Croatia part 4 - Pining for Posip

I will always remember the first moment I tasted an element in a wine that was not wine. The Goundrey 1992 Reserve Shiraz tasted like black pepper. It tasted so much like black pepper that I thought someone had actrually ground it in over the bottle. From that moment on, I had clarity. All of a sudden I knew what I was looking for, and finally believed all the wine-rhubarb out there. Next was asparagus in a Taltarni Sauvignon Blanc. Then lychees in Hugel Gewurztraminer. To this day, I still discover new flavours in wine, and am constantly amazed by what these wine making masters can do with a humble grape.

So you can imagine my disappointment when I arrived in Croatia - a land of perfect sunshine in summer (12 hours per day!), mild winters, the sirocco to blow away the frost in Autumn, the rocky and free draining limestone soil, the history of conquerors from master-wine-making races - and yet, a severe dearth in spectacular, or even consistent wine.

But then, there was a moment in Orsan Restaurant, when I held before me a glass of Grgic Posip.
It was slightly viscous, and swirled in the glass in slow-motion. The colour was vibrant, but not the urine-like yellow of all the other wines I had drunk over the previous week - no, it was tinged with green, like a peridot. And in the heat, pears, lemon blossom and vanilla kept on lifting their way out of the glass. Finally, a Croatian wine breakthrough!

Milkenko Grgic has made wine for Robert Mondavi, and was responsible for shocking the French into the realization that there were other countries in the world that could produce a reasonable drop in a blind tasting known as the "Judgement of Paris" which was later the subject of the film "bottle shock". He produced the 1973 Montelena Chardonnay (the film concentrated on the other wine, the Stag's Leap, which was named best red.)

He started his own vineyard, Grgich Hills in California shortly after (Calling himself Mike, and adding the h on his surname so English speakers would pronounce it properly), which to this day has a cult following. In 1996 he also set up shop back in Croatia, just above the sleepy and beautiful seaside hamlet of Trstenik and is finally bringing the words "Croatia" and "good wine" back together in a sentence.

Trstenik can be found on the Peljesac peninsular, about an hour past Mali Ston. After drinking his Posip, and being unable to find it in the surrounding wine shops (I did find it in Dubrovnik Old Town eventually), I badgered my husband and other members of our party to check out where it came from. This turned into what was probably the best day trip for our holiday, because we also picked up Korcula island (where the Posip is actually grown) and Orebic.

The peninsular is almost an island - only joined to the mainland by a kilometre or so land bridge, itself stretching 60-odd kilometres further into the Adriatic, almost touching the picturesque islands of Korcula and Mljet (very famous in its own right for the national park. I didn't make it there, but have heard it is the prettiest island off Croatia). The entry is bordered by scrubby ranges, which soon part to reveal a central valley filled with green green green, particularly good past Janjina.

The vines begin suddenly, and I almost missed them - no structured rows and trellising here. The area is almost entirely cultivated as bush vines - lucky to have a spike to help the bent and gnarled plants remain upright, let alone a wire to hold the leaves up. They tumble over limestone terraces, and even the road. I was able to taste the grapes - already sweet despite the harvest being at least a month off. It's been a hot summer this year. Olives and small vegetable plots are the only other planned vegetation, and similarly to the cascading and windswept native scrub, they shamble every which way, beautiful in their chaos.

The valley finally found its way to the sea, and we wound our way towards Trstenik. As it was only 10 am, we decided to visit Orebic and Korcula first. I've spoken about Korcula already - a bewithching island with so much more to see than I could in the time. Alone it required at least a full day, maybe two. Orebic would be a good holiday base - nearly halfway between Dubrovnik and Split, close to the Serbian border, and sitting on a strip of bleached stone shores and aqua water.

We visited Grgic on the way home, chirping like excited crickets when we saw the dreamy sign with a label like an art deco landscape. Grgic vines are stacked in neat rows all admiring the view, which at that moment was so glaringly full of colour I have had to turn down the saturation in the photos so you will believe they are real. A boat bobbed in the little cove and we nearly toppled off the wrong side of a hairpin bend while taking it all in.

In Australia, vineyards are geometric sweeping plains in softly undulating terrain. In France, vineyards are pristine and perfectly manicured, accompanying chateaux and ornate wrought iron gates. In Italy they are quaint irregular plots surrounded in fields of different shades of green and gold like a patchwork quilt. But here, the vineyards really are something else.

We stumbled in at 5:10 and lucky enough to find the tail end of the last (or so the cellar manager thought) tasters of the day. Croatian hospitality forced her to do what we knew she didn't want to, and she graciously abided us.

The Posip we tasted again, even though we had met its acquaintance many times already in various restaurants. We were also pleasantly surprised by the Plavac - a deep, red, violet-nosed and tar-berry filled wine, apparently related to Californian Zinfandel (and Italian Primitivo). We bought both, and also a bottle of the Grgich Hills Californian Fume Blanc (also good). The Posip has made it home to Dubai with me, and it sits here, along with a recent vintage of the Montelena Chardonnay that I found in Dubai Duty free on the way home. I wonder if they can still do it without Grgic at the helm...?

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The Grgic Winery is located just above Trstenic - there is a large sign on the road, and it is easily found while winding your way down to the tiny village. There are restaurants in the village - next time we might stop for lunch. It is open from 10am to 5pm and tastings are free (but please buy a bottle - it's really great stuff)

From Orebic you can take a ferry to Korcula - they leave about every 30 minutes (less over lunchtime), and there is also a car ferry and some fairly cheap taxi boats available.

for further reading on the wine, check this out: Wines of  Croatia

Croatia Part 3 - Dining in Dubrovnik

I've told you about the idyllic island trips, and the nightmare on 13th street. Now lets get down to business.

I am a food nomad. I wander the world looking for delicious things to put in my mouth (easy tiger). My holiday is not complete without a culinary expedition, and I preferably have one of these every single day. So what does the Southern Dalmatian coast have to offer?

Seafood, Pizza and Pasta.

Yup, that's about it. For a gluten-free husband who only recently recovered from mussel-derived salmonella, menus in Dalmatia were difficult. The cooking style is almost solely fish cooked in the gradelavanje method (grilled then baked crispy in dalmatian olive oil), or in buzara (garlic, herb and white wine seafood stock). Risottos also feature commonly.

Sea eggs

Nearly every menu is exactly the same - grilled fish, octopus, and steak, followed by white (shellfish) or black (squid-ink) risotto, a variety of shellfish cooked in buzara stock, and then the ubiquitous bland range of pasta and pizza. Accompanied by an overpriced winelist of 99% Croatian wine, 85% of which is oxidised, or has a prominence of volatile acidity, diacetyl or over/underuse of chemicals and preservatives. Then there will be either a $400 bottle of Moet or a $100 bottle of Jacob's creek - just to balance the list.

Interestingly enough, the supermarkets contain no fresh seafood whatsoever. They also contain only a sparse range of vegetables - it appears the nation exists almost entirely on frozen and tinned foods.

So what, and where, do you eat and drink?

taking oysters off the rocks

Firstly, you eat seafood, but you chose it, and your venue carefully. We were fortunate enough to live only 200m walk from what I believe might just be one of the best restaurants in the Dubrovnik area. Konoba Kasar. They bring their oysters and sea eggs (urchins) straight out of the water and onto your plate. The black risotto was the best of all the venues we tasted it at, richly flavoured, aromatic and stocky with no stink, al dente yet creamy, and deep, deep black - not the plates of charcoal-gray lumpy glue we were served at other restaurants. Their white anchovies with capers and lemons were simple, but perfect (every time), the scampi buzara sweet and fragrant, and when we finally got completely sick of the gorgeous seafood, the pastas were a little more inventive than elsewhere. If you click on the link, you may not be able to understand the language, but you can see the smiling face of our wonderful waitress, who refused to let us play cards, but encouraged us to drink as much as we wanted.

Konobia Kasar

Across the bay is the famous Orsan restaurant. When we arrived, our eccentric landlord boasted the guests had included Beyonce and Michael Douglas. He may have even included James Bond at one point, but Malik was prone to excited rambling. Their boat service picked us up from the other side of the bay, and we watched the sun set over our home at Zaton Veleki while they served us icy champagne (yes, real stuff), and introduced us to Grgic Posup (more on that coming in the next post). Lobster salads, grilled local fish, and risottos were good without being spectacular - the gnocchi with shrimp and gorgonzola sauce was much better than it sounds, and the dish of the evening. The bill was a little shock - twice that of Kasar across the bay, and probably not quite as good.

When you finally get sick of the seafood, there is a cracking little tapas bar in the Dubrovnik old town. Lucin Kantun is up one of the alleys off the main drag, and here you can perch cock-eyed on iron chairs struggling with the cobbled hill while young and inexperienced yet friendly waiters serve you reasonably priced wine and champagne. Get in early - before 8pm, the steps were filled with anticipatory diners, who were literally salivating over my lamb kebabs with honey lavender, tender grilled duck breast, and the kids' choice of home-made spring rolls (so much better than I expected - we ordered more for the adults). They pounced on our vacated table like hyenas and only then I saw the desserts on another table - ahh... next time.


Another find in the Old Town was Mea Culpa. Again, down an alley and down another alley, wedged in between another pizza taverna and a thousand year old chapel is the best pizza in Dubrovnik. Take your hand fan in summer, because it's in the bowels of the town, and in such a small space that the fire from the oven bakes the patrons as perfectly as the flakey thin, bubbly dough. It is about as good as it gets. Topping is simple, but this pizza is the kind you eat all the way past the crust - and it's hard to stop licking the saucy napoli left on your sticky phalanges. 


Wine, as I mentioned, is bleh. This may have something to do with the history. Although the Italians and Austrians, and even in the late 1800s the French - all great wine producers - have contributed to the foundations of Croatian wine, the communist system of Yugoslavia brought a quantity rather than quality element to production, an the subsequent war destroyed much of the vine plantings. Many Croatians drink their wine diluted, and once you sample the table wine, you too will understand why. 

We did discover a delightfully crisp and aromatic white, Matosevic Malvasia Alba on the first night, and a couple of fair roses further on, with our greater preference resting on the Krauthaker and Batic. We also realised that it is best to avoid Stolno Vino (table wine) if one wants to retain brain cells, and stick to the Kvalitetno Vino (Quality wine), and if possible always opt for Vrhunsko Vino - that's the really good stuff.

Our greatest wine find was Grgic (if you roll the 'r', and pronounce the 'c' as a 'ch' you might just sound like a local). We started with his Posup at Orsan, and again later at Kasar (for half the price). It's a wine local to the area, and had quite a bit to do with our second trip to the Mali Ston Peninsular. My next post will go through our intrepid search for this famous wine, and the beautiful surrounds. He is also responsible for a spectacular Plavac (pronounced Plavats) red wine, superior to the second runner of the region, Postup.

After years of travelling to Europe and partaking in the spectacular food and wine, I have to admit that this part of Croatia still disappoints for me. But I do not discount it as a food destination in the future. The limestone hills and high sunshine hours in summer promise good wine vintages, and as it moves closer to a merging with the EEC, hopefully better technique and quality control will see its way over the border - the land is there, and the sea is the cleanest in the world - there really is little excuse. Years of war will always set agriculture back, and not only that, Croatia has recently seen such a high influx in tourists that it appears they are struggling to find a balance between their own food identity and the desires of tourism. Hopefully they will soon realise that it is their job to tell the tourists what they want, not the other way around.

So, a couple of highlights in a fairly dim area, but let's just give it five years and see what happens.

The Defeated Army - travelling with children and unlucky 13s

Triskaidekaphobia - the phobia of the number 13. Methinks I may partake in a little of that...

It's the number Judas took when he sat at the table for Jesus' last supper. Loki - Thor's evil brother was the 13th God in Viking mythology, it is also believed by them that if 13 people gather, one will die within the year. The ancient Persians believed that the world will collapse at the commencement of the 13th Zodiac, and also leave their homes on the 13th day of the Persian Calendar (Sizdah Bedar). All the Knights Templar were arrested on Friday the 13th, 1307. Many buildings do not contain a 13th floor. And a bakers' dozen is just too hard to fit in a bag.



When we initally booked our holiday in Croatia, on the Dalmation coast just north of Dubrovnik, there were to be 15 of us. But my Mum went and got very sick, thereby spoiling the numerology, and reducing our holiday party to 13. This group consisted of my family - me, Hambone, kids Lion and Goldilocks, then Lucrecia's family - her husband Jorge, and young daughters Lulu and Angel, then Jewelery, her husband Err, and son Brosnan, and finally, our long-time travelling companions, Leclerc and Jimny. Maybe we should have taken Mum's illness as a warning...

The first two days progressed very well.

Victim 1)
Day three, we had an incredible lunch alongside the glittering water on Zaton bay, eating oysters, drinking fairly reasonable rose and overall getting quite inebriated in the sunshine. My little Goldilocks was starting to perform a helicopter dance in the centre of the restaurant, simultaniously screaming out "I loooove boooooobies!", and so I nipped off early to deliver him home. We were in the door only two minutes when he tripped over the doorframe of the bathroom, quite unmiraculously landing exactly on a small piece of very sharp wall corner and splitting his head open. I had to call all the drunkards up from their reverie, because I do that mummy-fainting-when-children-bleed-all-over-the-floor thing, and needed someone to help me figure out if it needed stitches. Trip to the hospital followed, suture bandage applied, and all returned a just a little worse for wear.

Victims 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
Day four, we took a road trip to Mali Ston, a town on the land-bridged island that links Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina's adriatic territory, famous for its untouched nature, picturesque crumbling architecture and oyster and mussel farms. Of course, we ate oysters and mussels. At 2am, you can guess what happened, and myself, Jimny, Lucrecia, Jorge and Hambone all spent several hours driving the porcelain bus. This also wiped out day 5, which was spent in entirety watching "Gnomeo and Juliet" on the laptops with the kids, who were bribed continuously with chocolate and chippies to leave Mummies and Daddies alone.

Victim 7)

Day six, we were semi-recovered. We had planned on taking a boat into Dubrovnik Old Town, wandering around in the sun all day, then finishing off with a sumptuous seafood dinner perched atop the ancient walls before getting the boat back home. But the thought of slushing around, then eating more seafood (which we could still taste in reverse), then slushing around again turned us off. We opted for pizza at Cavtat, a post-card tourist village about 20km south of Dubrovnik, very close to the airport, and absolutely chock-a-block with British tourists. The water was crystal clear, aquamarine, and called to us like there may have been sirens beneath the waves. We soon discovered that Lulu had only just escaped horrendous damage from a sea urchin due to the last-minute purchase of reef booties, so we all moved to the pier to jump off.

I rested in the shade with Goldilocks, who was not allowed to get his head wet, while the others walked down to find the perfect place. We played tickles and princesses, and then I heard a scream. I ignored it. Every mother knows her own childs' scream, and this was definitely a girl. Then it came again. Angel? Lulu? I thought, now looking up in terror, to find my own husband walking back with my Lion in his arms, and blood everywhere. There was a gap where his front teeth should have been - but the only other thing I could see was blood, blood, blood. Hambone did the mummy fainting thing while I went into some obscure form of organised shock, and called an ambulance.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in the Dubrovnik hospital, which to me still resembles an immediate post-war state. No numbing cream, no dissolvable stitches, no sympathy from nurses and doctors who have probably tended war victims. Finally we managed to pull the wonderful Dr Olav (oral surgeon) off the water-polo field, and he found one tooth pushed entirely up into the gum, and another twisted to the side. An x-ray showed the nerves were still intact, and so with a little adjustment and quite a lot more screaming, he managed to pull it halfway down and straighten everything.

When we got home, we discovered that Leclerc had also stepped on a sea urchin, but without the reef booties, was left with seven black spikes in her foot, and plenty of pain upon pressure. Err suggested that he had heard that urinating on it might help, and offered his services. Leclerc declined graciously.

So much for bad things happening in threes...

Victims 9, 10)
Day 7, Angel danced into a cactus by the pool whilst performing her 4yo excerpt from Swan Lake. This was followed by ear-drum piercing screams and squirms whilst Lucrecia and Jorge extracted all 100 prickles. One. By. One.

Jewelery also succumbed to the seafood salmonella, repeating our own performances, but possibly to greater degree. Jewelery had the added stress of hearing her father had fallen back home, and was not in a good state, and so woke up the following morning with a back full of pins and needles and crunching tension in her neck.

Victim 11, and a double-whammy for victim 9)
Day 10. Montenegro road trip. Lulu showered us all with her lunch on the road between Njegusi and Cekanje.

When we returned home Angel danced into the cactus again.

Victim 12)
Day 11. Brosnan did not get out of bed all day. Salmonella round three.

Victim 13)
Day 13. Our final victim, Err, stepped on a sea urchin while he swung himself out of the water onto the pier to narrowly avoid an oncoming boat. When he got back up to the house, we realised there were exactly 17 spikes digging deeply into the sole of his foot. Leclerc offered to urinate on them, but Err graciously declined. Instead, Leclerc and Jewlery played operation with tweezers, nail scissors and a needle. Leclerc admits now they probably did more harm than good, as her spikes worked their way out naturally.

Day 14, we sat at the cafe beside the Zaton Veleki pier, drinking iced coffees and staring off at the sea, while we waited for the time to tick over and send us to the airport. Our landlord (More on Malik later, he really was something) appeared before us in the tiny port, struggling with his boat's canopy. When he saw us, particularly Goldilocks and Lion with their wounds, he came over and said.

"Whoh Sheez, lairt me to boy you a dreenk. You lerk like ze diffeated aremy!"

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After all this, one might think that I have painful memories of Croatia, but it's quite the opposite. When I look back, I just see that water, shining with clarity like a sapphire. I see the limestone hills, and the architecture that has been crafted out of them, so perfectly it appears God himself has sculpted homes for his children, contrasting that white with the blue of the sea so glamorously. It is said that the Adriatic is the bluest sea in the world, and I believe it.

I remember a friend once sharing his joy with my husband, when he returned from the first holiday in 8 years of travelling with his family that had not required a trip to the doctor, and this helps me put things in perspective - it was not Croatia that damaged us, it is just our life, the perils and the joys, the thrills and the lows. All these things (bar the sea urchin) could have happened at home.

Despite the drama, the children recovered as quickly as they went down, throwing themselves into water activities, island exploring, the pursuit of the perfect lemon gelato and the best vista to eat it upon. Watching them, it was hard not to join them in their carpe diem attitude, and with the perfect weather and friends to share it with, we would all jump in and do it again.

Except for the Lion teeth incident...

The Black Mountain and playing the proverbial 'tourist'

Montenegro

Up until 2006, I thought it was a deliciouly bitter herbal digestif - one of those drinks you drink when you think you can't drink any more. It helps you find your second stomach - the one that has room for three more glasses of red wine and a good deal of munchies. It is in fact an 'Amaro', and disapointingly, does not come from Montenegro at all, but Bologna (or perhaps not disappointingly - it's one of my favourite places in the world).

But the Montenegro I can actually drink up all day is the country. On the recent jaunt to Croatia, our entire shared house (13 of us - more on unlucky 13s later) hired a bus to take us over the border for a very touristy look-see.



From Dubrovnik, it's only about an hour to the border, and on a bus, the crossing is quick and painless. Immediately past the post, the geography changes. It's lusher, greener, softer, and after ten days of the jutting limestone, olives and scrub of the Dalmatian coast, it's a welcome change.

Soon after, you hit the shores of the Bay of Kotor, a UNESCO listed site - a sweeping and twisted bay the shape of a uranium logo, with its mouth at Herzeg Novi, which apparently has beauty, but which was obscured to us by grotty apartment towers strung together by laundry. We didn't stop here, instead progressing to the central heads just past Kamenari. Bizarrely, in the 36°C day, to compliment the view of ancient Perast and the islands of 'Our lady of the rocks' and St George, car-boot vendors offered us thick woolen coats and hats. Beautiful work, but just the thought of trying them on made me ill.

From here, the bus wound its way around the entire northern end of the lake, past bathers on shallow sandy shores and bobbing pontoons, skirting the pre-mentioned Perast and islands. I looked wistfully out the window here - taxi boats were taking tourists the the man-made lady of the rocks (R.K.C. Gospa od Škrpjel), built up stone by stone in the 1400s by faithful sailors who were saved by a vision of Mary at this spot in the most violent of winter storms. 

Instead we stopped at Kotor - and no dissapointment here. With its moated city walls, shaded tiny alleys, thousand year old churches and dramatic mountain backdrop. Lunch was a disappointment, but we were revived by kooky street art and excellent gelato. The beauty of Kotor continued even after we left the city, when the driver stopped at the 'Montenegro Eye', a position on the mountain behind Kotor, where the entire bay of Kotor can be seen, including the red rooftops and spires of the village itself (and the cruise-ships alongside dwarfing them)

Our guide took us into the mountains to try the famous 'black wine' (Vranec) of Montenegro, stopping at the town of Njegusi. This red/black wine is like rocket fuel with an atomic heart and should be avoided at all costs. The white was not much better, and the beer only just drinkable. I ordered a 'Montenegro', and the waiter stared at me blankly. I got a lemon soda and drank with the children. The regional ham however was very good - similar to prosciutto, if slightly less aged, and served with rustic bread and stinky sheeps' milk cheese in slabs of salty goodness. They sold it off wooden carts in the street in vacuum packs with pretty jars of very good regional honey and more redundant woolens.

The road continued, twisting like a corkscrew that has been through the garbage disposal unit, and eventually the children started throwing up. Our stop in Cetinje was shortened because we had to spend half an hour on a narrow roadside hosing off the green and bespeckled ones and putting them in their bathers and covering the soiled bus seats with beach towels. So we waved at the leafy boulevards fringed in ornate embassies, said goodbye to the museum, and continued on...

On to the vista of St Stephens, also known as Sveti Stefan. This is the place we would have stayed the night if we were all millionaires and had no vomitous children. The island has been turned into a luxury and award winning resort by the Aman group, a group so 'in', they also have "amanjunkies". But not for us. Next stop, Budva (bood-vah), slowing only to take photos at James Bond's 'Hotel Splendid' (Montenegro's claim to fame in Casino Royale - forgetting the scandal that showed it was actually filmed in the Czech Republic)

We had saved the swimming town until last. This was supposed to be the highlight - "the centre of Montenegro's tourism, and is well known for its sandy beaches". Our guide dropped us just 100m walk from the entrance of the old town - 2500 years - not too shabby. Founded by Cadmus and refined by Venetians (for 400 years from 1420) - repeller of the Ottomans, yet conquored by the Austrian Empire, and faithfully restored after a tragic earthquake in 1979. The city is small and quite picturesque - the beach less so. The term "sandy" is as coarsely used as the pebbles themselves, and the water so densely populated it is developing its own population of litter-spawn and dead bats.

We retreated to the cool "MB Ice Bar" - just inside the ancient walls, with swinging chairs, spray-fans and a cocktail list as large as a summer issue of Cosmo. We drank indecently coloured concotions and the kids refueled with triple-layer chocolate mouse and trifle in long glasses, occasionally slipping back out to the beach for a cool shower.

On the way out, we saw the real beach - further around to the west. But no matter, we were pooped. The bus took the ferry shortcut over from Lepetane to Kamenari, and then we scooted back home to Zaton. 

It was a big day for me, such a lazy tourist, but worth it - if for nothing more than the extra stamp in the passport. The tour is fairly common, and can be booked through the local tourist office. Ours was with Adriatica, and worked out at less than $60 per adult for the day, excluding food. We were able to tailor our own tour because we could take the whole mini-bus, but it is possible to join a larger tour for less. 

Kotor Clock Tower

Kotor art

Sveti Stefan

Dude in Kotor

 

Croatia Part One - Islands

We listen to progressive house emanating from speakers in trees. We drink Havana club and lime. A disco ball rotates on a threadbare length of fisherman's rope strung between tarpaulins. We pay by the drink and by the chair. Everybody speaks in Eastern European dialects, never tripping over their mouthfuls of consonants, appearing always suave and in charge. The bodies are 90% gorgeous, reflecting the island's own persona - pretty and fun. People drink beer on the beach. Everyone smokes. Anybody in more than a bikini and a layer of sand is overdressed.

I'm on the island of Lopud, my favourite of the Elaphite archipelago. Photo opportunities abound - both spectacular landscape and quirky macro. Jon bon jovi's boat floats 200m offshore - or so Cap'n Jack tells us, but we have learned to take the statements of joyful Croatians with a grain of Dalmatian salt.  Who cares? We don't need a rock star to make this place special. It's one of the best places on the Adriatic to hit a sandy beach. In fact, one of the ONLY places.





Half an hour before happy hour, we were idling on the back beach with a thousand other participants in our special secret. Rustic cabanas lined the perimeter between sand and flora, strung together in c-grade fashion, appearing like the thump of the pumping base might just make them topple. We parked on the sun-lounges, where we had to pay for the seat, the changing room and the drinks, but hey, when you have your personal pool boy to bring you smoothies on tap, I'm not complaining.


We caught a golf cart there and back - there are two sides to the island and a whopping great hill in the middle, and only the initiated know that the back beach is the better place to swim. The rogues took our twenty Kuna each, but we were happy for the loss as we climbed higher and higher, further and further on, with the pitiful walkers becoming more sweaty and crumpled as the 35°C day beat on them and their two kilometer hilly path. Our driver on the return dropped us 100m out of town, charging us full price, but offering a smile and a pat on the bum for the inconvenience of taking an unlicenced vehicle.

Soon we return to the boat. A timber vessel furnished simply with shade and flagons of wine. The Captain is partying on the cruiser next-door, drinking beer with girls in bikinis and smoking cigarillos. He takes his time returning, and even when he does, he captains the boat with one hand on the tiller and another around a plastic mug of 'Vrisko Vino', vile stuff that we also consume. But despite the taste of the awful wine, we smile like we are drinking ambrosia, sing along with the Beatles soundtrack he has chosen, and enjoy the view over the bluest water in the world. Seriously one of the best days ever.

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Cap'n Jack took us on a tour of the three main islands in the Elaphite group, so named due to it's deer shape (no, Elaphite does not translate as elephant, funnily enough.) Lopud (Low-pud) was by far my favourite, but the others - Koločep (kol-oh-chep) and Šipan (Ship-an) - were also stunning. Tours of this group of islands are very easily available from Dubrovnik and surrounding ports such as Mlini, Cavtat and Zaton (our port), and can be booked through the tourist offices. We paid 300 Kuna per adult (about $55) and that included a lunch of grilled fish and salad along with the unforgettable wine. Rate for a sun lounger and umbrella is around 15 kuna, but this varies from beach to beach. The bar we ended up at charged 35, but the drinks were cheap, the view incredible, and the music inspiring.

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Another island that cannot be missed is Korčula (Kor-choo-la), Croatia's rival to up-market Capri. It's a short ferry ride from Orebić (Or-air-bits), which is a crystal clear stony beach on the Peljesac Peninsula about half-way between Dubrovnik and Split (we did a day trip from Zaton, near Dubrovnik). The old town is carefully preserved, and the chalky-white limestone of the turrets and four-story homes is cooling and enchanting. There is a strip of restaurants on the east side of the old town that catch the breeze under thick and shady pines - a welcome retreat from the heat - and after lunch one can step straight down to the swimming platforms below. In the centre of town there is a market on most days, and ambling around the narrow streets is easy - there are so many beautiful things to catch the eye. It is rumoured this is the birthplace of Marco Polo, although the footprint his Venetian republic have left in this town is more evident than proof of this fact. The island is quite large, so if you wanted to see more than the old town, it would be recommended to get the car ferry - from Orebić, or one of many other places (link). 

Next time I come to Croatia, I'm basing myself on a boat. More photos below to tempt you to do the same...

 

 

 

 

Dog days

The extended and sultry days at the peak of summer. Generally accompanied by a lack of progress.

I have been AWOL.

I am lost in a haze of sun, sea mist, lacklustre energy. I am awoken daily, several hours after rising from bed when I plunge myself into the icy adriatic. I then proceed to send myself to sleep again, by the way of the gentle swaying of a dinghy, the heat of the sun on my pale limbs, and copious amounts of other relaxants such as alcohol and smooth tunes.

Croatia is a postcard, and so to match my current mood, I will simply send you some of my favourites. I expect to tune in some time soon with more details, but for the moment, Ja ću gledati na moru...

  

Živjeli!