Korcula

Korcula Town is a miniature Dubrovnik without the crowds — a walled medieval settlement built on a small peninsula jutting into the Adriatic, its streets laid out in a herringbone pattern designed to channel summer breezes while blocking winter winds. The claimed birthplace of Marco Polo is here, now a small museum with a tower offering views across the strait to the Peljesac Peninsula. Whether the explorer was actually born here is debated; the town’s beauty is not.

The island beyond the town walls is densely forested with Aleppo pine and Mediterranean scrub, hiding coves accessible only by kayak or on foot. The southern coast has the best swimming, particularly around Lumbarda, a village surrounded by sandy vineyards producing grk — a white grape found nowhere else in the world. The Moreska, a traditional sword dance performed in Korcula Town on summer evenings, dates to the fifteenth century and is part theatre, part martial art, entirely mesmerizing. The Peljesac Peninsula across the strait is Croatia’s finest wine region, reachable by a short ferry for day trips of tasting and coastal driving.

When to go: June or September for warm water and the Moreska performances without August’s peak crowds. May is lovely but the sea is still bracing.