Korcula

Korcula

The island of Korcula was colonized in the 4th century BC by the Greeks. The island name comes from Black Corfu, since the trees look black from a distance and the island reminded them of Corfu. The walls around the town date from the 11th century. About half the walls and seven of the original twelve towers remain. We entered by the Lion Gate, built in the 14th century. The town is air-conditioned. The narrow western streets are straight allowing the summer wind to blow through town, while the eastern streets are curved to block the winter winds. We visited the Bishop's Palace which is the treasury museum filled with the interesting art objects of the city. On the opposite side of the street was the Town museum once Gabrielli's palace, a typical nobleman's home. Here are displayed stone carving and ship building tools which were typical of the area. Finally, we went into the Cathedral of St. Mark. The building is quite strange since it is not symmetrical. The altar is quite beautiful with a recently restored painting by Tintoretto. The town claims to be the birthplace of Marco Polo (disputed by Venice). We learned that while Marco Polo could speak several languages, he couldn't write. While in the prison in Genoa, he began telling stories about strange things like ice cream, sextants, gun powder, and rockets, which were written down by others. The town is quite small, you can walk around the walls in about 10 minutes versus Dubrovnik which took an hour.

Altar in St. Mark's

Just before lunch, Petra gave us a botanical lesson. She wandered around the town and the woods nearby and in about ninety minutes collected about 25 herbs: sage, rosemary, anise, mint, oregano, thyme, and capers. I found Carob to be the most interesting, it has a taste close to chocolate and was used as a sweetener before chocolate. It's seed was also used as a weight from which the term carat appeared. After lunch we took a walk above the town to get a beautiful view of the old town.



The Lion's Gate