Croatia Day 6: Peljsacs & Korcula

The early start was somewhat compromised by oversleeping, but not terribly. We were on the road before 10am. We skipped breakfast, instead eating some of the food we already had. Rather than lug our suitcases up the 200 plus steps to the parking garage, we took a taxi – totally overpriced at 10 Euros – to the garage. We easily made our way out of Dubrovnik and got on the highway towards the Peljsacs peninsula. We decided that we’d drive the entire length of the peninsula to Orebic, where we would catch the ferry to Korcula, hang out there for a bit, then leisurely make our way back up the peninsula, stopping at the wineries along the way.

The Peljsacs is more beauty. It is basically one winding road down a narrow peninsula, looping around and over mountains. It’s heavily forested, with more spectacular views of the ocean and looming cliffs, basically like everywhere else, yet special and different in some difficult-to-describe way. When we arrived in Orebic, we followed signs to the ferry, parked (you had to guess how long you’d be there and pay in advance, a system that made me nervous), and went to wait. The parking attendant was totally unhelpful, but we finally found the sign with the times – the next one was still a couple of hours away. Then we realized that we could take the car ferry, so we went to check those times – luckily, there was one within the half hour. As I bought passage for the car, I realized that we could have ridden it without the car for less money. Next time, I would probably do that, though when you add in the cost of parking in Orebic (especially under the pay-in-advance-and-hope-you-don’t-run-late regime described above) along with the cost of a taxi once in Korcula, you probably don’t save a lot. And given our history with barely making it to the boat, I didn’t want to chance getting our car towed when we overstayed our pre-paid parking time.

Views of Korchula from a distance

Outside the city walls in Korchula

The car ferry was uncrowded and simple to board with our little Corsa. I had only been on one other car ferry, and was not the one driving, so I felt a bit nervous – totally without reason, it couldn’t have been more simple, despite Ben’s dire warnings that I not miss the plank. Not a real possibility as it was far wider than the car, but funny nonetheless. The ride over afforded us more spectacular views of the peninsula and Korcula as we approached it (it was visible from the mainland). It took about 30 minutes total to get on, cross, and exit the ferry. Once we arrived, we drove to Korcula town, the highlight of the island and our main destination. The car ferry, unlike the passenger-only ferry, lets you off about three miles away from the main town. Finding parking was a bit tricky, but we did eventually find a free spot just outside the walled city. We, of course, had to take stairs (down on the way, up on our way out) to get there.

Local Kocula wine with lunch

Korcula town is sort of like a mini Dubrovnik – a walled city by the sea, full of ancient buildings, spectacular churches, and fabulous architecture that makes a person walk around with their mouth agape. Not surprisingly, given our sparse breakfast and that it was now close to 2pm, we were hungry. Having done little research, and forgotten our guidebook in the car (or deliberately left it out of the assumption that we knew what we were doing), we wandered around for awhile, half enjoying the sites, and half trying to find the places that we had read about. We finally did stumble on a place recommended by Steves and took a seat on the upstairs patio. We figured that no matter how the food turned out, the view was worth it. The food turned out quite nice. They brought out bread with a nice pate to spread on, and I started with a local specialty, a tomato based soup with polenta and some kind of seafood. For my entrée, I went with another Croatian specialty, black risotto. It gets its name and color from squid ink. The risotto was full of cuttlefish, shrimp, and octopus. I enjoyed it, and would probably order it again, but it was very filling. It was one of the rare occasions in which I did not finish every crumb of food on my plate.

From left: risotto with cuttlefish, bread with pate, Ben's steak, tomato polenta soup

After lunch, we wandered some more, got gelato and coffees, and made the now long feeling trek upstairs to our car. We missed some of the sights in Korcula. We were a little bit dazed and exhausted after so many days with far more exercise than we are used to in our everyday life. If we go back to Croatia, Korcula would not be number one on my list of priorities, but we definitely enjoyed it and were very glad that we checked it out. Particularly because in a place known for its islands, we were not planning to visit many of them.

Very old church

Another furtive inside the church shot

On the way back to Orebic, we decided on which wineries we would stop at. We ended up at just one, Matusko, which was recommended by Steves and by the waiter at D’vino. If we had more time, we probably would have done more, but 1) we only had room for four bottles in our suitcase, which we bought here; 2) I could not drink anymore samples and drive; and 3) we were on our way to the farm in Bosnia and hoped to get there before it was dark.

At Matusko, we were kindly welcomed and invited to explore the building. It was made of stone, and full of rooms that were mostly full of wine barrels. We spent about 15-20 minutes wandering, taking pictures, and admiring what we assumed to be ancient stonework. It turned out that it has been built just recently. 

After our exploring, we sat down with an employee who poured us nine different samples of their wine. She explained the growing process, location of the vines, and the aging of each. We enjoyed it all, and decided on four bottles to bring home – one white, one rose, and two reds, one of which we would be able to age. The employee, while informative on some things, such as the history of wine selling and making in Croatia and the impact of the communist regime on vineyards, she did not know things like “what is the wi-fi password” or understand what I meant when I asked about aging the red. I don’t think it was a language issue, it was just like the idea hadn’t really occurred to her. And she really didn’t know what wi-fi was – wi-fi is the word used in Croatia, so this definitely was not a translation issue.

We still have three of the bottles that we bought at Matusko. We opened one for Easter 2015, and it was great. A strong earthy, mineral flavor. 

After the winery, we began the trek to Bosnia and the farm, which is covered in the next post.