The town of Korčula, island of Korčula in Croatia

To mitigate the lack of space within the boundary of the old city, the places are small, the narrow houses, the churches and the public buildings built in height.

The fortress of the city, built with stones coming from the island close to Vrnik, took its current form with 14th and 15th centuries.

Korčula is named Cùrzola in Italian.

A tower of the city by the outside of the ramparts (13th-15th centuries) makes it possible to understand the defensive structure of it:

• east coast, the wall overhangs the rocks, like formerly. The south-eastern angle is kept by the tower of All-the-Saint and its guns.
• west coast, a quay was arranged, the length which one passes successively in front of the Kanavelić tower, the door of the Sea and finally the tower of the Governor.

The tower accommodates an exposure on the moreška and offers a panorama on the city and the port.

Visit 9:00 at 20:30.

Paying entry: 10 kunas.

Above the door, one finds the weapons of the governor Leoni and an inscription of 1592 reporting that after the fall of Troy, Korčula was rested by the Greek hero Anténor.

One placed three guns of the 18th century at the top of the tower.

It is at the top of the city, at the top of the hill. Two facts were at the origin of its construction: establishment of the bishopric at the 14th century and economic prosperity thanks to the craft industry of the size of the stone. It was built at the 17th century with calcareous stone of Korčula. One already on the spot used parts of old churches as well as monuments.

Several generations of stonecutters and masons were harnessed with the work, which lasted a whole century (the 15th century). Y worked many artists of Korčula, but also of the Italians. Little time after the completion of the cathedral was added the votive chapel Saint Roch (1525), supposed to draw aside the epidemics of plague.

The building is of Gothic style and rebirth, high on a Romance basilical level. The superbly carved gate was carried out by the Italian Master Bonino da Campione. On the two sides on high consoles lions are carved which hold a lamb in their claws. Under their legs, a man and a woman are held squatted and undoubtedly represent Adam and Eve.

Its frontage with rosette is decorated of a carved plank fantastic characters: rather strange characters (for a church) decorate the cornice with the pediment, like this siren with two tails and a large head of elephant stylized…

The bell-tower, stuck to the frontage, is older than the cathedral, at least its first level (Romance) dating from the 15th century. Above this first stage the dial of the clock is. Just in lower part, a small mobile metal ball, painted in black and gold, swivels according to the phases of the moon. The second stage of the bell-tower is Gothic and ends in a capped terrace of an octagonal cupola; it was built by Marko Andrijić, the most famous sculptor of the island of Korčula.

The shape of the ceiling points out that of a hull of boat. On the wall in the central nave, behind the ciborium which contains the ciborium, is the baldachin of the high altar, carried out by Andrijić (1486), which shelters a table representing the patron saint of the city, holy Marc, Jerome and Barthélemy, painted by Jacopo Tintoreto, Tintoret, in 1550. It is an early work, ordered by the authorities of the island. One notices the light effects and of colors characteristic of his works, as well as the remarkably painted faces.

On the line, in the southern nave, to note a diptych representing the Annunciation, allotted to Tintoret or, more probably, its workshop, and to a Virgin (13th century) known as “miraculous” since it would have helped with the victory over the Turks!

The cathedral also shelters a gilded bronze statue of saint Blaise and Piéta carried out by Ivan Meštrović, a large Croatian artist of the 20th century.

On the left of the chorus, to note the beautiful Gothic door of the sacristy and its reasons for musicians.

Visit from May to October, 9:00 at 20:00; to address to the tourist office the remainder of the year.

Paying entry: 25 kunas.

The abbey palace shelters, on the first floor, the “abbey Treasury” which gathers rare crowned paintings, Italian paintings and drawings (15th-16th century), old manuscripts (12th century), ravissantes alabaster statuettes and one surprising collection of miniature relics.

The collections represent the history, the culture and the social conditions of the city and the island as a whole. However, certain times only are partially represented because the materials were not always preserved. In the first room stone fragments and a collection of monuments are exposed which tells the story of the island under the Greeks and the Romans. In the second room the art of the stone size is exposed. One can observe there a workshop of stonecutter dating from the 19th century (framings of windows, doors, the capitals, the armorial bearings, the decorative cornices and other elements coming from damaged or demolished buildings).

In the last room of the ground floor, a collection of kitchen utensils is presented. On the first floor are exposed the underwater discoveries, with mainly of the amphoras and the information on naval construction in the island. In the first room one can observe Greek vases dating from the 3rd century before J. - C. other objects were found in sea-beds around the island.

Lastly, the big room of the 2nd stage, is used as gallery with a collection of art and culture. Various documents, pieces of furniture and tables illustrating the Dalmatian history are exposed in a first part of the room. In the second part, one finds furniture of living room dating from the end from 18th and beginning from the 19th century, as well as decorative objects of the same time. Under the roofs, a kitchen is arranged, with its rustic furniture, its equipment and ustensils characteristic of the area.

Visit from July to August, the every day of 10:00 to 21:00; in September, 10:00 at 14:00 and 19:00 at 21:30; the remainder of the year, the every day except Sunday, of 10:00 to 14:00

Paying entry: 20 kunas.

The Saint Michael church posts this famous style baroque added to 17th and 18th century, just like the marble high altar and the table of Domenico Maggiotto (“Virgin of the Consolation”, 18th century). The visit of the collection of the brotherhood makes it possible to discover oldest (1615) and largest of the candles of procession (100 kg), like some beautiful icons (14th and 15th century).

Visit July at mid-September, the every day of 9:00 to 13:00 and 17:30 to 23:00

Paying entry: 7 kunas.

Opened the every day.

Free entry.

Founded in 1301, the brotherhood of All Saints’ day gathered and preserved in her house and the church of many objects liturgical, of the documents and objets d’art and invaluable. The room of presentation was installed and opened in 1960 with the public. In the principal room a large table out of wooden and benches, used for the solemn meals trônent. Around are laid out of the candles of ceremonies, of the white cotton tunics with a cap decorated with a small Red Cross formerly carried by the fellow-members. One finds also a cross processional silver, the medallion of the Virgin in the pain (symbol of the brotherhood), of the objects of worship of 17th and 18th centuries, the collections of song and a ballot box of vote for the election of the administration of the brotherhood. At the bottom of the room is exposed a great painting of the Holy Communion, painted on wood by an anonymous artist at the 17th century. On the right, bellow of the staircases, the oldest church of the city is located. Beside the statue of holy Lucie, one can see a good amount of ex-votos which represent it, of the eyes carved in money. It was indeed the owner of the city.

Visit the every day of 10:00 to 13:00 and 17:00 to 20:00

Paying entry: 10 kunas.

The building is a ruin of the late Gothic, close which the ruins of a square tower, built on the bridge above the lane are drawn up, which is completed by a loggia-view-point. The rise with the loggia of the 1st stage offers a pretty sight on the roofs and the bell-tower of the cathedral.

Visit from April to October, 9:00 at 20:30.

Paying entry: 10 kunas.

The city of Korčula was created well after Vela Luka, then Lumbarda, rested by the Greeks starting from the 6th century before J. - C. It did not even know the Roman occupation (as of the 1st century), of Slavic and the Croats (7th century) and the arrival of Venetian, in the year 1000. It is with the Middle Ages that the latter built the city, which lived then, as the remainder of the island, the uninterrupted waltz of the dominators succeeding the City of the Doges: Austria, France, Russia, England…

Yielded to Austria by the Congress of Vienna, Korčula was integrated into Yugoslavia in 1921 and followed Dalmatia in the Republic of Croatia.

Until the 17th century, all the townsmen lived inside the ramparts. It is only at the 18th century that houses were built in the south of Korčula. It is now outside the old city that are the majority of the inhabitants, as well as the stores.

What is certain, it is that the family of Sports shirt lived the island during centuries, as many documents in the archives of Korčula attest it. There is also a hotel Marko Polo, a travel agency Marko Polo, and the Jadrolinija company gave the name of the browser to his larger and more beautiful ferry.

The town of Korčula even celebrated, in 1954, the 700e birthday of Marco Polo, whose supposed native house is in the vicinity immediate of the cathedral Saint Mark, on the right of bell-tower on the principal place, among the other middle-class residences of the city. Nothing is absolutely certain, but in 1995, Korčula celebrated the 700e birthday of the return of the browser of China.

Only one fact is absolutely uncontested by the historians: Marco Polo took well part, in 1298, with a naval battle near Korčula, Venice opponent in Genoa, battles at the conclusion from which it was made prisoner, on September 7th, 1298.

During the Holy Week, the brotherhoods take part in the processions in a great enthusiasm. Most solemn place has Friday, when more than 600 people ravel in costumes. Members of the brotherhoods perpetuate there the washing of the feet of the apostles in a silver basin, where float of the white flowers.