Day 7 - White Stone, a Quarrel Between Goddesses and Yellow Submarines
- SElliott
- 7 days ago
- 3 min read
I had a lie in this morning – until 7am! Then headed up for breakfast as we waved farewell to Ploce’s unloaders ☹.
Views when Sailing
We travelled this morning to the island of Brač, the largest island in Central Dalmatia. This island is known for its lovely stone beaches and is covered with forests of cypress trees. Brač was first populated by the Croatian people in the 7th century, with the island becoming part of the Croatian Kingdom of King Tomislav in the 10th century. In the following centuries, Brac flipped between rule by the Venetian Empire and the Croatian Kings, as well as the Croatian-Hungarian Empire. This seems to be the case for a lot of Croatia to be honest.
Legend has it that Brač originally belonged to the Greek goddess Artemis. She was the patron of the wilderness, nature, flora, and fauna. During her reign, the island is said to have been covered with forests and inhabited by many living creatures. It was so breathtakingly beautiful that Aphrodite decided she wanted it to herself. She managed to convince Zeus to grant her the wish, and the powerful king of deities ordered Artemis to leave Brač.
Artemis was furious and did not want to go down quietly. In revenge, she wiped out the forests and took all the animals with her, leaving Aphrodite just bare rocks. However, the goddess of love and beauty did not despair and instead turned the useless rock into precious, white, marble that ensured her island would be famous for centuries.
This stone, called Brač Stone, is white marble and adorns cathedrals in Trogir and Šibenik, St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, the opera building and the parliament house in Vienna, the parliament house in Budapest, the White House, and the Royal Palace in Stockholm.
We were let off at one of the large towns on Brač, Bol, but the yacht wasn’t allowed to moor and had to sit at anchor off the coast. Bol was full of white stone houses surrounding “pjacete” (tiny squares typical for Dalmatia), numerous Baroque summer mansions, churches and chapels, and a 600+ years old monastery. It looked very typical of Dalmatian towns like the others we’ve seen.
After we walked around the small harbour of Bol (it’s still awfully hot) Mum and I decided to meander along the 2km promenade to Zlatni Rat Beach. It was a nice and shaded walk below the pine trees. It’s also lined with resorts or very posh looking houses!
We had a nice wander, stopping to sit and admire the view every so often from the benches that line the route at discrete intervals.
We arrived at Zlatni Rat beach and paused for an ice cream as we walked along a part of the 500m long pebble beach. This beach stretches into the sea like a small peninsula and changes its shape and position depending on the wind, tide, and the current. Sometimes, the tip of the beach rotates so significantly that it forms a small pool.
The beach had white pebbly stones on it, nothing like our sandy beaches. It’s also a hub for holidaymakers with “paragliding” activities, where they were being pulled behind a boat, a “wipeout-like” obstacle course and wind surfing.
On the way back we stopped periodically to look at the wares that were being sold from small kiosks along the route. We had to be back in the town by 16:30 to be picked up by the yacht and then we were on the way to Makarska for our night’s stop.
When we arrived a Makarska we arranged to go to the emergency room as mum had had a killer headache for the last couple of days. The tour director and a member of the crew (who could speak Croatian) came with us. Although the nurses at the emergency room apologised and said they couldn’t really do anything, they then proceeded to do a barrage of tests including an ECG and some tests which I think were to check for a hand eye co-ordination. I think we’ve ruled out anything really bad and mum got a paracetamol shot before we walked back to the yacht and our dinner, which had been held for us.
After dinner walked along water front and saw a yellow submarine!
Comments