The Coast of Croatia Part III: Dubrovnik

We were nervous driving down the coast to Dubrovnik. I knew we had to drive through a 9-kilometer stretch of road that traveled through Bosnia-Herzecovina, but I had forgotten to mention that to the rental-car company. It was unclear from our insurance certificate if we were covered in Bosnia, so we simply held our breath. 

Along the way, we noted many attractive fruit displays. I was pleased to see several animal bridges to aid migration, as well, like the one they are constructing on Snoqualmie Pass. They are commonplace here.

George Bernard Shaw called Dubrovnik, the "Pearl of the Adriatic" and said if you want to experience "heaven on earth," you should go there. That praise may have been too strong, but we did find Dubrovnik to be a beautiful city, whether viewed from walls or inside. It is Kevin's favorite Croatian town.

While we were there, they had a celebration with music and a tasting from the local restaurants. I wanted to partake, but we were hungry and the event wasn't open yet. In addition, there were mobs of people there, so we settled on a nearby (Indian) restaurant that was good, but I still envied those who got to sample the feast. But we did get to savor the traditional music. 

There are few signs of the bombing that devastated Dubrovnik during the war in 1991. The bright tiles that signal replacement and the few houses that have not been restored offer sad reminders of that time.

By nightfall, the city became a fairy tale.

Dubrovnik and Croatia have moved on, and today there is an air of optimism there. We were fortunate to find an Airbnb studio apartment right within the walls with a very helpful landlady, Nike (pronounced NEE-kay) like the goddess. We took a photo with her sweet, old dog, Lassie (male).

Dubrovnik may not be "heaven on earth," but it certainly is a place we could return to again and again.

The Coast of Croatia, Part II: Split, Trogir, and Zadar

Note: I’m sorry that I don’t have many observations to offer about our explorations of these towns. We found them very attractive, but stayed there only briefly and sadly, didn’t have many interactions with the local people, who were nonetheless friendly. I hope you enjoy the photos.

Having a rental car made it easy to travel the Croatian Coast. The tiny town of Trogir, and the larger town of Split are about half-way down the coast between Rovinj and Dubrovnik. We stayed in Split on our way south and spent a night in Trogir on our way back north.

Inside the walls of Diocletian's Palace.

Split is the home of Diocletian’s Palace, built during the 3^rd and 4^th Centuries, A.D.  Today, shops, restaurants, and apartments fill the emperor’s former home, which also includes a museum and art gallery at the foundational level. It’s a massive building, covering over 32,000 square feet. More than 3,000 people live in the ancient structure, which has been built on during successive periods.

Life in the city: deliveries and the "Roman soldiers" ready to pose with tourists for a few kuna (Croatian currency).

It’s great fun to explore this port city on the Adriatic. We sampled some local specialties at a restaurant not far from the palace.  Because I didn’t know the word for “goat” in Croatian, which I suspected one dish contained, I made horns with my fingers and pointed them off my head to the delight of the waiter, who informed me in English that “No, it was made with beef, not goat!”

Rachel tries to overcome the language barrier.

Split was warm and pleasant with  lovely harbor views and many cafes along the waterfront.

But we had to be on our way, planning to reach Dubrovnik the next day. (See following post.) All the little bays and towns along the coast delighted us and made us long to explore them.

Note the fortifications.

We couldn't resist this town. We stopped here for a coffee.

On our return from Dubrovnik a few days later, we stayed in Trogir, which is only a short distance from Split.  

Trogir offered its own charms. We had a very nice apartment within walking distance of the harbor.  Founded by Greek colonists, Trogir was a major port during Roman times. Today, it’s a pretty, sleepy village when tourists are not around. It has been continuously occupied for 2,000 years.

A person could do a lot worse than settling into this little town for a few days. I only wish I had a photo of the kind man in the market who gave me a free tomato from his garden. Like the town, it was sweet to savor.

The other coastal town we visited, Zadar (Zuh-DAR), offers a couple of tourist attractions that at first I thought were somewhat gimmicky: The Sea Organ and Greetings to the Sun. But I quickly became captivated by them. 

Zadar has medieval and Roman ruins, much like the other Croatian coastal towns, but The Sea Organ and Greetings to the Sun are modern attractions. The Sea Organ consists of holes in the rock platform that form soft, almost eerie sounds as the tide sweeps water under the seafront. As the wave intensity increases, the sounds change, but at least when we were there, they were always melodious.

The holes in the platform are part of the Sea Organ.

Greetings to the Sun, the other modern attraction in the same area, includes several circular solar panels that absorb the sunlight during the day. They aren't very interesting in daylight, but at night they become intense colored lights that flash in abstract random patterns. Kids, dogs, and adults all seem drawn to their magic.

In the end, we decided we really liked Zadar's contemporary attractions, and we wished that we could have something like that when Seattle redesigns its waterfront, assuming the new tunnel, which has faced endless delays, is ever completed!

The Coast of Croatia: Part I: Rovinj

Rovinj, on the Istrian Peninsula

We had rented a car in Trieste for our trip to Croatia, and appreciated having our own wheels again.  Navigating in Croatia was easy. The "freeways" (actually toll roads) are new and uncrowded, and the signage in most tourist places, like the highway stop pictured below, is in Croatian and English. (Yes, I know Marché is French, but I think they picked that name to sound a bit classy.) For  roadside services cafes, the Marché ones were fairly good.

In fact, the infrastructure in Croatia was better than in most parts of the rural Western U.S., where we toured in the spring. The wifi, at least, was certainly more reliable. (I'd sure like to see the U.S. start making some investments in our roads, bridges, and digital services before we get left behind! Sorry for the editorial, but it is hard to fathom sometimes.)

My favorite town on the Croatian coast was Rovinj, or Rovigno, in Italian. The Istrian Peninsula, where Rovinj is found, shows the evidence of its Venetian heritage, and the peninsula, which became part of Italy after the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was ceded to Yugoslavia after World War II.  Consequently, Italian is still often spoken there.

We felt we had come to the Croatian Coast at just the right time. True, the weather made it too cold to swim, but it was still warm enough to eat outside, and the heavy crush of tourists was gone.




We stayed near the harbor in a beautiful little studio apartment above a cafe, and took long walks up the "streets," many of which were only steps. A few art galleries and shops were still open, hoping to catch the last of the tourist trade before winter.

At the top of the town stands the church of St. Euphemia, like a sentinel standing guard over all.

The other side of the town offered vistas too.

Rovinj, like other towns of the Croatian coast, has many wandering cats. They are well-cared-for by the townsfolk.  On one of my walks, I encountered a young (Danish?) man who said he had been told that during the time of the plague, the Croatian coast had been relatively spared, because the cats killed the rats that carried the plague fleas. Ever since, he was told by a local, the seaside towns have looked after the cats.  These two certainly seemed well fed, and the guy by the harbor has an ideal position:

As you probably know by now, I like cats, so no wonder I liked Rovinj!

Note: One of my regrets about this posting is that I've not been able to find the photo I took of the young woman, Francesca, who helped us settle into our apartment in Rovinj. Attractive, smart, and fluent in English, she impressed us, and we liked her a lot. She seemed to embody so many of the young people we met in Croatia and Slovenia. She exuded optimism--and I liked that! 

These young countries are just getting ready to claim their place on the world stage, and doing a remarkable job of catching up, and the young people seem to realize that they will play a role in making this new world. After the terrible wars here in the late 20th Century, it made us feel good. Their hopes are contagious!

Waterfall Wonderland

Note: This post is slightly out of order. We actually went to Rovinj, Croatia, before we went to Plitvice National Park, but it makes more sense to discuss Rovinj with the other coastal towns.

I have long wanted to visit Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia. (Plitvice is pronounced something like pleet-weet-suh.) However, the first day we visited the park, I was disappointed. Why? Because the popular photos of Plitvice show lakes surrounded by waterfalls that cascade into clear, aquamarine water caused by the dissolved minerals on the lake bed that reflect the light. (Check out the English website for Plitvice National Park.)

But on that first day, when we hiked around the upper lakes, it was rainy and misty.  It was still beautiful, but we could only hear the rushing of the waterfalls, a muffled soundtrack to our stroll, and view them distantly in the mist. Take a look at what we saw that day:

There had been so much rain that the waterfalls and creeks were overflowing. Many paths in the park were underwater, and we were a little nervous about walking over the rickety wooden bridges with white water pouring underneath them. In other places, we were walking right on top of a waterfall.

The next day dawned a little brighter. Now take a look at what we saw on the same walkways the second day:

Notice all the waterfalls in the background.

And the waters were much bluer, as well.

 

See how clear the water is? 

We missed many of the waterfalls, including the tallest one, but we ultimately felt satisfied with our visit. The late October colors, with leaves falling from the trees, gave us a different view of the Plitvice Lakes than most tourists see. 

We enjoyed our stay at the Hotel Bellevue, a modest, refurbished late-60s hotel that has been there since Croatia was part of Yugoslavia. We took all our evening meals at the Hotel Plitvice, across the road. There, we met a woman name Linda, a retired teacher from Virginia.  Every year she takes off alone for about two months and undertakes a long walk. She has tackled the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route  (500 miles) and Wainwright’s Coast-to-Coast Walk in England (190 miles), among others. Sadly, I did not get a photo of Linda and I lost the link to her mobile blog, so if anyone comes across it, please email me with the address. 

We came at the end of the tourist season and Linda, like us, was one of only a handful of people in the park who were not part of a large Japanese tour group. Apparently, people from Japan don’t mind traveling in the off-season, and that's smart, because the sights are nicer without the crowds.  Because the tour people all ate together, there weren’t many others to converse with, so it was a pleasure to share a dinner with Linda. One of the joys of traveling is meeting people like her who make the most of life and inspire us. (And also shame us, because she is so fit!)

One day, because the food was good at the Hotel Plitvice, we decided to go there for lunch. You can’t tell from this photo in the dining room of our friendly young server, but we were the only people there! The Japanese tour groups were gone for the day, and everybody else was apparently out in the park. So there we sat, being served lunch, two people in a room that could seat 300 or 400 or more! 

Plitvice is a lovely park, even today, you do not want to venture off of the wooden walkways and paths around the lakes. Apparently, there are still unexploded land mines from the ethnic conflicts that broke out after the breakup of Yugoslavia. Needless to say, we heeded the advice and stayed on the designated paths. Rain or shine, Plitvice National Park is definitely worth a visit.