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I once knew a guy who was into re-enacting World War Two battles. One time he was going to jump out of an airplane with his whole re-enactment “battalion” to make believe some parachuted-in firefight in France. The only problem was that the skydiving company wouldn’t let him jump with the rest of his group… because this guy was too fat.

What does this story have to do the Adriatic? Well, it tells you that re-enacting historical battles can be silly but kind of fun. It also tells you that people today are often fatter than they were in history. All of these lessons apply to Korcula’s annual re-enactment of one of the greatest naval battles in medieval Europe.

 Korcula

This battle was a titanic clash in 1298 between the rival fleets of Venice and Genoa. Venice launched some 95 ships at the Genoans, who were seriously outnumbered. Legend has it that among those sailing for Venice was none other than Marco Polo, who, also according to legend, called Korcula his hometown.

Fortune was not with Marco Polo and the Venetians that day in early September some seven hundred years ago. The Venetian commander, son of the doge, was killed. Of those 95 ships, the Venetians lost 85. And despite being outnumbered, the hardy Genoans managed to kill 9000 of their enemies. Even Marco Polo was supposedly taken prisoner and thrown into a cell in Genoa… where he began dictating the memoirs of his travels, which subsequently became famous, and remain so until this day.

Much more recently–just a few years ago, in fact–the people of Korcula began re-enacting this storied battle as both a commemoration and a tourist bonanza. I was there last September when the re-enactment took place. It was indeed a little bit silly. Korculan guys paraded around in medieval outfits. Actors, including one portraying Marco Polo, delivered somewhat cheesy speeches in Croatian that very few of the tourist onlookers actually understood. A bunch of excursion boats sailed around in the strait between Korcula and the Peljesac peninsula, pretending to attack each other in the very same waters where once the soldiers and sailors really were at each others’ throats.

But hey, it was fun. It’s a bit of low-key spectacle. The Korculans do their best. And it is kind of a neat way to connect to a stirring historical event. I’ve included a few of my pictures from that day, but if you want to check out a pretty good, edited video of the whole festivities, surf over to this site.

For a more in-depth account of the historical event, see this summary.