Korčula

The island of Korčula was settled by prehistoric peoples and Illyrians, and Greek colonists from Corfu gave it the name Black Korkyra, after their homeland and its dark pine woods. Romans followed, then Byzantines and Croats, whose Neretvian ancestors lived partly from piracy against Venetian shipping. The island's statute, first drafted in 1214, protected its autonomy against powerful neighbours and banned slavery, and in 1298 Genoa defeated Venice in the Battle of Curzola just offshore — the battle in which, according to a 16th-century tradition, Marco Polo was taken prisoner.

Korčula passed between Venice, Hungary, Bosnia and others until Venice took it for good in the early 15th century and held it until 1797. Under Venetian rule the town took the shape it keeps today: walls with twelve towers on a promontory guarding the channel, streets in a herringbone pattern to let the air move while breaking the wind, and building outside the walls forbidden until the 18th century. The island supplied timber for Venice's ships, and the town became a regional arsenal from 1776.

After brief French and Montenegrin occupations, British forces held the island from 1813 to 1815, building a stone quay and the round fort on the hill above the town. Austria then ruled until 1918. Italy held Korčula from 1918 to 1921 and again during the Second World War, when Partisans and then German forces controlled it until 1944. Today the town is a tourist centre whose old core remains remarkably intact.

The Moreška is Korčula's signature. Two groups of dancers, each soldier wielding two swords, fight a mock battle between a white and a black king over a veiled young woman; the dance dates back at least to the mid-17th century, and Korčula's version appears to be the only one today in which each soldier holds two swords. Once performed only on special occasions such as the feast of St Theodore, the town's patron, it is now staged regularly for visitors in summer, and two local societies keep it alive, with other villages dancing a related sword dance, the Kumpanija.

The town's claim to Marco Polo is a source of pride and debate: most scholars accept that he was born in Venice, and the house shown as his birthplace was built at least a century after he died. The 17th-century poet and dramatist Petar Kanavelić, one of the leading Croatian writers of his age, represented the Korčula community in Venice, and the town's primary school bears his name. Stonemasonry, which peaked under Venice, built the cathedral and palaces.

Klapa singing has deep roots on the island, and the Korkyra Baroque Festival brings international musicians each September. Religious life remains strong, with old church ceremonies and processions kept up by a devout Catholic population.

At the 2001 census about 3,100 people lived in the town itself and about 5,900 in the wider municipality, which also takes in the inland villages of Žrnovo and Pupnat and the coastal villages of Račišće and Čara. The island as a whole is the second most populous in the Adriatic after Krk, and almost all its people are Croats.

Tourism dominates the economy, alongside boat repair at the town's shipyard and the wine of the surrounding villages. The harbours fill with yachts and catamarans in summer, and the town serves as a port of entry for international boats. Family ties to the villages and their vineyards remain strong.

The rhythm follows the season: busy, late evenings in July and August, when the old town fills with visitors and Moreška audiences, and a much quieter winter, when many restaurants close and ferries thin out. Everyday links with the mainland depend on the ferries to Orebić, from where buses continue along the coast.

Korčula eats in the southern Dalmatian way: grilled fish, brudet, a mixed fish stew eaten with polenta, pašticada, beef braised in sweet wine and prunes, and meat, vegetables and potatoes baked under the bell-shaped lid of the peka.

The island's pride is its wine. Grk, a white grape found above all around Lumbarda, makes a dry, fairly acidic wine with hints of pine; because the vine has only female flowers, growers plant Plavac Mali among it to pollinate it. So little is made that Grk is produced only on the island and not exported. Pošip, grown chiefly around Čara and Smokvica in the middle of the island, is a light white that suits fish and pršut. Red Plavac Mali, the great grape of the Pelješac slopes across the channel, is grown on the island in smaller amounts.

Prošek, the sweet dessert wine, and travarica, a herb brandy, round off a meal, and wine mixed with still water, bevanda, is drunk at the table.