Thursday 7 June 2012

Stroud to North Nibley: Day 13 of the South West Odyssey (English Branch)

The South West Odyssey was a long distance walk.
Five like-minded people started in 2008 from the Cardingmill Valley in Shropshire and by walking three days a year finished at Start Bay on the South Devon Coast in May 2019.

Gloucestershire

Stroud District

The Cotswolds is designated an ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty,’ but it is not just nature that makes the Cotswolds special, the towns and villages built of the honey coloured local stone also play their part. At least most of them do, but ‘most’ does not include Stroud. If the wealth of the Cotswolds was based on wool, somewhere had to be the mill town, and that somewhere was Stroud.

After spending our final day last year walking in a big circle round the town, this year started for Francis, Brian, Lynne and me with a night in a Stroud B & B. We dined at the Carpenter’s Arms in Westrip on a hill on the western edge of the town. Viewed from above, surrounded by green hills bathed in evening sunshine, you can be fooled into thinking Stroud is another Cotswold gem. And it was not just Stroud that flattered to deceive; Wednesday evening’s sunshine would soon be replaced by Thursday’s cold front.

Day 13 was a triumph of the meteorologist’s art. The promised rain arrived before dawn and kept going with hardly a break until well after dusk. Winds gusting to 60 mph were promised for the night and for Friday. The first 11 days of the Odyssey had been walked in sunshine. Day 12, 'Walking round Stroud', had broken the spell and a year later it remained fragmented. Alison arrived on a bus and we met Mike outside the garage in Ryeford, in the ribbon development connecting Stroud to Stonehouse, where we had finished last year. Lynne took a picture of us standing in the rain, then drove off in a nice dry car.

Mike, Brian, Me, Alison & Francis at Ryeford

We set off south towards our goal for the day, The Black Horse Inn in North Nibley. It is a wonderful name, North Nibley; it is worth the journey just to be able to say ‘I have been to North Nibley’. It may even be worth the journey in the rain.

Crossing the Stroudwater Canal and the A419 we had hardly left the urban area when we reached Stanley Mills (a building not a bloke) on the edge of Leonard Stanley (a village not a bloke) or was it King’s Stanley, two settlements which seem to have difficulty telling themselves apart? Dark and satanic may have been overstating it for Stanley Mills, but it was certainly the sort of building we could have seen much further north.

Stanley Mills, husband of Gladys

From here we followed the Cotswold Way as it progressed through sodden vegetation....

Through sodden vegetation

.....and beside soaked fields to the village of Middleyard where we started to climb the Cotswold escarpment.

and beside soaked fields to Middleyard

Half way up Pen Hill the path turns to follow the scarp, contouring through the thick woodlands. Normally I would moan about the trees interrupting the views across the Severn Valley, but there was only mist to see and we were grateful for the shelter.

Discussing the route in Pen Wood

We passed an enclosure containing three of Gloucestershire's more distinctive natives. The Gloucester Old Spot is one of the oldest recognised breeds of pigs. Once ‘endangered’ their high quality meat has resulted in growing popularity and the Rare Breeds Trust now classifies them only as ‘minority’. They are renowned for their intelligence, so the notice at the end of the field offering half pigs for sale and quoting a price per kilo seemed insensitive. What if one of the pigs can read?

Gloucester Old Spots

The path eventually climbs to the top of the scarp through Buckholt Wood and we emerged on the grassy summit near Nympsfield Long Barrow, one of a line of barrows along this edge. Built some 5000 years ago, excavations have uncovered twenty three bodies. It was much ploughed over in medieval times and many stones were recycled in later buildings so most of what can now be seen is reconstructed.

Nympsfield Long Barrow

An outbreak of picnic tables speckles the flat grassland between the barrow and the viewpoint on Coaley Peak. Francis and Alison made valiant use of one – don’t they look happy? – the rest of us drank our coffee skulking in the partial shelter of a hawthorn hedge.

Happy campers on Coaley Peak

The plan had been to follow the summit to beyond the wonderfully named Hetty Pegler’s Tump – another long barrow – but the rain redoubled its efforts and the wind started blowing it in our faces, so we deserted the exposed summit for the sanctuary of the woods. The path was not far below the top of the scarp but was well sheltered, even when it climbed to cross the spur occupied by Uley Bury. Uley Bury is a substantial (13 ha) Iron Age hill fort in use between 300 BC and 100 AD, though there is little for the passer-by to see except the surrounding earthworks.

Coaley Wood

Past Uley Bury we could see the village of Uley below us......

Above Uley

and shortly turned onto a steep field path leading down to the church. The village now has 1200 inhabitants, but was much bigger in the industrial revolution when it was famed for its blue cloth. It was also renowned for its larger number of pubs – 14 at one time – but now only the Old Crown survives.

The Old Crown, Uley

Given the rate at which country pubs are currently closing we were pleased to find the Old Crown not only open, but thriving. The Uley brewery, which closed in the nineteenth century when the wool trade collapsed, reopened in 1984 as a craft brewery and a pint or two of Uley Bitter were just what we needed. I do not know why everybody looks so miserable – I did say smiling was optional, but had not expected to be taken at my word.

Miserable gits, The Old Crown
Uley

Duly refreshed we made our way through the village and past the old petrol pumps, now merely a decorative feature. We are all, sadly, old enough to remember when pumps looked like this. I can even remember buying petrol at 4/11d a gallon. (‘What’s 4/11d, Grandpa?’ About 25p you ignorant youth. ‘So what’s a gallon Grandpa?’ An eighth of a bushel, tedious child.)

Petrol pumps,
Uley

We followed paths over the fields which rose gently to the foot of the scarp which here runs east - west.

Alison enjoys the rain on the edge of the woods

The rise gave good views back to Uley. The massive church was built in the 19th century, unfortunately destroying the Norman church that had previously stood on this site.

Looking back at Uley

We followed the scarp for a couple of kilometres; sometimes the path rose, sometimes it fell, occasionally it contoured. We walked through Rook Wood, Bowcote Knoll Wood, Cooper’s Wood.....

In Cooper's Wood

Folly Wood and Dursley Wood, though where one wood became another is anybody’s guess and the caption on the photographs is a best guess.

Folly Wood

The main Cotswold scarp turned south and we continued for a while along the spur that ends at Stinchcombe Hill. Eventually we crossed the spur and took the long steep sunken path that descends Breakheart Hill – I do not know the origin of the name, but it brought my knees closer to breaking than my heart. Back in the Severn Valley, a couple of kilometres on minor roads brought us within sight of the Tyndale Monument that sits on the ridge above North Nibley.

The Tyndale Monument above North Nibley

Arriving in the village we located The Black Horse, but found ourselves locked out. Lynne, we discovered, was locked in and we stood in the rain while she searched for someone with a key.

The Black Horse
North Nibley

When we were finally admitted I would happily have appreciated a shower and some dry clothes, but first I had to drive to Stroud to reunite Brian and Mike with their cars and Alison with her bus stop, as she was returning home to Cheltenham. Our walk had been up and down, but the route had been fairly direct; driving back was anything but, the road taking us round the end of Stinchcombe Hill and through Dursley before we were even back in Uley - almost double the distance we had walked.

It was an equally long return to North Nibley, too, but preferable to sitting on a bus for fifty minutes in wet clothing, which was Alison’s lot. Once clean and dry no one ventured beyond the Black Horse that night. Outside the rain fell and the wind blew, while inside there was gammon steak and Bath Ales. Staying in seemed the sensible option.

The South West Odyssey (English Branch)
Introduction
Day 1 to 3 (2008) Cardingmill Valley to Great Whitley
Day 4 to 6 (2009) Great Whitely to Upton-on-Severn via the Malvern Ridge
Day 7 to 9 (2010) Upton-on-Severn to Andoversford
Day 10 (2011) Andoversford to Perrott's Brook
Day 11 (2011) Perrott's Brook to the Round Elm Crossroads
Day 12 (2011) Walking Round Stroud
Day 13 (2012) Stroud to North Nibley
Day 14 (2012) North Nibley to Old Sodbury
Day 15 (2012) Old Sodbury to Swineford
Day 16 (2013) Along the Chew Valley
Day 17 (2013) Over the Mendips to Wells
Day 18 (2013) Wells to Glastonbury 'The Mountain Route'
Day 19 (2014) Glastonbury to Langport
Day 20 (2014) Along the Parrett and over the Tone
Day 21 (2014) Into the Quantocks
Day 22 (2015) From the Quantocks to the Sea
Day 23 (2015) Watchet, Dunster and Dunkery Hill
Day 24 (2015) Dunkery Beacon to Withypool
Day 25 (2016) Entering Devon and Leaving Exmoor
Day 26 (2016) Knowstone to Black Dog on the Two Moors Way
Day 27 (2016) Morchard Bishop to Copplestone
Day 28 (2017) Down St Mary to Drewsteignton
Day 29 (2017) Drewsteignton to Bennett's Cross
Day 30 (2017) Bennett's Cross to Lustleigh
Day 31 (2018) Southwest Across the Moor from Lustleigh
Day 32 (2018) South to Ugborough
Day 33 (2018) Ugborough to Ringmore
Day 34 (2019) Around the Avon Estuary to Hope Cove
Day 35 (2019): Hope Cove to Prawle Point
Day 36 (2019) Prawle Point to Start Bay: The End
+
The Last Post

That's All Folks - The Odyssey is done.

Tuesday 29 May 2012

Dubrovnik (2), Inside the Walls: Part 6 of The Balkans

Exploring the Old City and What Can be Learned While Avoiding from the Rain

28-May-2012

Dubrovnik in the Evening

Croatia

Dubrovnik

After returning from Korčula on Monday evening we walked down to the old town for dinner which we ate in a restaurant lining an alley off the main street. A squadron of swifts (or possibly martins) patrolled overhead, squeaking loudly as they hoovered up the insects.

My tuna steak and Lynne’s unspecified white-fish fillets were Mediterranean in style, though the accompanying chard – the Balkan’s favourite vegetable – reminded us where we were. Our dessert, pancakes with sugar and lemon, adhered firmly, though no doubt accidently, to Welsh tradition.

The city was quiet and it was only after dinner, when we strolled around the market square and along the wider streets leading up to the Jesuit Church that we found much in the way of animation. A substantial number of people live in the old city, but most of the hotel accommodation is outside, so the evenings are relatively tranquil. Shops and restaurants do better during the day, but although Dubrovnik is often crowded, the local traders are not happy. Cruise ship passengers in their thousands are bussed from the deep water harbour or ferried from the offshore anchorage. They follow their guides, crowding out the major attractions, but return to their ships to eat. Many spend nothing at all, their visits being too brief to bother with acquiring any Croatian Kuna. Most businesses accept Euros, but many traders see cruise passengers as a nuisance, crowding out those tourists who are prepared to spend money. I can see their point; we found the cruisers less intrusive than in Tallinn in 2011 but we were not in Dubrovnik at the peak of the season. Plans are being discussed to limit the number of cruise ship passengers to 7000 a day, which still sounds a big number to me.

The wider streets leading up to the Jesuit Church, Dubrovnik

29-May-2012

The Rector's Palace

The following morning dawned blue and encouragingly warm, but the hitherto uncannily accurate weather forecast sellotaped to the hotel reception desk suggested rain later. We took an umbrella.

Down at the Pile Gate buses were arriving and the crowd was building. Most were milling around waiting to be told what to do, so we pushed our way through. Inside the city it was relatively peaceful.

We made our way down to the Rector’s Palace, pleased to be ahead of the rush. Ticjets were 70 Kuna (£8) but they were also valid for the Maritime and Ethnographic Museums.

Outside the Rector's Palace, Dubrovnik

The Rectors were the elected governors of the Republic of Ragusa from 1370 to 1808. During this time Ragusa (as Dubrovnik was called before the 20th century) was independent, though under the ‘protection’ of first the Hungarian crown, then the Ottoman Empire and finally Habsburg Austria. In 1808 it was absorbed into Napoleon’s Illyria.

The palace, built in 1441, is now the city’s main museum and we started in a room lined with portraits of illustrious Ragusans of the past, politicians and scientists, poets and philanthropists, not to mention the rectors themselves - a full collection of the great and the good, with a leavening of the bad and the ugly.

The inner courtyard of the Rector's Palace
Dubrovnik

We worked our way past the roman artefacts, past a pair of bronze jacks – metre high figures holding large hammers who had once stood in the bell tower and struck the hour - and around a collection of chests with locks of labyrinthine complexity. Reaching the inner courtyard with its marble staircases just ahead of the first tour group we stepped briefly inside the Rector’s jail.

Lynne detained in the Rector's prison

Upstairs there were displays of furniture, costumes and sedan chairs and yet more portraits. There was also part of the head of St Blaise, the city’s patron saint, in an appropriately skull shaped reliquary. By the time we had finished we felt we had a feel for city life through the ages, and set off to find the Maritime Museum.

Finding the Market, but not the Maritime Museum

We knew pretty well where it was, in a nearby corner of the city wall near the harbour...

Maritime Museum? Somewhere in a corner of the wall near the harbour

... but although we found signs to it we were unable to find an entrance. We returned to the square outside the Rector’s Palace for a restorative espresso.

It is perhaps surprising that in a city so dedicated to tourism, the whole of a substantial city square is given over to a market, not a tourist market but a produce market selling basics like onions and potatoes – and of course chard. A few stalls sell more frivolous food items, and we bought some honeyed nuts and candied peel to take home as presents (and we kept some, too - they were excellent). There are also a few stalls selling tourist tat. I fear that in ten years time stalls selling fridge magnets and Croatian football shirts may outnumber those selling spuds and onions.

A seller of honeyed nuts and candied peel
Dubrovnik market

From the market we followed our map along the alleys on the seaward side of the city, climbing up and down stairs between tall stone houses until we reached the Ethnographical Museum, only to find it was closed on Tuesdays.

The Serbian Orthodox Church

The sky was darkening as we descended towards the main street, passing the small Domino Church and the house of Marin Držić. We had not heard of him, he was not mentioned in the guidebook and there was no information in English. He was, I now know, a renaissance poet and playwright not perhaps the Croatian Shakespeare, but more of a Ben Jonson.

We popped into the Serbian Orthodox Church, originally built in 1887 but recently restored. Dubrovnik never had a big Serbian population and there are even fewer now, but the church has a good collection of icons. We had plenty of time to look at them, and company to look at them with, as a sudden rainstorm cleared the streets.

Not Visiting the 'Homeland War' Exhibition

After the rain we made our way back to the main drag, passing the highly regarded photographic exhibition ‘Homeland War’. After recent visits to the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, The War Museum in Sarajevo and the still shattered streets of Mostar, we could not face yet another dose of man’s inhumanity to man.

Crossing the main street into the alleys on the landward side, we headed for the synagogue. After a week of mosques and churches, both catholic and orthodox, it seemed only fair.

Dubrovnik's Synagogue

The entrance is through an unassuming door in a narrow street. A flight of stairs leads to a ticket office and a small museum running through the history of Dubrovnik’s Jewish community, now almost extinct after war time persecution and subsequent emigration. Man’s inhumanity to man seems inescapable.

Further stairs brought us to the synagogue itself, its dark wood panelling and deep red curtains giving it a strangely cosy feel. It claims to be the second oldest synagogue in Europe, but no longer serves a community large enough to hold services. There are the inevitable ‘no photographs’ signs, but as we were alone I turned off the flash and took a couple anyway - it could do no harm, and no one would know. On the way out I noticed that the ticket office was lined with screens. CCTV cameras, it seemed, covered every corner of the synagogue. Nothing was said, so either the guardian had not noticed or did not care.

The Dubrovnik synagogue

The Dominican Monastery and Many Relics

Higher up and nearer the wall we reached the Dominican Monastery. The attraction was the monastery’s collection of pictures which included a Titian. We walked round a pleasant cloister and into the museum where Lynne was immediately attracted by the relics of saints. There was the head of St Luke, a bit of King Stephen of Hungary, St Dominic’s finger (well it is a Dominican Monastery) and assorted bones from St Damianos and St Stephen Uroš II Milutin (oh, that St Stephen). If you have no idea who most of these people were (and why should you?) click on the links and let Wikipedia lighten your darkness.

Cloister of the Dominican Monastery, Dubrovnik

Most exciting was the forearm of St Blaise. Having seen his head in the Rector’s Palace earlier I thought it might be entertaining to visit every church in Dubrovnik and see if we could collect enough parts to build our very own St Blaise. Dubrovnik’s patron saint was an Armenian bishop, physician and martyr. He was killed by being attacked with iron carding combs and is usually depicted holding such a comb. He is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers (non-Catholics may find this link helpful), so praying for St Blaise to intercede will undoubtedly cure a sore throat and he is generally efficacious throughout the whole ENT area.

In the next room we found the forearm of Thomas Aquinas (there are bits of people all over the place) and a collection of silver and gold chalices, chargers, monstrances and other religious paraphernalia. There is also the Titian, a painting of St Blaise (who else?) posing with Mary Magdalen, Tobias and the chap who paid for the picture.

The church itself is huge with more paintings and sculptures, some ancient, some modern including a particularly impressive modern Madonna and Child in metal.

Lunch

Leaving the monastery we found a restaurant lining a relative large and almost step free lateral street. Sipping complimentary vermouth, Lynne selected squid, while I chose ćevapčići (diminutive versions of the ubiquitous Bosnian variant of kofta) partly to show off my growing confidence with Balkan pronunciation.

The Maritime Museum Eventually Found

Well fed, we set off to locate the maritime museum. After further fruitless searching I was prepared to give up, but Lynne was more determined – well, we had already paid – and suggested we ask somebody. Like most men I hate asking directions, being loathe to admit my ignorance of anything to anybody, so I let Lynne do the asking. We soon found ourselves climbing a set of stone steps cunningly hidden between two sections of wall.

The history of Ragusan sea-faring was illustrated by navigation instruments, flags, figureheads, weapons and models of 17th, 18th and 19th century ships. We also learned about the stone quay outside the harbour where, in time of plague, foreign boats could land their cargoes without threatening the locals with any nasty foreign diseases. The quay is still in (non-plague related) use, we could see it through the window of the museum, but there were no cargo ships. It was a large exhibition and we were there a good while. When we came to leave we discovered firstly that it was raining hard, and secondly there was a second floor. On other days we might have skipped it, but not this day.

The plague quay,Dubrovnik Harbour

Upstairs there was more of the same plus a section on fishing techniques.Twenty minutes later we peered out of a window and found that the sky had turned black, the rain was horizontal and the sea was distinctly choppy. We returned to the extensive collection of videos on medieval shipbuilding techniques. We watched several, as did a lot of other people; it is amazing how interesting such things become when the alternative is standing in the rain.

Eventually it eased off and we made our way back up the hill under the shelter of our prudent umbrella.

After a shower and a rest we dined in one of the restaurants near our hotel.

30-May-2012

And Finally, The Ethnographic Museum

We returned to the old city in the morning - we had paid for the Ethnographic Museum and we were damn well going to see it. It was interesting enough, as these things go, but I would not have walked that extra mile had we not already bought the ticket. We found a few more presents in the market then it was time to check out and take a taxi to the airport and thence home.

Looking over Dubrovnik from the Ethnographic Museum

Thus ended our first trip to the Balkans. Dubrovnik is beautiful if a little too touristy for our taste, but we enjoyed Sarajevo and Mostar, and we may well return to this region in the not too distant future. [and we did, to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) in May 2015]

The Balkans

Bosnia and Herzogivina (May 2012)

Part 1 Sarajevo (1): The Old Town, The New Town and That Assassination
Part 2 Sarajevo (2): The Seige
Part 3 Mostar

Croatia (May 2012)

Part 4 Dubrovnik (1): Around the City Walls
Part 5 Korčula
Part 6 Dubrovnik (2): Inside the Walls

Macedonia (May 2015)

Part 7 Flying into FYRoM
Part 8 Skopje
Part 9 The Matka Canyon and Stobi
Part 10 Prilep and Bitola
Part 11 The Mariovo and Lake Prespa
Part 12 Ohrid, the Heart of Slavic Macedonia
Part 13 Ohrid to Albania (1) The East Coast of the Lake
Part 14 Struga and Ohrid Trout
Part 15 Debar and back to Skopje

Monday 28 May 2012

Korčula: Part 5 of The Balkans

The Pelješac Peninsula and a Dalmatian Island

Dubrovnik to Orebić

Croatia

On Monday we took a day trip to Korčula (pronounced Kort-chew-lah), a small town – a sort of mini Dubrovnik – situated on an island of the same name.

On what was to be the only full day of fine weather in our whole Balkan trip, the bus took us back towards Neum. The island-spotted Dalmatian coast had looked attractive when we arrived; it looked even better in bright sunshine.

The island-spotted Dalmation Coast

The Pelješac Peninsula

This time, a few kilometres before the Bosnian border, we turned left onto the Pelješac peninsula. The peninsula runs almost parallel to the coast with the Bay of Ston, a long gently widening inlet between it and the mainland. Like most sheltered coastal waters in the region it is used for the maturing of mussels and oysters.

Map of the Central Balkans showing the Island of Korcula and the Peljesac Peninsula

We paused briefly at the base of the peninsula at a café overlooking a small harbour.

Coffee break overlooking a small harbour

The limestone peninsula is 65km long, 2 or 3km wide and rises to peaks of almost 1000m. The central valley's limestone pavements and scars were just like the Yorkshire Dales but the carpet of vines on the valley floor and the olive trees poking through the cracks in the rock were rather less Dales-like. Maybe global warming will fix that!

Vines on the Pelješac Peninsula

Pelješac is a designated vinogorje (literally ‘wine hill’) and we passed through the ‘cru’ villages of Dingač and Postup before descending to the coast at Orebić, Pelješac’s largest settlement. Orebić sits some three quarters of the way along the peninsula facing the island of Korčula across (almost) the narrowest part of the strait.

Approaching Orebić, with Korčula across the strait

Orebić and the Ferry to Korčula

Orebić has some 2000 inhabitants though, typically for a seaside town, many of its buildings are second homes. We had no time to see the town, indeed there was barely time for a paddle in the Adriatic before we boarded the boat for the kilometre long crossing to the island.

A paddle in the Adriatic, Orebić

It was a brief but pleasant crossing offering us fine views back to the mountainous peninsula.

Leaving Orebić

Korčula

Korcula

The city of Korčula, the island’s eponymous capital, is just a little larger than Orebić. It sits on the tip of the island which stretches another 40km into the extremely blue Adriatic.

The old town, hunched on its small promontory, was built to impress friendly visitors and deter the unfriendly. Construction outside the walls was forbidden until the 17th century, and even now does not spread far along the coast.

Arriving at Korčula

Our tour provided an hour or more’s employment for a guide, but she offered little information that was not in the guide book and the place is so small it would require a special talent to get lost.

The Land Gate, The Statute and St Mark's Square

We entered by the Land Gate, the main entrance to the city, and walked up Korčulanskog Statuta (Korčula Statute Street) to St Mark’s Square. The street name refers to the statute drafted in 1214 which guaranteed the island’s autonomy. The statute also prohibited slavery and Korčula claims to be the first place in the world to have outlawed the practice.

The Land Gate, Korčula

The square and St Mark’s Cathedral (built from 1301 onwards) are considerably less grand than their Venetian namesakes, but the same winged lion motif can be found in the masonry.

The square marks the middle of the central thoroughfare. The street plan has a herring-bone pattern with alleys angled off to left and right. Those to the west are straight, allowing cooling summer breezes to penetrate the city, while those to the east have a bend to keep out the cold winter winds from the mountainous mainland. It sounds a good theory, but as we were there on a warm, still day I have no idea how it works in practice.

The alleys of Korčula

The cathedral was covered in scaffolding and closed, but the Bishop’s Palace was an imposing building and the town is a very attractive place to wander around.

The Bishop's Palace, St Mark's Square, Korčula

Lunch in Korčula: Mussels Buzzara

After the guided tour we took our own wander in search of a restaurant. There were plenty to choose from, mostly along the wider road just inside the wall known as the Street of Thoughts, as it is one of the few streets in Korčula without steps so the walker can address their own thoughts without risk of tripping. We soon found a place with good shade, a pleasing view and mussels on the menu – after passing so many mussel beds we felt duty bound to eat some.

We ordered bread and a bowl of olives – a very Portuguese way to start a meal – half a litre of white wine (well, it was only lunchtime) and mussels ‘buzzara’, the local speciality, which involves white wine, garlic, herbs and breadcrumbs. And very good it was too.

Mussels buzzara, Korčula

St Mark's Cathedral and Sveti Petar

After lunch we found the builders had gone away and the cathedral was open. It is a solid construction with huge arches and dingy corners. Its prized possessions are two paintings by Tintoretto, Three Saints on the altar and The Annunciation just beside it.

Over the door of St Mark's Cathedral, Korčula

Renaissance masters or not, it had considerably less charm than the nearby 14th century church of Sveti Petar (St Peter), a simple rectangular building with an open-beamed roof.

Svet Petar, Korčula

A statue of St Peter stands on the altar and wooden statues of the other apostles and evangelists line the walls. Full of expression and detail, they are the work of an unknown 18th century Venetian carver.

Inside Sveti Petar, Korčula

Maro Polo

A few paces down the next alley is the house where Marco Polo was born (or not). Most historians would say that he was born sometime in the 1250s probably in Venice, but the people of Korčula know better. They have documents showing that someone of that name was born in the city in 1254 - and Polos still live in Korčula to this day. Further, Marco Polo captained a Venetian galley at the Battle of Korčula in 1298, a naval engagement where the Genoese inflicted a crushing defeat on The Republic of Venice. He was captured and it was during his subsequent imprisonment that he wrote Europe’s first great travel book. It is generally established that he wrote his book in a Genoese prison, but the evidence for the rest of the story is a little thin.

Marco Polo's House, Korčula

Marco Polo is always regarded as a Venetian, and Korčula was ruled by the Republic of Venice for a short while before his birth. Even up to the 19th century it was an Italian town although the inhabitants of the rest of the island were Croats. Today 98% of the island’s residents, including those in the city, describe themselves as Croats.

The entrance fee was not good value for merely climbing the tower of an old house – a few posters do not constitute a museum - but the view from the top was good and we sent the ‘free’ postcard to our daughter.

Looking over to Orebić from Marco Polo's House
Korčula

Next door Marco Polo appears to be operating a gift shop and we made a few purchases to take home.

After a little further perambulation it was time to return to the harbour for the ferry back to Orebić.

Leaving harbour, Korčula

Back Down The Pelješac Peninsula

Pelješac Wine

Back on the bus we headed back towards Dubrovnik, stopping first at a winery somewhere on the peninsula’s rocky spine. The cru wines of Dingač and Postup are grown high up, on the steepest slopes, but we drank the more modest wines grown on the valley floor. The locals are very proud of the indigenous Plavać Mali grape and the example we tried was dark and smoky. I have drunk Vranac (in Sarajevo and elsewhere) which is similar and actually rather better – but it seemed wise not mention that. The white was very like the cheap but very acceptable carafe wine we had been drinking locally. They were asking the same price (about £6 a bottle) for each, which seemed expensive for the red and ludicrous for the white.

More Pelješac vineyards

Ston, Its Wall and the Republic of Ragusa

We stopped again at Ston on the base of the peninsula, the name referring to the salt that is still harvested from the nearby salt pans. The village of some 500 people has a neat grid pattern but its main claim to fame is its wall and the remaining 5½km stretch can be seen striking off over the hill towards the village of Mali (small) Ston. The wall defended the town and also the borders, and salt supply, of the Republic of Ragusa.

The Great Wall of Ston

Dubrovnik was known as Ragusa until the 20th century, but the republic thrived from 1358 to 1808. It maintained its independence despite pressure from the Venetians to the north and the Ottomans to the south until the whole area became part of Napoleon's Illyria. As peace had now been brought to the region and all city walls were now redundant it was decreed that they should be symbolically breached. Consequently the walls of Ston are not as extensive as they once were and the wall of Korčula is not quite continuous though Dubrovnik defied the ruling. This does not prevent the Croatians claiming the Wall of Ston as being the longest wall in Europe though I remain unconvinced; Hadrian’s Wall may hardly be continuous but it must be a contender.

Like Dubrovnik, Ston has a church of St Blaise, but it is ruined. In this case it was not war that caused the damage but an earthquake; a frequent cause of destruction in this seismically active region.