Bound for South Dalmatia
This posting describes our journey along the coast of Croatia, accompanied by Megan Graham and Alana Chinn. Meg and Alana were part of the Team Tarrin Taskforce that visited Iceland in December. Most of the writing is by Tom, while most of the pictures and captions (below) are by Becky.
At sparrow's fart on Friday 7 January, Becky and I rose in Gavin Nicoll's Glasgow flat. Gavin and April, in one last act of outrageous hospitality, drove us to the airport to commence the second phase of our 'April's Planet' tour. We flew to Stansted (Essex) airport, meeting Meg, then on to Trieste, where we caught a sunset bus through a little bit of Italy and Slovenia to Pula, at the tip of the Istrian peninsula. There we met up with Alana.
The youth hostel in Pula was pretty basic, but it was very pretty too. The back door was about 10 metres from a rather exclusive Adriatic beach, where I touched the water and confirmed my growing suspicion that the Mediterranean does in fact exist. That night, we got our first taste of how very much pizza there is in Adriatic Croatia. We learned that beer is plentiful and cheap. We sampled biska (mistletoe) liqueur, which has a very sweet honey flavour if you get the good stuff. And we met a very nice New Yorker called Alison, who joined us for the meal. In fact, the espresso coffee and the pasta throughout the trip were of the very very best.
The next morning we picked up our cheap and good-driving hire car (a Fiat Stilo hired over the internet through a company called Mack Rent a Car -- one of April's many excellent recommendations) and went into the local amphitheatre, really a circus. It has a museum in the bowels, in which wild animals and gladiators were buffed up, and through which many were later dragged to their final resting places. But the real splendour is in walking through the grandstands and out on what is left of the pitch. It could almost be a baseball stadium now, with capacity for 15000 or so spectators. Not that anybody should be encouraged to play baseball until the Yanks admit Cuban teams into the world series of course...
That afternoon we set off, driving first to Rovinj on the Istrian west coast, then right around to Zadar in northern Dalmatia. This was a bloody long way. Too far really for relaxing tourists tootling through the afternoon. Still, once there we found a pensione for about $23 per head by knocking on the door. We were staring to figure out a routine that involved buying bread, smallgoods, and fruit each night, then we had breakfast, lunch, and snacks sorted for the next day. Restaurants and buffets were cheap enough that we rather miserly travellers could eat out every night. We stayed the whole day and the next night in Zadar. During the day, we drove out to the island of Pag.
Pag, famous for its hard cheese, salty lamb, and rocky outcrops, is one of the areas the war of 1991-5 did not reach (the Yugoslav army bombed the bridge to cut them off, but did not venture to cut them up). On the way there and back we passed through several places less lucky. It does not take much knowledge to figure out which walls have been strafed and which have taken tank shells, or to discern an old abandoned farmhouse from a mortarhole in the roof. To stop and look is very solemn. Nobody seemed upset that we were doing this: it was as though people living in the damage zones preferred us to stop and take photographs. Then, of course, we would hop back into our reliable hire car just as the journalists did 10+ years ago and zip away. While the cities are generally flurries of brickies' activity, rebuilding their civic and tourist infrastructure as rapidly as possible, so that it is often hard to see more than the pockmarks of automatic fire in high-rise tenements, the farms and country towns are a very different story. We passed through many ghost towns over the next few days, increasingly so as we headed further south, and especially whenever we left the beaten track and went inland -- particularly on one generally spectacular detour through the Krka National Park on our way from Zadar to Split.
On our second night in Zadar we visited the old city, a stunning fortress rebuilt several times since the Roman forum was first constructed under Augustus. Ancient marble rocks litter the courtyards casually, as though the town has been waiting a couple of millenia for the garboes to come and tidy them up. Something similar in Split, just down the road, where we clambered through Diocletian's retirement palace. There we scaled the bell tower, examined beautifully (really lovingly) kept churches, and wandered through the street markets. In Split, too, we learned how very stressful urban driving in Croatia can be. Not to be attempted by a tired person after several hours of highway motoring. And parking should only ever be attempted by duly accredited professionals (think Ferris Bueller's Day Off).
From Split southward again we drove. We spent a night in Ploce, where a warm-hearted landlord called Mario put us up for the night in a decidedly cold apartment. Ploce is a really gritty industrial port town. It was a reality dose to see the urban landscape many of the population here has to live with, when we were otherwise driving through pictures and postcards. The communist-era tenements are covered with bullet marks. But the boats are moving and the cranes are swinging: Croatia everywhere looks like a country working very hard to move and swing into a prosperous future within the European Union.
From Ploce to Dubrovnik. This meant passing through 20km of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Perhaps ironically, this was the most rebuilt and shiny stretch of the Dalmatian coast we saw. Every building there gleams with tourist potential. Come and spend your Euros! We speak English, Italian, German, Whateveryoulike. That sounds mercenary, but the truth is more warm and generous than that. It is just that business is growing very very fast in this corner of the world.
I write this in Dubrovnik, a medieval fortress that even the Lord Byron failed to over-romanticise when he called it 'the pearl of the Adriatic.' We have spent the last few days wandering the stepped streets, the stone docks, and these city walls like four Australians who have accidentally stumbled into a fairytale. I am constantly breathless, both with climbing and with beauty. We look up at the mountain positions the Yugoslav army took when they bombarded the city and are flabbergasted by the precarious nature of this place. They would have been to make out clearly every individual tile, stone, and life they destroyed. Not that they were without their reasons, of course. One day we shall hear more about that side of the story. But for now we feel this weirdly specific gratitude that independence, the goodwill of UNESCO and Europe, and the pride of Croatians has managed almost complete restitution of the carnage wrought by a still-unapologetic invader.
Another miracle of the 'April's Planet' guide has been our pensione in Dubrovnik. It is at Put Tobakorikar 20 (20 Tobacconist Lane) just outside the old city gates. We share a tiny cove with the local boatwrights, who work on fishing dinghies by day. The landlady, Marije, speaks almost no English, but she is an absolute wonder. Cannot recommend this place highly enough.
Well, Dubrovnik has been the scene for a final dissolution of Team Tarrin. For any who are wondering, we cannot rate the experience of travelling with Meg, Alana, and 'Mapper' highly enough. Alana left early on Friday, Meg that evening. Becky and I head off to Italy by ferry on Sunday morning. Namesake Tarrin (think Blake in Blake's 7) has been with us in spirit throughout Istria and Dalmatia. I think the lasting adjudication here is that this is a real must-see for fortress lovers everywhere.
As I write this, Croatia is less than 7 hours from the 2nd and final round of its presidential election. Two very benevolent free market conservatives are vying for the mantle, and their warm and caring posters have been everywhere -- even as we drove through Bosnia-Herzegovina. Stepan Mesič is the incumbent, and Jadranka Kosor is a challenger from the ministry, who is campaigning hard with support from war veterans and their families. Polls say Mesič should hold on, but the result may well be known before you read this. Opinion within our car has been divided, with perhaps a balance of opinion backing the woman over the bloke.
Posted by Tom in Dubrovnik.
posted by Tomnbecky at 3:38 am
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