Tour guide in Korcula Tina A.

Thank you for choosing Croatia for your trip (which is, by the way, an excellent choice)! I come from a small town on a small island, Korčula - town and island. Close to Dubrovnik. I spent my childhood swimming in the Adriatic Sea. Then I studied in Zagreb. I became a teacher of French, Portuguese and Philosophy. Then I started to teach. I'm fond of dogs. I got to know every corner of my island thanks to my dogs. Then a local tourist agency offered me a job - instead of walking the dogs, walking the tourists! They called that - hiking. On my island, hiking does not exist. It's already strange to walk with dogs. So, I moved back to my island, and I started to work as a hiking guide. For the locals, I had the worst job on the earth. For me, I had the best office in the world - my island. I still work as a hiking guide. And I do all kind of sightseeing, including the sightrunning. I structure every tour as a storyteller. It's all about bringing houses, churches, squares, even windows to vivid and vibrant life right before your eyes. Or, let's put it like this - you will walk along the streets as if you're walking in the theatre - the whole of the town takes the stage, and you'll be put right in the thick of it. I've always liked martial arts. As a child, I trained in taekwondo. Later, in kung fu. The martial arts led me to yoga. Today I combine running and yoga. For me, running is meditation in movement. But how did I start running? It happened in Lisbon - although nothing happens overnight. Anyway, I was in Lisbon attending a three-month course of Portuguese. And for the first time, I found myself without my dogs. All day long, day after day, I was just sitting. One day, on the way to the University, I started to notice runners - literally on every corner. Back home, we do not run - you cannot run from the Adriatic Sea. You can only swim in it. I missed walking with my dogs, so I started to run. Simple as that. At the beginning a short run, but later I couldn't stop. I came back from Portugal with the ability to speak Portuguese and to run - two birds with one stone. So, I continued to run. But in the extreme south of Croatia, it's not normal to run. When you run, it's normal for a car to suddenly stop, and the driver of the car suddenly asks: Do you need a ride? You can answer: Thank you, but I prefer to run. And for the nonplussed driver that would be as if you had just declined his help. It seems that we love helping people. Somebody who runs has to be in big trouble, if not, he would not run. From that year on, I ran a lot, and everywhere. I started to escort groups on bus tours. I was travelling from city to city all the time. I used to wake up before my group just to go for a run. After the season, I already had a vast collection of cities in my legs. But all this running was in fact preparation for the Lisbon Half Marathon! I used to imagine myself running it. It took me six years of running to finally go back to Lisbon and run the Lisbon Half Marathon. After the finishing line, I was deliriously happy. I checked my legs, but nothing had changed. I did it, but I needed the answer - why did it take me so long? I think I know why - The Lisbon Half Marathon was something I had dreamed about. But no dream can ever disappear. The dreams just hid somewhere deep inside us and wait until we stop being couch potatoes. If you are dreaming to see the true colours of Korčula, to understand the local mentality, to go into the secret corners that others ignore, and to feel what's like to live on an island, let me pull your dream from inside you. When in Korčula, well, you are far enough from Rome… In the meantime, my dogs became couch potatoes. Just give them a remote control, and they are happy as Larry. - Licensed tour guide for Dubrovnik-Neretva County since 2005 - Licensed travel agency manager - Master's Degree in Philosophy, French language and literature, and Portuguese language and literature, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb - Member of Dubrovnik Tourist Guides Association I do have a driving license, but I do not drive to deliver my tours.