SMOKVICA

This small municipality has just over 1,000 inhabitants, and it is on the island road (29 km from Korcula). The village was built on the south slope of a hill beside spacious vineyards where Pošip grapes are grown. The large Neo-Romanesque church of The Purification of Our Lady (Gospino ocišcenje) was designed by Oton Ivekovic and built in 1920 on the site of an older church. Beside it is a Baroque loggia surrounded by columns on all sides. In the village there were several patrician summer houses, and nearby there are several small early-medieval churches.

The Ante Cefara cultural and performing society in the village nurtures the music and local folk dance Kumpanija. A side road leading south runs to two bays surrounded by pine woods. In the larger Brna there is a hotel and new small pensions and holiday houses, in neighbouring Istruga medicinal mud for treating rheumatic disorders. The road continues westward beside the south shore passing by Prišcapac tourist village with lovely beaches, and then Prižba and Grščica bays, where there are hotels in pine woods and many family pensions and houses. The road then climbs northward to the interior of the island and the large village of Blato.