June 27

Croatia. My new happy place. Korcula is itself an island, which I did not realize before. Just as an aside, supposedly Marco Polo was born here and there is a little house you can pay money to see and souvenirs to prove it. When we were here last week and I relaxed except to tender over when Al said the words “ice cream,” he had checked out what I had read about in terms of getting around the islands. I’m not completely useless. We got together again with Heather and Peter and hired a guy to take us to two island in the time we had.

We started at the island of Badija. Main attraction there beside the water, the water, the water, is sailing and windsurfing and I never wanted to leave. Oh yeah, there was also the 14th Franciscan monastery – they owned the island until 1950 – Gothic Renaissance style. Most of it is pretty run down, especially the church but it has a lovely cloister that is well preserved. It had its troubles over the years, being burned up and the bell taken by Turks in 1571, then pirates had their way with in in 1660. Finally in 1950, Brother Leon Krivic “refused to sell the island to the ruling Communist government”. Not sure what happened after that but it’s still there.

Before we got off the boat our captain said “hope you see some deer”. Not a problem. There are a few that are happy to harass you for food. I dropped into the water to cool off of course, and then our boat was back.

Off to the island of Vrnik to a little beach “resort” – the Vrnik Arts Club. Nothing fancy, some loungers we could rent and a little restaurant to have a little lunch. This was where I decided my new “happy place” is Croatia. The waters were so clear, and as yet the tourists (I know, I’m part of the problem) have to yet overtaken the place. I wanted to stay all day and the next day, too.

One of the things about cruising is that you find out about places you want to return to for more than a day. You also find out about places you never want to return to. Croatia, ah Croatia. I can see myself coming here for a month when it’s not too hot. All these places get crazy hot in the summer and it was already starting by the time we left in early July.