Meeting in Dubrovnik, Seafood Lunch in Mali Ston and Discovering the Wines of Korčula

Howard, the Conservative Canuck, his daughter Sarah, as well as Mike and Lynn Springer joined us in September for a Korčula to Dubrovnik Kayak Expedition.

The night before in a great little Bosnian food restaurant in Dubrovnik – the Taj Mahal - conversation turned to issues regarding the upcoming America and Canadian elections – Howard is an organizer for the Conservatives north of the border and Mike works within the Washington Beltway in the GAO office. Sarah and Lynn sat patiently as both boys had their turns on the soapbox. As mentioned previously, it is difficult to find good value for money restaurants in Dubrovnik, but Taj Mahal is worth further research.

In the morning we drove north to Mali Ston for an early lunch on the waterfront at our perennial favorite nosherie, Kapetenova Kuča. The oysters and other shellfish, black risotto and grilled squid satisfied everyone’s hunger. It also served as an introduction to the local wines – we enjoyed a couple of bottles of Čara’s Marco Polo Pošip.

The trip to Orebič and the short ferry across to Korčula Island was enough time to give our livers a rest before we visited two further wineries – our friends, the Cebalo’s, in Lumbarda, renown for their Grk and Vinarja Krajančić in Čara, where we tasted their excellent Pošip and semi-sweet Pošip. Grk and Pošip are both white wines indigenous to Korčula Island.

The large lunch had left us full enough that dinner in Korčula Town was just small plates of pasta, eaten before we climbed the ladder to the best cocktail bar terrace in Croatia – on top of one of the medieval defenses’ towers. Korčula has been described as Little Dubrovnik for the old towers and battlements that surround it. In the 19^th Century the Austrians removed large sections of the walls so the annoying locals wouldn’t use them as a base to start an uprising.

These days passive environmental design is all the rage. The builders of Korčula also used their knowledge of the local winds to layout the town so that the streets were protected from the winter’s cold bura, but allowed the summer’s refreshing afternoon maestral to waft through.

Up on the terrace we met up with Cameron Hewitt, Rick Steves’ writer for his Slovenia and Croatia guide book, and his wife, passing through on one of the RS tours. Also we had a talk to the flotilla captain from Nielson, a large English flotilla sailing and RYA-registered training company, who told us due to the greed of the Lumbarda Council they would no longer be operating in Croatia in 2009. It appears Croatia is continuing to shoot itself in the foot in regards to high-end tourism.

More pictures from the day’s activities can be found here.