Figs and grappa

How many figs is too many, but at least I did not drink the grappas!

We started out from the hotel this morning, along the coast trail, admiring the rosemary, St John's wort and other fruits and flora that flourishes in the warm climate.  A wind known as Hugo has come in over night bringing humid cloudy weather.  While we are none to fond of the humidity, the cloudiness was appreciated as the sun can be strong.  We saw pomegranate trees and citrus and peach trees, marveling in the small farm crops which provide both sustenance and profits to the people of Brac. One of the amazing sites on this island are piles of rocks. There are plenty of rock walls and houses built with the stone but there will be a field and next to it, will be a pile of rocks. Agriculture did not come easy to the residents of Brac -the soil is very, very rocky. Over hundreds of years, the soil was cleared and the rock piles were created. The books say the women of Brac were responsible for this work and given all the lovely agriculture we see today, their descendants should be very proud of all their work.

The trail was not hard and eventually we headed up a hill at the top of which we visited a little farm with olive oil, grappa, wine a dried figs, all of which we needed to sample.  The dried figs are not mass produced here so every farm makes them slightly differently.  This farm was manned by an old man and woman- and I do mean old.  The olive oil was stored in a 300 year old stone vat in a house with a 300plus year old roof made of stone and limestone.  I bought some dried figs which are stored in containers with bay leaves. Many people bought the olive oil, rumored to be the best on the islands.  The grappa is made of herbs and walnuts so I avoided that but enjoyed some wine. We stopped at a local museum, which was rather nondescript and in the houses of one of the old Venetian families which ruled the island during medieval times. You need to look closely but you can see that the building was built on an early Greek and old Roman site - each layer of stonework a testament to the technology of the builders. Inside are a variety of artifacts the sort of which you would find in a much bigger facility.

We walked on a bit further to a big Sunday lunch which is a Croatian custom.  We sat under the olive trees at a big picnic table and started with local antipasto: anchovies, pickles, figs, olives, sheep cheese (we had seem some sheep and lambs during the morning walk), and pancetta, olive oil and bread.  That was followed by gnocchi with either local tomato sauce, which was sweet or a local stew where the meat is marinated in vinegar for 24 hours.  Or in my case, a plate split with green salad right from the garden in the middle and each sauce on either side of the plate.  Yum.

We lingered over lunch but eventually headed out over a trail of limestone to a marble quarry.  Brac quarries supplied the marble for the White House and when you get to the quarry you see acres of perfect white stone.  I tried to turn one large stone into a bed but was pushed on to get out of the afternoon sun.  Some is us did not want to finish our day so while one group came back to the hotel for a swim in the still cold Adriatic, others of us finished with a walk back reversing the morning coastal walk.  Now we wait for dinner and I nibble more figs.  I think I need to share to avoid eating them all!