Mljet island and Peka dinner
After our first night at Šipan, we motored to the island of Mljet (not a typo). As Iviča said, this was not a very large town… (“You look here , you can see house, house tree, church, house…the is all”). We took a taxi to the other side of the island, then a short boat taxi across an inland lake to a pretty monastery hugging the lake’s edge. The monastery wasn’t spectacular and a tally pretty dull compared to most of the others we’ve seen, but the trip made for a nice walk and some sightseeing.
After the monastery we took the taxi boat to another small, inland salt lake where I took a swim. The interesting thing about this lake is that is connected to the adjoining lake by a small channel, and The current I’d the channel changes directions twice a day depending on the tides. We sat in the sun by the lake for a while watching fish, sea urchins and sea anenomies in the shallow water.
The highlight if this stop was dinner. There was a restaurant near where we docked that serves up a traditional Croation dish called peka. Peka is typically lamb, veal or octopus, cooked in a wine and garlic sauce with potatoes and vegetables. It is cooked on an outside fire or grill under a bell shaped dish, for up to three hours. Mark and Bernadette ordered lamb and Alyssa and I ordered the octopus. The octopus was the most tender, deliciously rich and flavorful I have ever had, and the lamb got similar reviews. If you ever come to Croatia make sure to put this dish on your “must eat” list, and remember to call the restaurant at least three hours ahead of time so they can get it started cooking before you arrive, otherwise you’ll have a very long wait.
Outside the restaurant as we left we met a very cute and spry mustached man at the grill names Stephan who had been our cook. He told us about how he liked to go out and fish by himself and how our fish was caught earlier that day.
