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KORCULA TOWN sits on a beetle-shaped hump of land, a medieval walled city ribbed with a series of narrow streets that branch off the spine of the main street like the veins of a leaf. The Venetians first arrived here in the eleventh century, and stayed, on and off, for nearly eight centuries. Their influence is particularly in evidence in Korcula's old town, which huddles around the Cathedral of St Mark (Katedrala svetog Marka), squeezed into a space between the buildings that roughly passes for a main square. The cathedral facade is decorated with a gorgeous fluted rose window and a bizarre cornice frilled with strange beasts. The interior, reached through a door framed by statues of Adam and Eve, is one of the loveliest in the region - a curious mixture of styles which range from the Gothic forms of the nave to the Renaissance northern aisle, tacked on some time in the sixteenth century, the whole appealingly squashed into a space quite obviously too small for it. The clutter of artefacts ranges from pikes used against sixteenth-century Algerian corsair Uliz Ali, to paintings that include an altarpiece by Leandro Bassano, in the south aisle, and an early Tintoretto, behind the high altar and difficult to make out. However, the best of the church's treasures have been removed to the Bishop's Treasury (summer only Mon-Sat 10am-noon & 5-9pm; 10kn), a couple of doors down. This is one of the best small collections of fine and sacral art in the country, with an exquisite set of paintings, including a striking Portrait of a Man by Carpaccio, a perceptive Virgin and Child by Bassano, some Tiepolo studies of hands and some Raphael drawings, and a tiny Madonna by a local Renaissance artist, Blaz Jurjev of Trogir. There is also a Leonardo da Vinci sketch of a soldier wearing a costume that bears a striking resemblance to that of the Moreska dancers. Oddities include an ivory statuette of Mary Queen of Scots, whose skirts open to reveal kneeling figures in doublet and hose. How this got here, no one knows. Opposite the treasury, a former Venetian palace holds the Town Museum (Gradski muzej; summer Mon-Sat 9am-noon & 5-9pm; winter Mon-Fri 9am-1pm; 8kn), whose more modest display contains a plaster cast of a fourth-century BC Greek tablet from Lumbarda - the earliest evidence of civilization on Korcula. Close by the main square, down a turning to the right, is another remnant from Venetian times, the so-called House of Marco Polo (daily: summer only 10am-1pm & 5-7pm; 5kn). Korcula claims to be the birthplace of Marco Polo - a claim not as extravagant as it might first appear. The Venetians recruited many of their sea captains from their colonies, and Polo was indeed captured by the Genoese off the island in 1298, after which he used his time in prison to write his Travels . Whatever the truth of the matter, it seems unlikely that he had any connection with this seventeenth-century house, which is these days little more than an empty shell with some terrible twentieth-century prints on the walls. Back down the main street, follow the signs to the Icon Gallery (summer only Mon-Sat 10am-1pm & 5-7pm; 5kn), where there's a permanent display of icons in the rooms of the All Saints' Brotherhood. Most of the exhibits were looted from the Cretans in the seventeenth century, and the best is the fifteenth-century triptych of The Passion . The nearest beaches to the old town are on the headland southeast of town around the Hotel Marko Polo , though they're crowded, rocky and uncomfortable. A better bet is to head off by water taxi from the old harbour to one of the Skoji islands just offshore. The largest and nearest of these is Badija , where there are some secluded rocky beaches, a couple of snack bars and a naturist section. There's also a sandy beach just beyond the village of Lumbarda , 8km south of Korcula (reached by hourly bus in the summer).
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