from Dublin to........Mirissa, Sri Lanka: Mini Dubrovnik, Korcula Island (Croatia)

Between Split and Dubrovnik (the common booze cruise route) lies Korcula Island, a mid-sized island full of vineyards (well known for its Grk and Posip wine), olive groves and plenty of tiny villages scattered all over that you can walk between (some anyway). Sounded like a great place to spend a few days recovering from Dubrovnik's night-life.

This island (and Korcula town) seem to have a much shorter tourist season than othera as it was very quiet when I was there (start of October) and it was all but impossible to find a bar with some life in it. It does mean that you do get attentive service at restaurants.

Stayed four nights as I had planned plenty of day trips around the island to take in the beaches, wine and agrotourism restaurants (producing typical regional food using local ingredients, often organic).

View from small cafe that bus stopped at on way to Korcula

One half of Korcula

The Old Town

Korcula Harbour

Swimming spot off Old Town wall

City Gate and a pair of legs

- AFL Grand Final Day and Lumbarda town – Up damn early for first bounce at around 6:40am. My only means of watching the game was through the internet radio until half time, then scooting across town to the only pub/café that seemed to have Eurosport 2 which opened at 8am. The small hiccup in the plan was that the chick who was opening up at 8am arrived 30 mins late so I basically missed the entire 3rd quarter waiting out the front. Partially forgave her when the final quarter started and I had TV footage at last – very exciting. I was the only one in the bar. Ordered a coffee and then a beer and it was game on. Great win. Another beer to celebrate the victory please! As the medal were being handed presented the bar chick turned off the sound (not happy again) but then the coverage ceased altogether – women’s tennis was apparently more entertaining.

After a quick wander around town, I caught the bus to the nearby Lumbarda (it has two sandy beaches, allegedly the only ones on the island – don’t believe this). By the tie I arrived, lunch was going to be really late which wouldn’t leave too much swimming time.

Feral Restaurant is one of the better and more popular places in town (there aren’t really that many to begin with). It’s a 10 min walk along the waters edge out of the town centre. Their specialty was crumbed octopus (very good). Don’t order the fish soup – very average and not the ‘brodet’ style soup/stew I was hoping for. Disappointingly the better wines (Fides) from that area were only available by the bottle. The house white wine was a little rough sadly.

The best sandy beach was a hell of a hike away. Didn’t make it and ended up swimming at one around from the mariner (conveniently has a beach café on it). Believe it is called Przina beach.

When the sun disappeared I headed to the pub to kill some time watching a Croatian soccer match before the last bus arrived.

Adio Mare Restaurant, right in the heart of the Korcula Old Town, is a decent bet. Good service, reasonable menu (watch the price of fish though) and some local specialties too. Ordered the small fried fish as a starter (great, but must have been almost 50 of the suckers and they weren’t tiny either). Main was a sloppy looking mess of roasted beef in a sweet stew – Croatian-style. Tasty. Rolled out of there content.

AFL Grand Final Day - it was all happening there!

Lumbarda

- NRL Grand Final Day and Badija Island – What a crap sport to listen to on the radio. A more respectable 8am rise for that though. Breakfast was from Cukarin, a small shop selling a limited selection of local desserts/sweets and other random condiments. You have to try the klasunis (filled with a grape and almond mixture with a possible hint of candied orange peel) and an almondreta (an almond meal ball with a slightly sticky and sweet centre. Both so good.

Took the water-taxi 15-minutes to Badija Island, the closest to Korcula. Not much there other than a café/bar, a path that takes around 45 minutes to walk around the entire island and a few swimming spots. Legged it around the island to the main swimming hole (a pebble beach) as I was running out of time…..again. Great spot. Watch for sea-urchins though. The locals clear the shallows each year of them at the major swimming locations (by throwing them into the deeper water rather than killing them) but they keep coming back of course. Great spot to spend half a day – sun disappears around 4pm though on this beach, blocked by the pine trees. Note: Sea-urchins are an indicator of clean water so they aren't all bad news.

Excellent sweets store

Almondreta and Klasuni

View from the beach on Badija Island

- Hike from Racisce to Pupnat – Bought some more treats from the patisserie for the walk. Went to the tourist office to double check the route I was planning to take was ok. She pointed me towards a board which had all the walks on the island marked out. My route was there. Re-assuring. Looks only to be 5-6km, uphill though.

Caught the bus to Racisce, wandered around this very small, quiet fishing village quickly and headed off on my hike. There is a well-know (and expensive) agrotourism restaurant just on the fringe of Pupnat, Konoba Mate, that I wanted to get lunch at. Lunch service ends at 2pm.

After a kilometre of walking along a narrow back road I took a right up an even smaller road through the olive groves. This road ended and a small path led into the bush. According to the map, the path follows a valley initially and then rises to around 350 metres to the town of Pupnat. Easy.

The walking path wasn't particularly well defined at the start. There was evidence of trodden grass as I was quite sure I was at least on the right path. The map had elevation levels on it so I knew which valley the was in. After no more than 30 metres the path became large rocks, awkward to walk on. This didn't last long thank god as it was slow going. A rocky path turned to dirt, overgrown with small trees but nothing too bad. I grabbed a stick to help push them away. It was now very warm and humid in the scrub and I wasn't going anywhere in a hurry. 5km was now looking a long way. A bit further along the path was greeted with telephone/electricity wires running along it at hand-holding level. Ducked under these so I could continue. It was getting even more overgrown now and difficult to follow. There was no signs of usage on the path now and I had only walked perhaps 300-500 metre along it. This was going to take me hours. I persisted for another 50 metres until it became impossible. What kind of hiking trail is this? Hadn't been used in at least 2-3 years. Turned back, hot and sweaty already. Looked I was going to be stuck in Racisce for the day.

Lunch at Bistro Cin Cin (octopus stew....where was the bread???) and then a swim at the deserted pebble beach 15-20 mins walk out of town. The next bus wasn't until 7:40pm. A few take-away beers on the mariner later observed an Australian yacht docked where it probably shouldn't have been tell a local trying to drop some passengers off where to go (arrogant pricks - Cinque Star was their boat....for sale for only US$8.5M and dropping - someone throw in a lowball offer). Couldn't work out who they were. Freo boat. Nearly missed the bus back when I went to pay for a drink.