Croatia · Southern Dalmatia
Yacht Charter Korčula
A walled town laid out as a fishbone to catch one wind and block the other, with two white wines behind it.
Korčula town sits on a small oval peninsula at the eastern end of its island, and it is the most deliberately planned medieval town on the Adriatic. The streets run off a central spine like the bones of a fish, and the two sides are not the same: the western ones are straight, to let the summer maestral blow through, and the eastern ones are curved, to stop the winter bura doing the same. It was worked out in the thirteenth century and it still works.
A town designed around the wind
The plan is the thing to notice first and the thing most visitors walk past. From the main street the lanes drop away to the sea on both sides; stand at the top of a western one in July and you feel the draught, and the eastern ones in the same hour are still. Nothing about it is decorative.
The cathedral of St Mark stands halfway along the spine, Venetian Gothic in the local limestone — the same stone the island exported for the palaces of Dubrovnik and Venice. Korčula also insists it produced Marco Polo, which is disputed by every serious historian and by nobody on the island.
Grk, Pošip, and the sand at Lumbarda
Lumbarda is twenty minutes east of the town and is the only sand on the island: the soil there is sandy too, which is why Grk grows in it and nowhere else. It is a white wine with almost no female flowers, so it has to be planted alongside Plavac Mali to fruit at all — a piece of viticultural awkwardness that has kept it rare.
The other white is Pošip, from Čara and Smokvica in the middle of the island, and it is the one that travels. Both are poured everywhere on the waterfront, and several of the cellars will open for a crew that arranges it ahead.
Across the channel, and the sword dance
The Pelješac peninsula is a mile and a half across the water: Orebić faces the town, and behind it are the Dingač and Postup slopes, which are so steep the grapes used to come down by donkey. It is the best red wine ground in Croatia and it is twenty minutes by tender.
In the town itself the Moreška is danced through the summer — a sword dance between two armies, black and red, performed here since the sixteenth century and nowhere else in the same form. It is not staged for visitors so much as tolerated by them.
Practical notes
- The town quay is on the peninsula itself; the marina is a few minutes round the point at the eastern side
- Lumbarda is twenty minutes east and is the only sand on the island, and where Grk is grown
- Orebić on the Pelješac peninsula is a mile and a half across the channel, under the Dingač slopes
- Hvar is three hours north-west, Mljet two hours south-east and Dubrovnik four hours on
- The Moreška sword dance is performed through the summer and has been danced here since the sixteenth century
Reached from: Hvar, Mljet and Dubrovnik
Where to dine
A table by the water
LD Restaurant
KorčulaIn a palace courtyard inside the walls, and the most serious kitchen between Split and Dubrovnik.
Konoba Mate
PupnatInland in a hill village, cooking what the family grows, and worth the twenty minutes it takes to get there.
Filippi
KorčulaOn the sea wall with the tables out over the water and the Pelješac channel in front of them.
What to do
Anchorages & excursions
The fishbone plan
Streets straight on the west to let the maestral through and curved on the east to stop the bura, laid out in the thirteenth century.
St Mark's
Venetian Gothic in the island's own limestone — the stone Korčula exported for the palaces of Dubrovnik and Venice.
Lumbarda
The only sand on the island, twenty minutes east, and the only ground anywhere that grows Grk.
Dingač and Postup
The steep red-wine slopes on Pelješac, a mile and a half across the channel and twenty minutes by tender.
The fleet
Yachts available for Korčula
Vessels that operate here, from flagship motor yachts to smaller crewed boats. Every rate is quoted on enquiry.
Good to know
Questions we are asked about Korčula
- Why are the streets on one side straight and on the other curved?
- To manage the wind. The western lanes are straight so the summer maestral blows through and cools the town; the eastern ones are curved so the winter bura cannot. It was laid out this way in the thirteenth century, and on a hot afternoon you can still feel the difference walking from one side to the other.
- What should we drink here?
- Grk from Lumbarda, which grows in the island's only sandy soil and effectively nowhere else, and Pošip from Čara and Smokvica. For red, cross to Pelješac: Dingač and Postup are twenty minutes by tender and are the best red ground in the country.
- Was Marco Polo really born on Korčula?
- The island says so and there is a house to prove it. Historians are unconvinced, since the records point to Venice. It is a good story, the house is worth five minutes, and nobody local will thank you for raising the question.
- What does a yacht charter to Korčula cost?
- It depends on the yacht, the season and the crew, so we quote on enquiry rather than publish a figure that would be wrong for most weeks.
Destinations
Nearby destinations
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