Korčula

Swimming is the main reason to spend a summer on Korčula. The water is very clear, reaches about 24°C in August, and is warm enough to swim from June to late September. Most of the coast is rocky and pebbly coves backed by pine. The exception is around Lumbarda at the eastern tip, where Pržina and Bilin Žal have real sand and shallow water, which is unusual on this coast. On the south coast, below the inland village of Pupnat, Pupnatska Luka is a deep pebble bay of bright, clear water, often counted the best beach on the island and reached down a steep, winding road.

From Korčula Town, taxi boats go out to the islets of the small archipelago offshore, including wooded Badija, where you swim off flat rocks. Vela Luka in the west has quieter bays. The beaches are small, so in high summer the well-known ones fill up early, and for the best swimming you go a little further along the shore.

Food here means Dalmatian home cooking, done simply and well: grilled fish, black risotto, octopus salad, and lamb or octopus cooked slowly under an iron bell covered in embers. You eat it in family konobas in the villages or on terraces along the walls of Korčula Town. The island has a few dishes of its own, such as the hand-rolled makaruni pasta of Žrnovo. Otherwise the menus look much alike from one place to the next.

Wine is what makes the island distinctive. Lumbarda grows Grk, a white grape found almost nowhere else, and the vineyards around Čara and Smokvica make Pošip, the island's best-known white. Across the channel, Pelješac produces the big Plavac Mali reds of Dingač, and the oyster beds at Ston are an easy outing. The range is narrow, though. Fine dining and international cooking are scarce, and many kitchens close once the summer season ends.

The heart of it is Korčula Town, a walled stone town on a small peninsula. Its streets branch off a central spine in a herringbone pattern laid out to break the wind. St Mark's Cathedral, with its carved portal and a Tintoretto altarpiece, sits on the little main square, near the treasury, the town museum and a house the town claims as the birthplace of Marco Polo. Towers and stretches of the walls survive, and you can walk the whole old town in an hour.

At the other end of the island, the cave of Vela Spila above Vela Luka was lived in for many thousands of years. The villages of the interior keep stone churches and old field walls. It is a handsome, intact place rather than a deep one, and most visitors have seen the main sights within a day or two.

Evenings are about a long dinner and a drink as the sun goes down. In Korčula Town there are cocktail bars on the old walls and towers facing the channel, and a few bars by the harbour stay open late in July and August. There is very little in the way of clubs, the villages go quiet early, and out of season the island goes to bed with the restaurants. Anyone who wants to party usually takes a boat to a livelier island for a night.

Korčula is greener than most Dalmatian islands, covered in Aleppo pine, holm oak, olive groves and terraced vineyards. Walking and cycling routes cross its gentle central ridge between villages, and there is good sea kayaking around the small islands off Korčula Town and Lumbarda. Across the narrow channel, the Pelješac peninsula has more dramatic country. A steep path climbs Sveti Ilija, almost 1,000m above Orebić, and the strait at Viganj is one of the best-known windsurfing and kitesurfing spots on the Adriatic, thanks to its steady afternoon wind.

By boat, the national park on Mljet has saltwater lakes and dense forest that are easy to cycle or paddle around. Spring and early autumn are the best times for walking, because summer heat makes the middle of the day hard going.

The short ferry crossing to Orebić opens up Pelješac. There are wineries in the Dingač and Potomje area, Franciscan monasteries above Orebić, and at the far end of the peninsula, Ston, where long medieval walls climb the hill above the salt pans and oysters come straight from the bay. By boat, Mljet makes a full day, with its island monastery in a lake and the remains of a Roman palace at Polače. Catamarans along the coast reach Hvar Town in under a couple of hours.

On Korčula itself, it is worth spending a day each on the wine village of Lumbarda, on Vela Luka and its cave, and on the inland villages of Blato and Pupnat. Dubrovnik and Split are possible but make long days, closer to three hours each way.

With small children, base yourselves near Lumbarda, where the sandy, shallow bays are among the gentlest swimming on this coast. The island is safe and relaxed, children are welcome in every konoba, and short boat trips to the islets keep older children happy. There is nothing made for children, though: no aquarium, zoo or play attractions. The stepped streets of Korčula Town are hard work with a pushchair, and long ferry journeys and summer heat need planning.

Korčula Town is entirely walkable, and taxi boats and water taxis link it to Lumbarda, the islets and Orebić. The island is long and narrow. A single main road runs the length of it from Lumbarda to Vela Luka, and buses run along it, but they are not frequent, and the best coves sit down steep, narrow side roads. A hired car or scooter makes a stay much easier. Getting there and moving on means ferries and catamarans, which are reliable in summer but run less often in the off season.

Shopping is modest. The lanes of Korčula Town have souvenir shops, a few jewellery and craft studios, and small galleries. The best things to take home are edible: Grk and Pošip from the wineries, olive oil, fig and herb liqueurs, and the island's cukarini biscuits. There are no fashion streets and no real market beyond seasonal produce stalls.

In summer, Korčula costs what a popular Dalmatian island costs. Hotels and restaurants inside and around the old town charge resort prices, and boat trips, car hire and drinks on the walls add up. The island is easier on the budget if you stay in a private apartment in Lumbarda, Vela Luka or one of the villages, eat at family konobas inland and buy wine at the cellar door. The shoulder months of June and September are noticeably cheaper than July and August.

The one real draw is the Moreška, a sword dance with a battle story going back centuries. Local troupes perform it in Korčula Town through the summer, and in some villages, Kumpanija and other old sword dances are kept up for feast days. Klapa groups sing unaccompanied harmonies at summer evening concerts in churches and squares. Beyond that, there is no theatre, opera or regular concert life.

Korčula has no thermal springs or bathing tradition, and spa treatments mostly mean the wellness areas of the larger hotels around Korčula Town. What it does offer is pace. Quiet villages among the vineyards, long lunches in the shade and evenings with almost nothing to do suit anyone who wants a slow week, especially in June or September, when the island is calm.