DUBROVNIK, ADIEU TO CROATIA
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| Dubrovnik, former Ragusa from Fort Lawrence |
Dubrovnik's history has been rich and subject to various influences. It is believed that the Greeks were present in the Antiquity, similarly to known settlements in Hvar and Korčula. Romans came there too and much later the Venetian conquered it in the 13th century until the middle of 14th century when it became a vassal state to the kingdom of Hungary. From the 15th to 18th century it achieved the status of a fairly independent Republic, being a vassal state to the Ottoman empire. This helped Ragusa, as Dubrovnik was known back then, to keep Venetian dominance at bay while having good contacts to the Serbian kingdom in order to act as their maritime entry point. The city's merchants could navigate freely which brought prosperity to the Republic. Ragusa had developed close links with Ancona to establish a trade route through Florence towards the rest of Europe without having to go through Venice or Austria. Ragusa was probably at its apex in the 17th century before a strong earthquake demolished the city in 1667, from which the city never fully recovered. In 1699, the Republic of Ragusa was forced to sell two parcels of land to the Ottomans in order to avoid clashing directly with the expansion of Venetian forces. That piece of land is now the access of Bosnia Herzegovina to the Adriatic sea.
The life of real Dubrovnikans seemed to be going on regardless of the many tour groups. It was Saturday morning, 6.30am, the old city woke up slowly at the strident beeping of garbage collection trucks which prepared the city for a new day and new cruise ships. Cats were still enjoying for a while their undisputed privilege over the town, sleeping on restaurant tables and chairs left on the street. One had even found the comfort of a sun umbrella lying folded on the ground. Churches' bells called for mass. This was where one could see some of the real Dubrovnikans dressed in austere clothes.
The streets of Dubrovnik had a few early morning tourists too, those who were staying there for a few days and stayed around the old town. That morning, a group of Indians was operating a drone in front of the Rector's Palace. A lady, in a white dress of a different age, was meant to be shot walking on the street. This was probably an attempt at replicating some scenes of Game of Thrones, the video game and now movie which had many of its scenes shot in Dubrovnik's decor. This was visibly a strong draw for tourists. The city, always sharp on marketing itself to tourists, has actually put together a dedicated Game of Thrones tour on which the tour guide is carrying a tablet to show scenes of the movie while visiting the real places. We would keep meeting our Indian friends over and over with different cameras in hands in different corners of town.
We continued our morning walk past the Cathedral of Assumption to explore the narrow streets leading to the city wall and noticed a passage in the wall itself which opened on a small area of rocks overlooking the sea, a place called Buža. There was a stark contrast between the darkness of the streets within the fortification wall and the blinding brightness of Buža's rocks with the deep blue background of the sea that appeared immense and powerful. Pigeons were the only living creatures on the rocks at this time of the day. People usually come for drinks in the afternoon and for sunset. It is also possible to go for a swim when the sea is not too choppy. But for now, our plan was to buy some fresh bread and have breakfast on the small terrace of the flat we had rented on Vetraničeva street. A place on the roof so to speak.
After finishing breakfast in our nest, we went down again to the Stradun, the main street of the old city that stretches from the Pile gate to the bell tower.
The atmosphere there had changed completely with groups of people, mostly Asians, following the flag of their tour guides. The Stradun had become busy to the point that and one could hardly see the shine of its pavement anymore. The weather turned out to remain sunny so we decided to visit the city wall from which one discovers the true extent of the old town and the homogeneity of its buildings. A sea of terracotta roofs with a few towers and churches standing out. The old town looked extremely well preserved for a place that has experienced bombings in the 1990s. There are, to the uninitiated, virtually no traces of it. The only place where houses have been left in ruin is in the South East corner of the old town where a few compounds do not have walls anymore, only foundations, grass and cats chasing lazily pigeons from the area. The Minčeta tower offered a comprehensive view of the city with, in the background, the island of Lokrum that bears a monastery and has its share of Game of Throne memories. At the top of a steep flight of stairs within the tower, a watch platform can be accessed. We heard groans coming from the stairs, a Singaporean lady soon emerged from the staircase a tablet in one hand and a selfie stick in the other. As I saw her panting, I told her that she had just a few more steps to go. As a justification for her panting, she felt like saying with a smile "it's because I am fat." We had seen her before methodically sampling selfies every ten meters on both sides of the city wall which takes two hours to walk around (allowing for mandatory photo stops).
The previous afternoon, a wedding had taken place on in the old harbour. The newly-wed couple went around the piers for pictures and the bride decided she would pause holding the tie of her husband at the extremity of a pier. A mischievous grin playfully featured on her face. The picture session gone, she approached him from behind with her flower bunch for a more romantic pause leaning over the shoulder of her new husband. Having the previous pause in mind, I wondered ironically if this new pause wasn't symbolising the triumph of a praying mantis who had just subjected her husband to her will. Ready for dinner?
On Sunday, the sun appeared weak behind a veil of clouds. We went to visit the Fort Lawrence which is another outpost on the sea equipped with canons to keep watch of both the sea and the city. It gets less visitors than the old town, it is only for those with time on their hands who are looking for a different viewpoint on the old town or those willing to see where some more scenes of Game of Thrones had been shot. By the time we had got back to town, grey clouds let out a few drops of rain. It was my birthday and we had in mind to mark the event with a swim in the sea. The rain however wasn't really part of the plan. After a bit of internal debate I wisely remembered that we would be wet anyway from our bath and that I might regret not having gone swimming on that day. We knew that the sea wasn't really cold because we had bathed in it the day before, so we went minimally dressed under our rain ponchos. The rain actually eased by the time we reached Banje Beach that we had to ourselves. The most annoying was the wind but once in the water, it was fun to watch the old town and the hills and be swayed by the waves. No regrets, birthday plans executed successfully!
On our way back from the beach, we saw the group of Indian guys still busy filming. This time the woman had swapped her white garment for colourful hindi ones, the type one wears for a wedding. She was standing on the half circular stairs of the Saint Sebastian church, soon to be joined by a man in similarly festive clothes. I guess he was the charming prince she had been scouting for on the streets of "Dubrovnik".
After finishing breakfast in our nest, we went down again to the Stradun, the main street of the old city that stretches from the Pile gate to the bell tower.
The atmosphere there had changed completely with groups of people, mostly Asians, following the flag of their tour guides. The Stradun had become busy to the point that and one could hardly see the shine of its pavement anymore. The weather turned out to remain sunny so we decided to visit the city wall from which one discovers the true extent of the old town and the homogeneity of its buildings. A sea of terracotta roofs with a few towers and churches standing out. The old town looked extremely well preserved for a place that has experienced bombings in the 1990s. There are, to the uninitiated, virtually no traces of it. The only place where houses have been left in ruin is in the South East corner of the old town where a few compounds do not have walls anymore, only foundations, grass and cats chasing lazily pigeons from the area. The Minčeta tower offered a comprehensive view of the city with, in the background, the island of Lokrum that bears a monastery and has its share of Game of Throne memories. At the top of a steep flight of stairs within the tower, a watch platform can be accessed. We heard groans coming from the stairs, a Singaporean lady soon emerged from the staircase a tablet in one hand and a selfie stick in the other. As I saw her panting, I told her that she had just a few more steps to go. As a justification for her panting, she felt like saying with a smile "it's because I am fat." We had seen her before methodically sampling selfies every ten meters on both sides of the city wall which takes two hours to walk around (allowing for mandatory photo stops).
The previous afternoon, a wedding had taken place on in the old harbour. The newly-wed couple went around the piers for pictures and the bride decided she would pause holding the tie of her husband at the extremity of a pier. A mischievous grin playfully featured on her face. The picture session gone, she approached him from behind with her flower bunch for a more romantic pause leaning over the shoulder of her new husband. Having the previous pause in mind, I wondered ironically if this new pause wasn't symbolising the triumph of a praying mantis who had just subjected her husband to her will. Ready for dinner?
On Sunday, the sun appeared weak behind a veil of clouds. We went to visit the Fort Lawrence which is another outpost on the sea equipped with canons to keep watch of both the sea and the city. It gets less visitors than the old town, it is only for those with time on their hands who are looking for a different viewpoint on the old town or those willing to see where some more scenes of Game of Thrones had been shot. By the time we had got back to town, grey clouds let out a few drops of rain. It was my birthday and we had in mind to mark the event with a swim in the sea. The rain however wasn't really part of the plan. After a bit of internal debate I wisely remembered that we would be wet anyway from our bath and that I might regret not having gone swimming on that day. We knew that the sea wasn't really cold because we had bathed in it the day before, so we went minimally dressed under our rain ponchos. The rain actually eased by the time we reached Banje Beach that we had to ourselves. The most annoying was the wind but once in the water, it was fun to watch the old town and the hills and be swayed by the waves. No regrets, birthday plans executed successfully!
On our way back from the beach, we saw the group of Indian guys still busy filming. This time the woman had swapped her white garment for colourful hindi ones, the type one wears for a wedding. She was standing on the half circular stairs of the Saint Sebastian church, soon to be joined by a man in similarly festive clothes. I guess he was the charming prince she had been scouting for on the streets of "Dubrovnik".
In the evening we went to Kopun, a restaurant recommended to us by our landlady, located on the square of Saint Ignatius. Kopun means capon (a castrated rooster) in Croatian. I chose the capon in wine sauce served with bulgur, which was very tasty. Later, we wandered through the streets to see the way they were lit and also left to recover from the crowd of the day.
The next day we went up the hill dominating the city, on top of which the imperial fort was built between 1806 and 1812 under the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte and later extended during the Austrian period. The fort can be reached by cable car or for those in need of exercise, a Way of the Cross can be used as a breathtaking walking trail leading to it. We did the latter.
The fort wasn't successful during the December 1991 seven-month-long siege of Dubrovnik to stop the JNA (Yugoslav People's Army which was in fact led by Serbian and Montenegrin soldiers) from shelling the old and new city in the hope of forcing Dubrovnik to surrender but it became a symbol of Croatian resistance.
Croatian forces fought for Dubrovnik so that at the end of May 1992, the retreat of the JNA to Bosnia Herzegovina ended the siege. This episode is just an illustration of the internal power fights within Yugoslavia at that time with a mixture of ethnical and religious tensions which all the wars of the 20th century have done nothing to resolve.
We took a look at the surrounding barren hills over which a few villages could be spotted. A few memorials with brand new Croatian flags floating in the wind reminded us of the fights and the soldiers who had died in them. There was a short trail leading to the village of Bosanka from which a walking trail has been created to go directly to Dubrovnik from the East without having to walk on the main road. It offered splendid views on the old town.
The day to say goodbye to Dubrovnik had come, I went out on the street at 6.30AM to buy some fresh bread from the bakery on Stradun. The sun was not yet out visible but altitude clouds were colored with stripes of glowing pink. The bell tower stood dark against them, revealing the shape of its bell. Bread was still in the oven and wouldn't be ready before 7AM so I remembered there was another bakery right outside the Ploče gate. I walked there and on the way got a glimpse of the sea in the harbour as the sun was just rising above the hills of Konavle and Cavtat in particular where we were heading later by bus as there was no road safe to walk. The streets were mostly empty, only workers and small trucks came to the old town to deliver supplies. I found my bread and went back, looking at the nice orange light painting the walls of the old town. It had been a worthy detour.
The next day we went up the hill dominating the city, on top of which the imperial fort was built between 1806 and 1812 under the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte and later extended during the Austrian period. The fort can be reached by cable car or for those in need of exercise, a Way of the Cross can be used as a breathtaking walking trail leading to it. We did the latter.
The fort wasn't successful during the December 1991 seven-month-long siege of Dubrovnik to stop the JNA (Yugoslav People's Army which was in fact led by Serbian and Montenegrin soldiers) from shelling the old and new city in the hope of forcing Dubrovnik to surrender but it became a symbol of Croatian resistance.
Croatian forces fought for Dubrovnik so that at the end of May 1992, the retreat of the JNA to Bosnia Herzegovina ended the siege. This episode is just an illustration of the internal power fights within Yugoslavia at that time with a mixture of ethnical and religious tensions which all the wars of the 20th century have done nothing to resolve.
We took a look at the surrounding barren hills over which a few villages could be spotted. A few memorials with brand new Croatian flags floating in the wind reminded us of the fights and the soldiers who had died in them. There was a short trail leading to the village of Bosanka from which a walking trail has been created to go directly to Dubrovnik from the East without having to walk on the main road. It offered splendid views on the old town.
The day to say goodbye to Dubrovnik had come, I went out on the street at 6.30AM to buy some fresh bread from the bakery on Stradun. The sun was not yet out visible but altitude clouds were colored with stripes of glowing pink. The bell tower stood dark against them, revealing the shape of its bell. Bread was still in the oven and wouldn't be ready before 7AM so I remembered there was another bakery right outside the Ploče gate. I walked there and on the way got a glimpse of the sea in the harbour as the sun was just rising above the hills of Konavle and Cavtat in particular where we were heading later by bus as there was no road safe to walk. The streets were mostly empty, only workers and small trucks came to the old town to deliver supplies. I found my bread and went back, looking at the nice orange light painting the walls of the old town. It had been a worthy detour.
Retro sunglasses with a blue mirror taint on the exterior side of the round-shaped glasses attracted one's eyes to find out more about the face of the blond woman wearing them with her lips vividly painted in red. A colourful bird flew in the direction she was looking at. This wasn't a real scene but an eyewear advertising printed full-size on the side of the bus that took us to Cavtat, a seaside town located twenty kilometres East of Dubrovnik. This year's sunglasses local fashion is of the hyper-visible kind. All shapes are possible, colored mirror glasses are a must. Out with the classical black, the eyes have to shout and reflect!
By the time we reached Cavtat, clouds had gathered but didn't yet hide the top of the surrounding mountains that dropped abruptly into the sea and formed a kind of cirque. The old town has been built on the neck of a small peninsula, half of which is still covered with large pine trees.
We went to our room to drop our backpacks and decided to go and have a look at the town. It started drizzling as we looked at the few stalls of the local market. Local vegetables and fruits looked very fresh. Two or three cafes had people sitting at their covered terraces for coffees. Cavtat was probably a more affordable place to live than Dubrovnik and close enough to commute. On the peninsula, we followed the lovely promenade, planted with giant pines shaped by the wind, that led to various concrete platforms to access the water. The horizon had become fuzzily grey from a curtain of rain that was hiding Dubrovnik.
By the time we had come back to the bus station, rain had increased significantly. It sent us right away to our flat where had our picnic lunch indoors including a Turkish coffee. We thought we would stay indoor until things would look happier which didn't happen in the whole afternoon. It was somehow not unpleasant to have a bit of spare time to listen to music, read, etc... I was engrossed in the writing of this text when we heard our neighbour voicing her pleasure through a rhythmic crescendo of moans at 18.27... better than 2.35 in the morning, I thought to myself. The couple who had rented the studio next door was also enjoying the rain in their own way.
We went out for dinner to a fish restaurant right by the waterside, one of the few still open in November. It had large lobsters alive in a tank in front of the restaurant. We were pretty much the only customers but it wasn't bad. I ordered a black risotto, made with cuttlefish ink. I found the marks it left at the bottom of the plate quite abstractly artistic and decided to photograph it. The waiter came in the meantime to clear the plates and looked at me in a puzzled way. We explained the situation saying this was contemporary art. He probably thought we were crazy but as a professional waiter went silently about his duty as if nothing had happened.
The next day, the weather returned to a warm sunny day, but one could feel the humidity from all the rain of the day before as it started evaporating. We left Cavtat following a walking trail parallel to the sea that was also going past the airport which serves Dubrovnik. The trail was crossing scrubland and occasionally offered a view on the mountains and the sea.
At one point, surrounded by trees, sun rays were passing through a tiny formation of haze, as if some beast hidden in the bushes had puffed out some smoke.
We continued up to the village of Radovčici and traversed the hills of Konavle hovering between the sea on the right side and higher rocky hills beyond the central valley on the left side.
After that there wasn't any other option than to follow the road down to Molunat at the extreme southern tip of Croatia. We noticed the increasing presence of cypress as we moved. Shortly before Molunat, it formed a forest, like giant needles spiking towards the sky. It was late when we finally arrived in Molunat, the last settlement before the border to Montenegro. It somehow felt like a quiet end of the world. The idea to come to Molunat had originated in the fact that there was a trail to a seaside border post that we could reach within a few hours walk. We talked about our plans to our landlady who warned us that that border crossing was closed and that the passage to Montenegro was exclusively from the main road. As we did not want to walk along the main road, it looked like we had to go back to Dubrovnik by bus the next morning and then take a bus to Herceg Novy.
In the meantime we briefly showered and washed our clothes then went out through mandarin groves to the supermarket to buy food for dinner. The supermarket looked very large for a village like Molunat. It was probably dimensioned to cater for summer visitors and neighbouring villages.
At 6.15 AM sharp, we were waiting in front of the bus that already had its engine started for warming-up. The driver came back right on time. The bus was essentially carrying school children. The fog that filled up the valleys progressively disappeared. The sun was fully out when we arrived in Dubrovnik. It felt like being back to square one. We had a couple of hours free before the next bus, which we used to go and have coffee in the harbour. The bus came and once more we crossed the region of Konavle with a tinge of excitement at the prospect of discovering Montenegro and Herceg Novi where none of us had ever been.
Images:
1/ Dubrovnik, former Ragusa from Fort Lawrence
2/ Hello Dubrovnik, we've come a long way to see you
3/ Rector's palace
4/ Birthday swim at Banje Beach
5/ Konavle landscape
6/ Black risotto print (under copyright)
3/ Rector's palace
4/ Birthday swim at Banje Beach
5/ Konavle landscape
6/ Black risotto print (under copyright)
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| Hello Dubrovnik, we've come a long way to see you |
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| Rector's palace |
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| Banje Beach for a birthday swim |
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| Konavle landscape |
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| Black risotto print (under copyright) |
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