A great restaurant find on the enchanting island of Korcula, Croatia

We decided on an adventurous itinerary for our drive south to Dubrovnik starting from the island of Vis in order to see as much of the Croatian coastline as possible during our trip. I wouldn’t necessarily suggest this tight scheduled itinerary to anyone but due to our travel timeline, this crazy long day in the car enabled us to see as many islands in Southern Croatia as possible and in the end, while it was tiring driving, I am glad we did all the various ferries!

My girlfriend and I literally waited up until the day before to see how we felt about taking this strenuous itinerary. Part of the travel hassle was due to ultimately getting the rental car returned back south so we were limited to car ferries instead of the faster passenger-only catamarans. On leaving Vis during June, there were only two car ferries off the island a day. We had to catch the god awful early 5:30am morning ferry back to Split.

Getting to Korcula by car from up North is a pain. So arriving back in Split, we next drove a few hours south to the port town of Plonce and put the car back onto a different ferry to Trpanj. I highly recommend getting your Jardroninja ferry tickets online and using the scan code for boarding instead of waiting at the ferry ticket offices to wait in line to purchase. Find some wifi and use your phone!  Can I tell you we made it with 5 minutes to spare?!  The ferry staff are masters at their craft of getting the vehicles on and off.  Haven’t done this much car ferry travel since trips to Martha’s Vineyard!

We set off for our short drive across the island. That was our first sighting of these crazy signs! Here piggly wiggly!

From Trpanj, we drove across the island to Orebic port, parked the car at the port for a few hours and took a local passenger ferry over to Korcula for a leisurely lunch. One note, if you are going over to Korcula without a car, do not take the usual Jardrolinija ferry as it disembarks over a mile from the town of Korcula and then you will need to hail a cab back and forth. Instead take the local passenger ferry which disembarks directly at the town and does plenty of the 15 minute trips back and forth daily for 15 Kuna. Below is a sample schedule.

There were a couple places I had been interested in trying to dine but I think it is always better to make a unified decision with those with whom you are breaking bread. After reviewing some choices during the 15 minute journey, my girlfriend and I disembarked from the ferry to check out the menus of our top two possible restaurant choices.  At port we briefly stopped in the tourist information booth located directly across from the passenger ferry dock, just to the left of the staircase into the old city. We got a city map and asked for some directions.

My girlfriend and I were torn between two of the many restaurants and checking our map we set off to find the first restaurant Konoba Skver. And we got a little lost…. but the old city is so small, we found it quickly after setting ourselves straight. Konoba Skver has a 4 item menu which changes daily based on whatever ingredients are fresh and available.  Perfect for the way I love to eat, but because it was so hot out and there was no water view, we decided to check out the next spot on our list.

We walked along following our map towards the back end of the old city, just on the top of the old walls, where many restaurant tables overlook the azure waters with wonderful fresh breezes wafting through.

This is where the second choice restaurant Konoba Nonno was located.

The view was incredible with our table overlooking the aqua sea.

Right behind Regina were the steps down to the azure water. If only we had our swimsuits and a little more time…

Since the island is renowned for their wines but we were a little out of our depth regarding Croatian wines, we relied on our waitress who was knowledgeable about the local wines that could compliment our dish choices.

We started our meal with a shared arugula salad topped with local cheese, walnuts, olives, tomatoes and cucumbers.  The briny and sweet complimented the wine perfectly.

There were local olive oils to try on the salad that were earthy and unique.

My friend Regina had been wanting to, but had not yet tried Croatian lobster, so she dove in and ordered it here. Her entree was made with hand rolled pasta in a tomato white wine sauce with local spiny lobster.

I think she might have enjoyed it….:-)

I ordered a hand rolled pasta Bolognese with chunks of meat cooked down with their local red wine. Might not look like much to look at but don’t be fooled, it was delicious.

In fact, this restaurant was one of my favorite meals on the entire trip. Was such a shame that we had to head back to do more driving but I can see why people love this island so much.

Well, at least we got to see, eat and drink just a bit of if all in during lunch. I will always remember the delicious meal set against these beautiful waters. Until we meet again Korcula!