Today’s agenda was to move on from Hvar to our last island visit of Korčula so we got moving right away, making breakfast in the apartment (turkey sausages on a stick, salad and oranges). We met with the host to check out and he offered to take all of our luggage to the ferry dock at the time we needed to leave - wow! This left us with nothing to carry throughout our day of exploring the island...so nice.
Soon after we drove out of Hvar we found a turn off the highway that looked promising for a beach, so we made our way down a steep “road” to a little bit of parking area. We walked a short distance through some trees and found steps down to this bay - surreal!
The beach was called Malo Zaraće and it had a really rocky bottom, which was unfortunate because we had left our water shoes behind, so it was challenging to get in. As we awkwardly waded deeper, another swimmer (English speaking) said “be careful not to step on the sea urchins - I stepped on one when I was young and had a fever for a week”. Good tip, but now we were paranoid about walking anywhere on the bottom.😬
We swam in deeper water for a while then found a more sandy path back to shore. There were very few people and the colors were crazy-blue...hard to describe how striking the scenery is here!
After drying off we made our way back to the main road and headed toward Stari Grad, allegedly the oldest continuously occupied town in Croatia. This was an even more charming old town where we found a great pasta restaurant for lunch - the spaghetti bolognese was arguably the best we’d even eaten. Following lunch we searched the nearby coastline for another private beach and found this barely marked dirt road where Tammy met a new friend :-)
A short distance later we found a well traveled parking space with a trail, so followed in a few hundred yards to this completely isolated rocky inlet - heaven!
We enjoyed this area for quite a long time, then reluctantly dried off and got back on the road toward Jelsa, where we had to return the car. We still had a couple hours to burn so we scouted the outskirts of Jelsa for more places to play. Along one of the roads we found this public beach (had to pay for parking) and took the opportunity to swim again in this warm, shallow inlet. Is was a little busy but we found a shaded spot to lay and played in the water looking at the fish around us and what we think were sea cucumbers on the bottom - it was so clear.
Then we had to come back to reality again and fill/return the car, which ended up being disturbingly casual. We walked a bit in the town after giving the car back, then headed over to catch the ferry.
We arrived in Korčuna near sunset and were greeted by this scene of Old Town Korčuna from the ferry...
We opted to just take a taxi to the apartment in nearby village of Lumbarda since it was late and we didn’t see any open rental shops. As it goes on small islands, the driver knew the hosts of the apartment so called them for us on the way, but they didn’t answer. It turns out they were at church as it was the Assumption of Mary holiday in Croatia. The driver dropped us at the apartment and we just waited on the dock in front, spending the next 20 minutes looking at the small bay. Here is the front of their place - Villa Cvita:
When the hosts arrived they were very apologetic and quickly got us into the apartment and acquainted with the amenities. They were so thoughtful that they had prepared this fruit plate from their garden and wine that they had made themselves...
...and these cute swan towels.
It was late so we gladly said goodnight to the host and took showers to purge ourselves from the salt we’d collected during our day of swimming. 😃
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