It was a dark and stormy night……it actually wasn’t but I always wanted to start a story with this. We did have a thunder storm around midnight and were ready for a rainy day but the clouds cleared and it was lovely. We started the day by going to visit a convent in Blato (a town on the island. Read more here) .
A mural depicting the life of Blessed Marija Petkovic of the Crucified Jesus
This delightful little nun about 4 foot nothing excitingly told us about the founder of her order Mary Petkovic (they call her the Blessed Marija Petkovic of the Crucified Jesus). It is a Franciscan order -the Daughters of Mercy- founded in 1920. Marija was declared Blessed by Pope John in 2003. ( Read more here). The convent can also be used as a sanctuary – would be a lovely place for a retreat.
The front of the altar in the chapel.
Following this we went to an ethnographic display – a family had turned the bottom of their home into a display of artifacts used by their family- many of which were very familiar to most of us. They also had home made goodies for sale- we did get to taste their various kinds of brandy- I liked the fig brandy best.
Home of the family Barilo, that way —>
Some of the marvelous items on displayed by the family Barilo
Inside the family Barilo home
After this we continued overland by bus to Vela Luka, where we explored the various nooks and crannies of the town. Our yacht met us there and we had a 3 hour sail to Vis (Greg was a bit apprehensive that we might end up like Gilligan’s island so he had a 3 hour snooze).
MS Adris coming to meet us in Vela Luka
Once we arrived at Vis – and the major town of Vis- we had an interesting guide who is a geography teacher and does guiding on the side. This town, the oldest town in Croatia, like many, was settled 3-4 centuries BC. It has a population of about 3000 swelling to 15000 in the summer. We saw an archeological display that had early Roman artifacts from 3-4000 BC, found in a nearby cove. It seems that they have just discovered another site nearby. We learned that this island was a military establishment during the time of Tito. You could see the various tunnels that had been established. Our guide told us that they now used the tunnels to store wine, for their fairly small wine industry. (Read more here Read more here )
A sealed amphora was recently discovered that contained olive oil that was over 2,000 years old.
Vis is the sailing capital of Croatia as is evidenced by the myriad of sail boats both private and available for rent.
We hopped on one of their 2 school and everything else buses and had a quick visit to the other main town on the island (Komiza). This is a fishing town so it seemed appropriate to visit the fisherman’s museum and see one of the original wooden boats they used. Now, of course, they are all aluminum. (Read more here )
Fishing village of Komiza
Sunset in Komiza
We went back to Vis and we all went to various restaurants for supper. We went to restaurant Val and I had pumpkin soup and the island speciality of visko pogaca (sort of a baked bread pie filled with anchovies) and Greg had pasticada (beef dish that takes all day to cook). I normally don’t like anchovies but these weren’t overly salty and the dish was quite yummy. Greg had a tiramisu that he declared the best he had ever eaten. When he wasn’t looking I scooped up about a third of it. Greg was right. It was fantastic. Back to the ship to rest up for another day of adventure.
This night shot of Saint Jeromina (Jerome) in the city of Vis on the island of Vis took me about 30-45 minutes of trying different camera settings
The time it took for the night photo was well worth it. Beautiful! Nice yacht!