Korcula (3 August 2014)
you can add Korcula to the list of cities (towns?) I only heard of because cruise ships stop there.
the last time i was in Croatia was back in 2009 cruising down the Danube from Budapest. Vukovar was a rather sombre place to visit, still bearing the scars of the Yugoslav Civil War.
Korcula in contrast was a much happier place. A holiday island.
woke up early enough to catch the sunrise.
this was to be our only tender port and i was a little worried over how long a wait it would be to get ashore. glad to say it went relatively smoothly and we were in town well in time for 10am mass.
the main church in the old town is called St Mark's as well. The congregation may look a little sparse in the photo but that's because we were so early. By the time mass started it was standing room only. There seemed to be lots of locals of all ages, but my sense was that more than half were visitors and a big chunk of those were from our ship.
After mass we had a wander about town looking through the souvenir shops. They seemed to specialise in pearl jewellery. But when we asked where the pearls came from the shop assistant politely told us Japan and Singapore! Apparently Singapore is a source of fine pearls!
After discovering that an orange juice costs twice as much if you sit down and have a waiter serve it to you than if you buy it from the counter to take away, and wandering through the town and along the waterfront it was time to head back to the ship. The tenders were waiting for us and once fully loaded promptly headed back to the ship.
i have to confess that after having lunch in Britannia i snuck up to the lido buffet in search of sushi. i didn't find any but had some indian food and a fruit jello to keep me going until tea at 3:30pm.
one of the tours that were being offered at the marina was a sort of semi-submersible glass sided boat ride where you got an underwater view of the bay. unfortunately by the time we got to the stand all the trips before our all aboard time were fully-booked. the red boat in the photo is the glass sided vessel.
on to another day at sea.
back to a day at sea.