Arriving in the mid-day warmth by ferry, we disembarked into a new, sleepy town on a new beautiful Croatian Island. This time we were in sweet, little Korcula! At the ferry dock we met our friendly airbnb host who put our bags into her car and said she’d be back in an hour or so after she had time to clean the apartment. We were excited to have some time to explore without being dragged down by 10kg’s of backpack weight, so we began to climb the familiar steep streets of yet another Croatian old-town. Korcula has the familiar crystal clear waters, spectacular mountain views and crumbling sandstone buildings, but it was a stark opposite to Hvar town where we had just arrived from. It was quiet! Wonderfully calming, slow and quiet. The tourist crowd was much older having arrived in the afternoon from huge cruise ships, and as we explored new streets we were greeted by absolutely no one. It was my kind of paradise.
We took our time to get a feel for the place. I knew our accommodation was located a little way out of town, and it would take us about half an hour to walk back in. So we made the most of our free time in the city centre, getting a snack to eat, climbing steps to no-where in particular and just soaking in the vacation atmosphere. Korcula really didn’t appear to have a lot of ‘touristy’ things to do which suited us perfectly. We don’t have a lot of money to spend on museums, famous sights, fancy restaurants or fun activities, so an authentic town with beautiful streets and true culture is everything we need.
The hour passed quickly and soon we were meeting our host back at the dock. We jumped in her car and she drove us through winding streets and into the countryside. Our apartment was quite rurally located, and whilst most people on holiday think location is the most important part of their accommodation (anything but in the absolute centre of town is out of the question! 😉 ). Martin and I often perfer spending a little less money, getting a lot more comfort and immerse ourselves in a local neighbourhood that’s not just the typical tourist hotspot. We drove up the final winding country road and found ourselves at our deserted apartment block. Our own private oasis. Everything we could have asked for! A sweet studio apartment with air-conditioning, terrace, outdoor BBQ, washing machine and comfy bed and couch. Our host asked if we wouldn’t mind feeding her independent cat who just stops by for dinner and cuddles when he’s hungry. Could it get any better?
After putting on some much needed washing, relaxing in the cool air-conditioning and unpacking our things, we decided to explore our area. A five minute walk at the end of our street was a huge Konzum supermarket! When you spend most of your time staying in the centre of small towns, you really begin to miss big supermarkets as usually there are only the small conviniece store types to choose from. This supermarket had everything you could imagine, it was just like being close to a Coles or Woolworths again. We explored the isles like kids in a candy store, filling our basket with yummy things to cook for lunch and dinner and a few sweet treats for in-between. After the supermarket we dropped our goodies back home and head out to find the nearest beach. Again we hit the jackpot. Across the road from the supermarket was a deserted motel, and behind that motel they had their own private beach that was also available to the public. No big hoards of tourists, just a few locals bathing in the sunshine and a whole beach for us. Travelling off peak season has it’s perks.
To be honest with you, we spent 99% of our time in Korcula cooking deliciously healthy food in our little kitchen, sitting on our terrace eating said food and watching the warm summer rain. Days spent laying in the sunshine and swimming in the crystal waters and nights spent playing with all the neighbourhood cats who decided our apartment was the best place to play! Really… at one point we had about 6 or 7 cats that we were feeding and Martin was cuddling all of them (I’m allergic so I can give a few pats and wash my hands, which is so hard for me because basically I just love cats). We even temporarily adopted the neighbourhood stray who we nicknamed Manky because well, he was very manky… he didn’t even have a tail the poor thing. But we fed him fresh cooked fish and patted him for hours.
We did decide to leave our little oasis for one more trip into town to see more of the streets and take some pictures. Here are the quiet moments in-between bustling streets.
On our final day we made the half an hour hike into town to catch our next ferry. Which was definitely a heroic feat wearing all our luggage, at one point I wasn’t sure I would make it… but sure enough we were waiting at the ferry dock and I took these final pictures of sweet Korcula. We were off to a new adventure, our final Croatian city before we were heading off to the UK. Korcula was the quietest and least touristic of all the towns we had visited on our adventures of the country but I think it was my favourite. We still look back after all these months and say that was our favourite apartment with some of our favourite memories. My advice: get off the beaten track sometimes.
❤
Christine
Croatia never has been on my to-travel-list but you described it in a way I want to travel there.
shelby
this whole experience sounds like an absolute dream! i feel like when you first get into traveling a lot you want to spend your time doing all the touristy things, but after you have done it for a while you just want to find the odds and ends of a city. the places less traveled.