Polo Competition

The town of Korcula claims to be the birthplace of Marco Polo. The Croatians say he was born here, the Italians say he was born in Venice. There's a fair bit of debate around the topic, and the info I've glanced at is far from conclusive. 

It may not be certain if Polo was born in Venice or Croatia, but that doesn't stop the locals from pointing out the house he was born in. It's the old grey house behind and to the right of tent, as seen in this shot from the bell tower.

Bell tower? What bell tower?

Sveti Marko's (Saint Mark's) Bell Tower of Death.

From the outside, innocent and charming.

From the inside a different story. I'm guessing St Mark was the patron saint of flimsy stone steps and poor safety standards. 

Note the long diagonal bar holding the steps in place. Not shown is the long drop, or Mario laughing at me as he took the picture. while not the most terrifying climb I've ever done, it offered plenty of opportunities for white-knuckle rail-grabbing.

This is what I get from making fun of Emma and Simon's fear of heights.

It was worth it. Once again we were fortunate to have superb weather, and the views of the old medieval town and surrounding landscape were spectacular. 

The views of the hideous new Tommy Hipermart supermarket on the hill was less appealing. 

I understand there was considerable opposition to it being built but substantive amounts of cash convincing arguments were made, so it ended up being built anyway.

We also walked through the old town, and along the outside of the walls. I love these old walled cities. There's just nothing like them in Australia.

Accompanying us on the trip was Mario's mother, Mara, who took the opportunity to buy jewellery at a jewellery shop she's been shopping at since 1978.

Anna and Emma thought it would be rude not to support the local shops, and pitched in. Emma picked up a beautiful chain, and a set of earrings.

The jeweller was quite a character, funny and charming. The family business has been around for generations, there were photos of his father and grandfather making jewellery, and he was teaching his son the trade.

We drove back along the southern road that wound through the villages on the coast. Due to the narrowness of the road, and the steep drops, Mario had described it as "a nightmare". This lessened my enthusiasm for the drive, and I prepared for round two of white-knuckled adventures. 

The road was narrow, but there was very little traffic, and this time Mario hadn't been awake for 26 hours driving a small bus in the middle of the night, so this time it was ok. I won't say I'm comfortable with narrow roads and precipitous drops onto sharp rocks, but I'm getting better.

We'll see how I hold up when we leave Korcula and drive up the coast road to Split on the way to Plitsivice next week.