Croatia Travel Blog » Peljesac Peninsula

Eating Oysters in Mali Ston Croatia

John Brackett — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:21:14 +0000

On our way back through the Peljesac Peninsula we stopped in Mali Ston, which is right next to Ston. Mali Ston is where the most renowned Croatian Oyster bay is located. They also farm muslces and other shell fish. We stopped at a local restaurant that is just feet from the Oyster bay for, what else Oysters. I’m not a fan of Oysters, but the fans in our group said they were excellent. If you are into Oysters, then stop in Mali Ston for sure. I was happy drinking a cold bottle of Karlovacko Beer, one of my two favorite domestic Croatian beers.

Exploring the Island of Korcula Croatia

John Brackett — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:15:04 +0000

Korcula (pronounced Korchula) is a stunning island known for it’s secluded beaches, uninhabited neighboring islands, exquisite arts and rich culture. It’s thought that the famed explorer Marco Polo (1254-1342) was born here. Much like Dubrovnik the city of Korcula is encased in a stone fortification with defensive towers and one of the most beautiful castle gate entries I’ve ever seen.

Our driver dropped us at Orebic, where we caught a water taxi across the bay to Korcula. The boat was a beautiful wooden taxi boat that could hold maybe 30 passengers. It’s low slung hull put us just above water level. As we cut a path through the deep blue, warm waters of the Adriatic the perspective of the approaching fortress city was enhanced by our low eye line.

We exited the boat and walked up the grand stairs of the main gate into the city. We wandered across the city to the far side and had lunch, which consisted of my usual pizza and beer. Others had great success with fresh fish. After lunch we found the destroyed ruins of what is supposed to be Marco Polo’s house. I got some good shots through what used to be the windows, through to what looked like the main fireplace in the house. There is a museum there that likely explains the whole Marco Polo story, and provides background on the house and his place in the history of Korcula. We decided our limited time was best spent exploring.

We found wonderful streets with quaint houses, elaborate garden gates and a church at the peak of the city, which provided some excellent interior photo opportunities.

What a place to see! I can’t recommend this beautiful city enough. I would love to return to experience the local area some more.

Wine Tasting at the Grgich Winery

John Brackett — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:01:20 +0000

Miljenko (Mike) Grgich returned to his birth-home of Croatia from a successful career as a winemaker and winery owner in California to realize the dream of opening his own winery in his native land. The Grgich Winery is in Trstenik, on the Peljesac Peninsula. It’s housed in a plain stone building that was once a military station, then later a resort. It is surrounded by a wooded area that overlooks the rocky coast of the Adriatic below. We sampled several varieties. The whites were excellent, but we really liked the red Zinfandel, which was made from grapes grown close by in Plavac Mali.

Touring Ston Croatia

John Brackett — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:49:06 +0000

Ston dates back to 1345, when it was founded as part of the Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik today). Constructed as a fort to protect the interests of Ragusa, The city was fortified with an enormous wall that rises high into the steep hills above. We made it to the city edge before determining that it was too steep to try to get to the highest point. Standing at the top of the last town street and facing the wall and the city below provided an incredible perspective of the city and the vastness of the wall above.

The Fortress of Koruna was clearly visible from this vantage point, but this is as close as we would get to it. Our time was pressing, so we decided to explore the local streets and see what we could find at the salt works.

The town is not on the normal tourist track, and is therefore small and filled with locals. There are no tourist hotels to speak of. It was nice to be in a place where we could experience the day to day activity of the people who lived there.

The Salt Works reach out over quite a bit of what looked at the time to me a marsh type area. I think the tide was out which allowed us to see the framework and mechanics on how the salt is captured and brought in for processing. We even bought a bag of sea salt, which, I recall, we used with much success at our Christmas party.

Tony and I took off to photograph some interesting church ruins, while the rest of the group went into town town to shop around. We met up with the rest of the group at a local store, where they purchased a couple of bottles of Dalmatino, and local Liquor that was a mix of lemon and vodka. It was a purchase that would come in handy a bit later.

Traveling through the Peljesac Peninsula

John Brackett — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:36:59 +0000

Our 5th day into the trip we left Dubrovnik for a next destination of Hvar. We wanted to take in some of the other Dalmatian coast sites on our way, so we scheduled a van to take us instead of flying or taking the ferry. We asked for a full day, so we could make many stops along the way. We decided to spend most of our drive touring the Peljesac Peninsula which would take us from Dubrovnik to Ston, wine tasting at Grgich winery and to the island of Korcula for a late lunch and site seeing. We then headed back down the peninsula to Mali Ston for some oysters and afternoon beers before heading to Hvar.

Laura had arranged professional driver from Radulovic LTD to take us, which turned out to be an excellent idea and one I can’t recommend enough. There are excellent driving services in Croatia that offer cars to mid sized vans. Our driver picked us up at the Vrata Od Ploca entrance in a mid-sized van that was spacious enough to fit our gear and comfortably seat all 8 of us. The driver was older, stately and typically handsome. He spoke broken English, but was very nice and accommodating except at the Bosnian customs station, where he told us to site quietly while he negotiated us through. Bosnia has a 1 mile stretch of beach area that literally cuts Croatia in two. Getting through is pretty painless and fast, but you are in Bosnia and recent tensions are still felt.

It’s unfortunate that we could not communicate with him better. I guessed he was in his early 60’s, which would mean that he had been old enough to live under Tito, experience the fall of the Communist government, had his life turned upside down in the Bosnia-Serbian conflict. If you decide to go this route, make sure to ask for a driver who knows the Dalmatian coast (ours did) and one that speaks good English (ours spoke enough).

We started north on the E65 highway towards Split stopping at the lookout point of the ultra modern Dubrovnik Bridge, which rises over the Port of Gruz. About an hour or so in to the journey we started up the Peljesac Peninsula. About 59 miles out of Dubrovnik we made our first stop in Ston, a small medieval town that is famous for the wall fortifications that encircle the town. Ston is also known for its sea salt production in the Ston Salt Works, and for Oyster production.