Smokvicaf

Located on the main island road, 29 km from the town of Korcula. It lies under the south slope of a high hill protected from the unpleasant north winds and facing south, like the neighbouring villages of Pupnat and Cara. Not far from Smokvica one can find significant traces of life from Illyrian times in the location of Gradina etc. Smokvica began to develop in its present form in the 15th and 16th centuries, when the island was more and more being inhabited by refugees from the Turkish advance. The original church was built in 1666 but was later pulled down, and the new parish church, Our Lady of Candlemas, was built in 1920. Only the loggia remained from the old complex, where the village elders used to settle the village problems, and the judge and the gentlemen of the town administered justice and passed on the news. Old customs have been preserved in the village, among the best known being the sword battle Kumpanija and Plucking the Orange, as well as the ancient dances performed by young men and girls. The people of Smokvica are known far and wide as industrious and hard-working men and women, who cultivate their land with hard devotion. They are therefore rightly proud of their two excellent dry white wines produced from the original native species - Posip and Rukatac. The modern wine factory of large capacity is 1 km away from the middle of the village on the road towards the bay of Brna, which was developed in the previous century for the export of wine from the Smokvica cellars to the ports of the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. A comfortable hotel, and numerous villas and houses for hiring to tourists have been built in Brna. One may taste, together with fish specialities, excellent Smokvica wines in the cafe near the jetty. Some hundred metres away from the bay of Brna, there lay the bay of Istruga, full of medicinal sea mud. Local people use this valuable therapeutic mud although there is still no organized expert service or supervision. The local road from Brna goes further towards the west to the bays of Prizba, Grscica and Karbuni, where the inhabitants of Blato have built significant facilities for tourism.>