to the day – breakfast in bed. We went into the lovely old cathedral in the centre (a good 3 minutes away), it’s associated museum and the town museum. The church museum was exceptional. Full of gorgeous objects, paintings, silverware and ecclesiastical clothes. It does make us feel that the locals have had a lot of their prosperity stripped by the church over the centuries so we are a bit ambivalent seeing church wealth. The town museum has a good display of ship-building (it used to be a Korcula mainstay before tourism).
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| Korcula town on its peninsula |
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| Lovely old but neglected buildings |
We needed a good walk, so found our way up to a fort above the town after a few false starts. Tourism here is a bit hit and miss. Sometimes things are well organised, other times it is hopeless, or just as frustrating, random. Sights or info offices may or may not be open, even at times written on their doors. Some have very good explanations, even in English, such as the town museum here, others such as the church museum are totally signless. And the lack of knowledge of transport is strange. In peak season there is a lot more transport, but at the moment getting between the mainland and the islands, or down the islands can be a bit tricky. Not something you can do if you have fixed dates, as many links only operate every few days. At least you do get a sense of achievement once you arrive somewhere new!
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| Town gate, chapel and council offices to the right! |
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| Not bad for NZ$10 |
The town here is the most consistently-mediaeval we have come across. The buildings are 3-4 storeys, lots of carving around windows and doorways, and a number with beautiful courtyards. Ten to 20 percent are empty and abandoned. We keep saying to each other “wouldn’t you like to get your hands on that one”, as they are really very lovely. There are lots of odd sticking-out stones, only some of which we can make sense of – some for gutters, some perhaps for using as lifting points, others for balconies long gone. We keep thinking about what sort of place we might want for ourselves if we do manage to buy in Europe. We are beginning to think that it will have to be a pretty nice place, one that we can spend plenty of time in without getting cabin fever. And we suspect that what we want may be more expensive than we can afford. At least the NZD is making a bit of a recovery against the Euro at the moment. We will just have to wait and see. Whatever works out, at some point in our lives we are going to have to have a house with the equivalent of a loggia or internal courtyard!
