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Published: December 16th 2023
Dear All
Greetings from Dubrovnik! Yay, I'm in Croatia, country number 91, for a week over our October half-term! My Croatian adventure includes two nights in Dubrovnik, two in Split, one night in the Plitvice Lakes National Park, and a final two in Zagreb. While looking at a map of Europe not too long ago, I realised that there are only seven European countries I've not yet been to. So the plan is now, as well as to reach country number 100, to also over the next few years and during my mini-trips throughout the year outside summer and Easter, scoop up these countries and hopefully complete my map of Europe!
While I have been to Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Slovenia, there are still three former Yugoslavian countries I've yet to visit, and hence came my plan to visit Croatia. As with many of my trips, I've been learning a bit of the language, although it's not been easy as Croatian is not one of DuoLingo's many languages, and I've had to resort to Mondly, which is nowhere near as good, at least not in its free version. Still, it is a Slavic language, and I think I'll be
able to get by with my Russian and the similarities between Russian and pretty much every Slavic language. I've also been reading up on Croatia's history, which has been tumultuous to say the least! They have rarely enjoyed a moment's independence throughout the last 2500 years, being controlled by the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Venetians, Austro-Hungarians, Ottomans, and then the Austro-Hungarians again. When it did achieve some form of independence, in the early 20th century, it was all tied up within the complexities and might of communist Yugoslavia, whose break up in the early 1990s we all know was far from peaceful. It is thus a very young country in its independent state, and I was excited to explore it as it is today, and as it has been forged over the centuries by external powers.
So, first up as mentioned was Dubrovnik, and I arrived there very easily on a direct EasyJet flight from my local airport, London Gatwick. It was a breezy two-hour flight, mostly filled with young executives on their way to some kind of insurance conference that was happening in the city at the time. The weather was warm and mild, and I fortunately escaped the
deluges that hit the UK later that week during Storm Babet which caused flooding in many places. I took the airport shuttle bus into town, where I got my first glimpse of this country's fabulous and fabled coastline which I'd be hugging for the next four days. It was truly glorious, with the beautiful azure sea lapping contiguous bays and headlands, with rolling Mediterranean hills and mountains on the inland side, and gorgeous little forested islands and islets on the seaward side. I had a feeling my coastal journey there would be wonderful, and I wasn't wrong!
The bus took me to Dubrovnik's main bus station in the modern urban area around its port, with plenty of glimpses of the gorgeous walled city itself to get me excited to explore it the next day. I wanted to check out the bus station first though, to see whether I could, for future journeys, take buses from there into Bosnia and Montenegro, my two remaining former Yugoslavian countries, and it turned out I could - great! Watch this space thus for potential future Balkan adventures! I stocked up at the main supermarket in town, before walking two miles back towards the
old town to check into my wonderful accommodation in the suburb of Lapad, just west of the centre. This place was just lovely - a cute little self-catering studio with a balcony affording views over the Mediterranean on the other side of the street. I could even see Dubrovnik's Old Town itself in the far distance along the coast, just over a mile away. It was just perfect, and I was so excited to begin my journey there!
My first full day on this mini Croatian adventure was just amazing! Dubrovnik just has to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and that's saying something considering how many I've visited! To the reader reading this, and in the words of good old Bill Bryson, please stop reading this and just go to Dubrovnik yourself - go, now, I'll buy you your ticket! Actually, probably not, but I highly recommend it to anyone! It is just spectacular and so atmospheric, a city just begging to be explored, and circumnavigated. I started the day with a self-catered breakfast of croissant, milk, yoghurt and coffee on my little balcony, watching the sun rise over the Old Town of Dubrovnik
Croatia, Here I Come
My Travel Guide and Travel Readingand its City Walls in the distance - I was excited that I'd be heading there shortly.
I walked the mile or so into town, mostly along the stunning coastline, and started my day at Fort Lawrence just west of the Old Town, built in the 11th century by the citizens of the city to protect it from the expanding Venetian Empire - the outer walls are a whopping 12 metres thick!
I then started my City Walls circumnavigation, which was just amazing and the highlight of a very special day. These are the best-preserved City Walls in the world apparently, and I could well believe it after having visited so many city walls, in varying states of preservation or decay. This one completely encircles the Old Town of Dubrovnik, and you can circumnavigate them completely around their 2km course. There were gorgeous views of sea, city and mountain at every turn, and although there were a lot of steps making it hard going at times, it was so very worth it! The authorities have a one-way system in place, as it was really quite busy on this autumn day - I can't imagine how busy it gets
Flight to Dubrovnik
Flying over Innsbruck, Austria! in the busier summer tourist season! My walk was wonderful, and was interspered with rain showers along the way to keep me on my toes!
Following this, I delved deeply into the Old Town itself, which was just as exquisite and perfectly preserved as the Walls. It was also packed with tourists, mostly I think from two large cruise ships which had docked in the port a couple of miles away. Although busy, these tourists were very pleasant, courteous and polite, of all nationalities. It felt a genteel, middle-class destination (so I fitted right in, lol!). I started at the peaceful Franciscan Monastery, a haven of calm in the midst of the tourist footfall, and then headed to a very sobering exhibition nearby called "War Photo Limited". This was a collection of wartime photographs from the Balkan disaster of the early 1990s, known in Croatia as "The Homeland War", which admittedly I know little about other than the brutality and complexity of it, and how it seemed to be the culmination of centuries of tensions between the Serbs, Croats and Bosnians of the region. The photos were stark and real, and brought home to me the story of the
war beyond the media glimpses I had seen on TV as a teenager. Particularly poignant were the pictures of Dubrovnik, this beautiful city, under siege and heavy artillery from the Yugoslav People's Army and the Croatian forces defending the city. Fortunately the Croatian government has done so much to restore the city to its former glory, repairing the bomb-damaged roofs and infrastructure.
I then enjoyed a wonderful wander through the alleyways, streets, staircases and hidden gems of the town, taking in its 14th century synagogue, the little harbour area filled with yachts and sail boats, the Cathedral of the Assumption, the Rector's Palace, which also had its own exhibition of the Siege of Dubrovnik during the "Homeland War", and St Ignatius of Loyola Church, as well as a walk along the city's famous, marble-stoned thoroughfare, called Stradun. I really enjoyed this wander.
It was a very breezy and blustery day, with winds averaging 30mph and gusting up to 50mph according to the UK's Met Office. Unfortunately as such, the other must-do in Dubrovnik, the Cable Car up to the top of nearby Mt Srd for apparently awesome views over the town, was closed, and I was darned if
I was going to walk the path to the top of this 412m high peak. So I hatched a quick Plan B, which also involved aiming to, and succeeding in, escaping the tourist crowds. I took a bus to nearby Cavtat, and thoroughly enjoyed my time there. While I always aim to see the main sights of places on my travels, and while Dubrovnik was certainly up there on my list of most amazing places I've been to, Cavtat reminded me why I also just love to explore off-the-beaten track, and it was just that.
The local bus was filled with mainly commuting locals, and headed 40 minutes to the south, to what was the area's first settlement in Roman times apparently, called Epidaurum. As the Roman Empire collapsed and the marauding Slavs arrived from the north, the residents fled Epidaurum to build and fortify a new town further north along the coast in 614 AD - and thus came the birth of the city of Dubrovnik. Today's walls date back to the Middle Ages, as the city continued to provide a haven of refuge to local people from the continual attacks from outside forces, and it was only
upon the arrival of Napoleon's forces in 1806 that the city finally capitulated to external powers. During its heyday it was known as the Republic of Ragusa, and was a city state not too dissimilar to Venice itself. Cavtat seemed to be Dubrovnik's cute little, and older, cousin, with some very lovely stone streets, steps and alleyways, without the walls, and very much without the tourists.
I enjoyed a walk first around the town's peninsula, as it sticks out into the Mediterranean, then explored its main sights. Firstly, the whimsically-named 15th century Our Lady of the Snow Monastery, then the Račić Family Mausoleum, built in 1922 to house the remains of a wealthy local family of shipbuilders, with commanding views over the town, peninsula and sea. After this, I headed to the Bukovac House, birthplace, home and museum of Croatia's most famous painter, Vlaho Bukovac (1855 - 1922), and filled beautifully with the artist's paintings not only hanging on the walls, but also on the walls themselves - he decorated his own house as a young man before pursuing his painting career! I finally enjoyed a lovely sunset walk along the town's pretty little harbour and waterfront, before taking
the bus back to Dubrovnik again. It was truly a wonderful first full day on this lovely little trip.
The next day I was heading to Split, but I had a bit of time in the morning first so took the chance to visit Dubrovnik's fascinating Red History Museum, right by the port and bus station. This was a wonderful insight into the communist days of Yugoslavia. It began with a display on the adoption of communism for the country uniting the southern Slavic entities of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Vojvodina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia, into a federal socialist union which had apparently been discussed politically since at least the early 19th century. I understood the intention to unite these peoples to make them stronger and more resilient to the external powers that had historically controlled them for centuries, and when the initial Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (1918 - 1943) failed due to very complex political shenanigans involving Nazi Germany, Italy, Hungary, and even Great Britain, Josip Broz, also known affectionately as "Tito", took the opportunity to form a very powerful, strong communist regime to protect the southern Slavs from further foreign incursion. Tito modelled
this new Yugoslavia (its name literally meaning South Slavia) on the Soviet Union's form of communism, and initially the museum did well to present this positively and cosily, with highly impressive achievements and improvements in the country's social and economic standards during its first few decades of existence. Incidentally, Josip Broz apparently gained this nickname of "Tito" due to his bossiness - "ti, to" in Serbian means "you, do that"!
After this, you walk through a very cosy collection of communist-era rooms of the house, which personally to me brought back very fond memories of my year living in Moscow from 2001 to 2002 - of densely distributed apartment blocks filled with very functional living apartments, warm, cosy and protected from the bitterness of the Russian winter outside. My time in Moscow was only ten years after the end of communism there, and thus not too much I think had changed in terms of everyday living for the people there at the time.
After such cosiness and family-oriented positivity, the museum very cleverly took you next into a room showing the darker sides of communism to those who disagreed or dissented, and there were indeed many. There was
information there on the notorious Yugoslav secret police called the SSA (State Security Administration), and a harrowing video testimony of a survivor of the infamous Yugoslavian prison island camp called Goli Otok.
I was pleased to see that the exhibition very much ended on a high note again, as walking out of this room you pass through displays of lots of happy family photos from the communist period, and then a real-life tiny but functional Yugo car. I loved this museum, and moving beyond the very dark sides of Soviet-style communism, it very much felt like a blast from the past from my time in Russia, as I imagine it must feel also to many-a former-Yugoslavian visitor around my age or above.
This was a seriously amazing start to my journey! Dubrovnik stunned and impressed, Cavtat charmed and soothed, and I had a near-walk down Memory Lane to finish it all off. After getting off to such a great start, I was so looking forward to exploring more!
And of course, more on that in my next one!
Thanks for reading, and all the best for now.
Alex
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John Miranda
John & Miranda
Croatia
I look forward to the Split blog. Our main trips up the coast from Dubrovnik to Rijeka and inland to Zagreb are recorded in blogs in 2013 and 2015 - it took me a while to persuade my wife to return, after an initial visit to Zagreb some 10 years before. The adventures into Bosnia are also recorded in a seeies in 2013 - you might find them interesting for research if you plan a trip to Sarajevo and Mostar.