Korcula, a cute island in the middle of the Adriatic

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This is the first stop of our Venitian adventure...you are going to tell me, what has Croatia to do with Venice...the answer is simple, read your history books. So first, few kilometers from the north-east of Hungary to the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. We did a little stop to the Lake Balaton...I was curious to see the "Hungarian Sea". I'm not really impressed to be honest. To me, it looks more like a succession of basic concrete three stars hotels....not really sure I want to spend many days in these concrete blocks!

Than on to Croatia, not much to see from the highway, till we left it just after Split. Ideal would have been to take the ferry from Split to Vela Luka on Korcula Island. Well, we were still 80km from the port at the time the ferry left, no worries as we had no booking. Next, trying our chance further south, with this time a ferry to Korcula. Well...we saw the ferry, it left right at the time we arrived in the little port of Dvernik. My only option was to drive all the way through. We made it on time for the last ferry to Korcula...but on time mean we arrived at 11pm for the 0.30 ferry...so time to kill...which I would have prefered to spend in a bed. Next, you arrive on Korcula Island...the plan was to reach Vela Luka 50km away. We did it around 2am. Leslie was already sleeping deep for hours in the back of the car, so not too many worries, except this time, we had no hotel bookings at all....and it is high season!

First lodging attemp was a room in a B&B...checked, no way...than we finally found the Dalmatia hotel. Little basic 2/3 stars right on the port in the middle of town...cute, clean, reasonnable, ok...good for 2 nights...and at 3am in bed. 7am wake up...to go to dive...Ma'ri gave up on that one as she did not feel well that morning...she may have done a good choice. I've never dive in Europe, and now I know why. I did two dives...and trust me...it is not cheap here...with a bunch of guys who may have been certified, but had no idea of what they were doing.

The water here is cold...we went down to 15 degrees....in a 5mm plus a 3mm shorty...trust me, this is cold. Rock formations where very nice, there was some new nudibranches for me...but very few fishes and very few corals. Here they think Red Sea is great, I found Red Sea average...but was happy to have only scheduled one day diving...15 degrees water...this is cold. But hey, I can now say that I have dived in Europe...and this is my 25th country in terms of diving...going to reach 30 soon.... But I must admit, the visibilty was pretty nice with at least 30 meters...

So we stayed in the little town of Vela Luka...very cute, a nice bay...and the best part is that it does not feel at all crowded with tourists. Ok, to be honest I would be bored to hell after 4 days here. We stay two nights, and it was perfect.

On our second day, we went to Korcula to spend the afternoon. The Old town is supposed to be less crowded than Dubrovnik...it is considered as the little sister of Dubrovnik, but nicer as way less crowded. It has also a direct link with Marco Polo, as he seems to have launched his expeditions from here (not really sure about the actual historic facts though!).

Next morning, on the road again, South to where you know ...Dubrovnik. We took the ferry first. We did not stop to see the Walls of Ston, but they did look impressive. So for Dubrovnik, coming very soon, a seriously impressive city.

Croatia, great food also. Leslie is more and more open to discoveries...and this time, he is on the mussels....his Grand-Dad will be happy to read that Leslie loves mussels! Ok, so for Leslie, it was mussels ar diner time, an ice cream during the day....same thing for us...plus the fishes...

So next entry coming very soon, from a land where it is sunny all the time...at least in the South of Croatia!

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