Before Sunrise

Feeling a little sad about leaving Mljet, but always looking forward to the next destination... That was us on the ferry to Korcula Island (there´s supposed to be a funny little squiggle over the ´c´that makes it sound like a ´ch´but this computer doesn´t have one), an island of which Lonely Planet says:

On a hilly peninsula jutting into the Adriatic sits Korcula, a striking walled town of round defensive towers and red roofed houses. Resembling a miniatare Dubrovnik, the gated, walled Old Town is crisscrossed by narrow stone streets designed to protects its inhabitants from the wind swirling around the peninsula.  Korcula Island was controlled by Venice from the 14th to the 18th century as is evident from the Venetian Coats of Arms adorning the official building. If you don´t stop in Korcula, one look at this unique town from the Jadrolinja ferry will make you regret it.

We had actually seen it on our way to Dubrovnik and decided then that we must return. It really is stunning.

And busy.

And expensive in July (stupidstupidstupid us for travelling in high season when we KNOW better!!!)

So, we were unable to find a room for a remotely affordable price and camping was quite far (we had a ferry the next day and didn´t want to spend all our time looking for camping, setting up and then having to take buses back and forth) so we stored our bags at the left luggage office for about the price of a single room in low season (80kunas or about 11 euro) and decided to pull a "Before Sunrise" which is a movie about this american bloke and french woman who meet on a train and he´s going home the next day and she´s on her way to Paris but she gets off in Vienna with him and they spend all night walking around Vienna and talking about everything. So, we walked all through the raved-about old town which really was quite nice, lots and lots of little chapels everywhere, even on the same street as the cathedral.  We spent until evening walking back and forth the town, taking every single street to see it while light out, walking along the water, gaping at the yachts and sailboats on the water- some really gorgeous ones for sure!

We ate supper while the sun set over the marina (the quieter marina, there was one on the other side of the peninsula that was mast city) while we played 6degrees of seperation... not a very easy game when you don´t watch a lot of movies!!! We only managaed one connection and it took nine!!

At about 11pm we went to the Open Air Cinema and watched a silly romantice comedy (failure to launch... failed to launch my imagination...) projected against a castle wall under the bright stars and clear sky... best way to watch a movie, even a silly one!

When it was done, nothing on the island was open except for 1 cocktail bar, 1 pub (full of aussies!) and 1 dance club... and we should know, we walked around almost the whole island!

It was so quiet, we only came across a few people (mostly Aussies coming back from the pub!) and we walked on streets that had only a few lights so we got an amaying view of the stars.

We sat on a beach for a while and saw that the moon was very low, very orange and very skinny and projected a wonderful reflection onto the water... We skipped stones and talked until about 3am, then fell into half-sleep curled up in a ball on the rocks, close to the wall so we were invisible to passers by (not that there were any).

But since the sun started coming up less than 2 hours later and it was right on our faces, sleep didn´t last (not for me). I got up with the sun and the church bells and practiced my stone skipping and watched the sun and went into the water (up to my knees, I was wearing jeans for the evening.).

When Scott got up, we went to our stored bags and got out bathing suits etc and went swimming at 8am. The only other people swimming were clearly locals as they all knew each other and just seemed like they belonged. We layed on the flat rocks until we were quite hot, then climbed over the very prickly rocks and jumbed into the clear clean adriatic, then just enjoyed floating (except Scott doesn´t float, even in salt water, some weird Bertram defect or something)

Then we napped in the shade but had to catch our ferry soon sooooo.... on to the next entry!!!