There was a slogan used by the Croatian National Tourist Board which sums up where I am currently calling home perfectly – The Mediterranean as it once was. After 22 years of living in Dubrovnik there is only one part of the county that my feet hadn’t touched. That final piece of the puzzle has now been solved. Lastovo!
An island paradise, a place that time has forgot and a yachter’s dream. It quickly appeared that I was not the only citizen of Dubrovnik not to visited the furthest inhabited Croatian island from the mainland. “Oh, I have always wanted to go there, but it’s so far away,” was basically the standard reply I received. In one way they were right. The connections to Lastovo from Dubrovnik are, well let’s be diplomatic and say, time-consuming. I could have probably been in any other city in the whole of Croatia in the time it took me to get to Lastovo. And this is an island that is in our county!
First impressions – a smaller and wilder version of Mljet. The sea is clear. No, that is a massive understatement. The sea makes a bottle of Jana look cloudy. I have probably never seen a cleaner sea in my life. And the colours and shades. Degas’s palette didn’t have half of the blues I have seen in the sea around Lastovo, and Edgar did love those blue shades.
The old slogan really sums it up perfectly, both in a positive way and a negative way. For the nature is best untouched but the man made things could do with some serious touching. Apart from the natural amphitheatre that is the town of Lastovo the other coastal settlements are, being diplomatic again, less attractive. But that is so often the case, for in terms of beauty man can’t beat nature.