Orebic

Orebić wasn't always called Orebić. Until the 16th century the settlement — first recorded in 1318 — went by the name Trstenica, a small fishing village on the Pelješac Peninsula. That changed in 1586, when the Orebić family, originally from Bakar, rebuilt the old castle at the center of the settlement and gave the town its name. In 1707, Emperor Joseph granted the family hereditary nobility for more than 70 years of naval service; the original Writ of Nobility is still kept at the town's Maritime Museum.

That naval tradition is really the whole story of Orebić. Through the 18th and 19th centuries the town produced generations of sea captains, at one point running up to 33 transatlantic sailing ships and its own shipyard. Between 1865 and 1887 it was home to the Associazione Marittima di Sabioncello, a shipping company that operated 33 vessels named after figures from the Old Testament, capitalized at 2 million Austrian gold forints. One local captain, Jozo Šunj, was even given a gold pocket watch by Abraham Lincoln after rescuing 22 American sailors from a storm off Newfoundland. Orebić, Hamburg and Piraeus were reportedly the only three ports that passing ships greeted with a blast of the horn — a mark of respect the town's captains had earned across the shipping world.

The Maritime Museum in the old town holds what's left of that history: sea charts, ship's logs, captains' portraits and tools of the trade, alongside archaeological finds from the wider area. Above the town, the Franciscan Monastery of Our Lady of Angels, built at the end of the 16th century and perched 152 meters above the sea, looks out over both the Pelješac and Korčula channels.

These days Orebić is a popular stop for gulet charter guests exploring Dubrovnik as much for its beaches as its history — Trstenica, a roughly 1-kilometer stretch of sand and pebble on the town's eastern side, is the main one — and it's also the departure point for the short ferry hop across to Korčula, which takes as little as 10 to 15 minutes.