On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good morning everyone,
We have another few submissions from Sister Golden Bear, and we’ll begin today and continue Monday. Great stuff!
Take care and keep sane. This is a long-haul situation and we’re just pulling out of the gas station, looking at the road ahead and thinking we’ll be there before long, that it will be a quick drive. It won’t.
I expect this feature will need to evolve a bit, and am mulling around another daily pick-me-up feature, details when I’ve got some time to prep. I know many folks have planned travel-related submissions, and I encourage them, but perhaps we need to move our focus to local pictures and not make those housebound feel even more cut off from life. Still life, portrait, snapshot, and backyard photographers, assemble!
Continuing the travelogue from a few months ago. I took the ferry from Split to Korčula, a Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea.
Like most costal towns in Croatia, it was heavily fortified (having changed hands numerous times over the centuries), but the outer walls were mostly torn down in recent decades.
Korčula is home to the Moreška, a traditional sword dance, involving elaborate an production involving two groups of dancers, engaging in a mock battle over the fate of a veiled young woman. The dance dates back to the Middle Ages, and used to be more widely performed, but now is only performed in Korčula. Performers must be native to the town, and local families take great pride in their participation.
Korčulans claim the town is home to Marco Polo, which is debatable, but great for local tourism.
Korčula features a unique fishbone arrangement to streets in the Old Town, intended to protect against cold and unpleasant North/Eastern winds in winter, while still allowing cooling breezes in summer.
Mike J
I just saw a presentation on sailboat cruising in Croatia, from a guy that cruised out of Split and hit the islands for two weeks. Funny how a place you never think of comes up multiple times.
Amir Khalid
From its name and Sister Golden Bear’s description, the Moreška seems to have been influenced by exposure to Arab/Muslim culture. Especially the bit with the swords and veil.
zhena gogolia
I was there in 1975 — so beautiful!
J R in WV
Thank you Sister G B — great to see other tiny places around the world.
Best of luck Sister~!
Geminid
Thank you Sister Golden Bear. Love the sky beyond the towers, reminds me of a visit to the Lowell Observatory, above Flagstaff. Hope you are safe in your city.
Sebasian
As a native Croatian thank you for this post.
Korcula is a very special place, hard to see from pictures. It has a certain serenity not found anywhere else. It’s a truly magic place. I only went once 30 years ago as there were so many other places on the coast to vacation but I remember it vividly to this day.
HinTN
That photograph of the stairs descending is calling to me that I must go there.
Thank you so much for sharing these.
Sister Golden Bear
@Amir Khalid: You are correct. Per Wikipedia:
The dance has “its roots in the Middle Ages, from the several hundred years of battle between Muslims and Christians (Moros y cristianos) in Spain.” The dance then spread from Spain into other Spanish-influenced areas. Probably it spread to Croatia via Spanish traders.
Croatia fought a 100-year war against the Ottoman empire and parts of Croatia were still occupied by the Ottomans until the end of the 17th century, which probably why the dance was popular there.
“The two sides of battling dancers were originally Moors and Christians, recalling the Spanish battles of the Reconquista in the Middle Ages. However, at some point in the 19th century in Korčula, the sides changed from Christians vs. Moors, to Croats vs. Moors, or simply “White” and “Black”, with the non-Moor side emerging victorious.”
stinger
Nice photos, and what an interesting place!
Denali
Hoped to get to the Croatian coast this summer, but, alas, it is not to be.