| KORCULA TOWN sits on a beetle-shaped hump of land, a medieval walled
city ribbed with a series of narrow streets that branch off the spine of
the main street like the veins of a leaf. The Venetians first arrived
here in the eleventh century, and stayed, on and off, for nearly eight
centuries. Their influence is particularly in evidence in Korcula's old
town, which huddles around the Cathedral of St Mark (Katedrala svetog
Marka), squeezed into a space between the buildings that roughly passes
for a main square. The cathedral facade is decorated with a gorgeous
fluted rose window and a bizarre cornice frilled with strange beasts.
The interior, reached through a door framed by statues of Adam and Eve,
is one of the loveliest in the region - a curious mixture of styles
which range from the Gothic forms of the nave to the Renaissance
northern aisle, tacked on some time in the sixteenth century, the whole
appealingly squashed into a space quite obviously too small for it. The
clutter of artefacts ranges from pikes used against sixteenth-century
Algerian corsair Uliz Ali, to paintings that include an altarpiece by
Leandro Bassano, in the south aisle, and an early Tintoretto, behind the
high altar and difficult to make out. However, the best of the church's
treasures have been removed to the Bishop's Treasury (summer only Mon-Sat
10am-noon & 5-9pm; 10kn), a couple of doors down. This is one of the
best small collections of fine and sacral art in the country, with an
exquisite set of paintings, including a striking Portrait of a Man by
Carpaccio, a perceptive Virgin and Child by Bassano, some Tiepolo
studies of hands and some Raphael drawings, and a tiny Madonna by a
local Renaissance artist, Blaz Jurjev of Trogir. There is also a
Leonardo da Vinci sketch of a soldier wearing a costume that bears a
striking resemblance to that of the Moreska dancers. Oddities include an
ivory statuette of Mary Queen of Scots, whose skirts open to reveal
kneeling figures in doublet and hose. How this got here, no one knows.
Opposite the treasury, a former Venetian palace holds the Town Museum (Gradski
muzej; summer Mon-Sat 9am-noon & 5-9pm; winter Mon-Fri 9am-1pm; 8kn),
whose more modest display contains a plaster cast of a fourth-century BC
Greek tablet from Lumbarda - the earliest evidence of civilization on
Korcula.
Close by the main square, down a turning to the right, is another
remnant from Venetian times, the so-called House of Marco Polo (daily:
summer only 10am-1pm & 5-7pm; 5kn). Korcula claims to be the birthplace
of Marco Polo - a claim not as extravagant as it might first appear. The
Venetians recruited many of their sea captains from their colonies, and
Polo was indeed captured by the Genoese off the island in 1298, after
which he used his time in prison to write his Travels . Whatever the
truth of the matter, it seems unlikely that he had any connection with
this seventeenth-century house, which is these days little more than an
empty shell with some terrible twentieth-century prints on the walls.
Back down the main street, follow the signs to the Icon Gallery (summer
only Mon-Sat 10am-1pm & 5-7pm; 5kn), where there's a permanent display
of icons in the rooms of the All Saints' Brotherhood. Most of the
exhibits were looted from the Cretans in the seventeenth century, and
the best is the fifteenth-century triptych of The Passion .
The nearest beaches to the old town are on the headland southeast of
town around the Hotel Marko Polo , though they're crowded, rocky and
uncomfortable. A better bet is to head off by water taxi from the old
harbour to one of the Skoji islands just offshore. The largest and
nearest of these is Badija , where there are some secluded rocky beaches,
a couple of snack bars and a naturist section. There's also a sandy
beach just beyond the village of Lumbarda , 8km south of Korcula (reached
by hourly bus in the summer).
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