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Published: June 15th 2007
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Miragoj Cemetary Walls
This ornate arched hallway is in the walls of the Miragoj Cemetary. After transplanting myself from my swanky digs at Zagreb’s Regent Esplanade to considerably more humble surroundings at the hostel just outside town, I convinced my German roommate, Angelika, to accompany me to the Mirogoj Cemetary. It is called the most beautiful cemetery in Europe by travelers, while Croats smirk in their characteristically dry way that the souls buried there are housed better in death than they ever were in life. We set out to see for ourselves.
The cemetery dates back to the 1860s when the little graveyards in Zagreb were getting full, and the government needed a fitting place to bury dignitaries and the nobility (although there are plenty of commoners buried in Miragoj too). They set out to build an ornate, gargantuan memorial for the dead, and they succeeded. Today, a century and a half later, the place still isn’t full. As you enter through the copper dome-capped sixty-foot walls, the scope and beauty of the fields of stone takes your breath away. Unlike cemeteries in the States (or at least in California where I’m from) where headstones lay flat with individualized descriptions, these headstones feature entire statues or bas reliefs with plants or trees landscaped alongside
Soldier's Grave
The grave of a Croat soldier, and his relatives. the stone for full effect. Walking among the graves was like strolling through a cramped outdoor museum.
Angelika said that similar cemeteries like this one exist in Paris, but those have long been full, as far as I know. This one continues to accept new “residents” as it climbs up the hillside beyond the entrance walls. Along the further side of the cemetery we came upon the graves of soldiers from the civil war (or, as Croats call it, the War for Independence), as well as a memorial to the 45,000 Croats who died (1% of the population). Many of these graves contain etched images of the soldiers, and it was especially moving to walk along row after row of very young faces staring out from the stone.
After a long, quiet afternoon, we headed into town for a beer and meet three Croats at the table next to us. Two of them, Valentina and her boyfriend, Carlo, offered me a ride from Zagreb to the coastal port town of Rijeka the next day, and I took them up on it. In true hospitable Croat fashion, they took the scenic route through Slavonia for my benefit, and stopped
The Fish Restaurant...
where we ate dinner on the way to Rijeka. at a lovely riverside seafood restaurant in the hills. To their amusement they discovered that I did not know how to properly eat a whole fish (cutting it the long way and extracting the bones), having eaten mostly filets my whole life. Then, to expose my tableside ignorance further, I ordered a beer! No, said Carlo, laughing some more, you must order white wine.
After my little lesson on how to correctly dine at a fish restaurant, I was ready for Rijeka. The guidebook called Rijeka “hardly a must-see destination” but I must say that I found it very entertaining, mostly due to Valentina and Carlo. The town has beautiful architecture that hasn’t been restored to the same degree as the usual tourist destinations, but that just gave the place a “real” feel to me. It was carved up on various occasions throughout the centuries by the Austrians, Hungarians, French and even Venetians because it was often used as a bargaining chip in treaty negotiations. As a result the place has walls in unlikely places and one-way streets that wind around what once were political boundaries.
Although I found the nearby old Austrian resort town of Opatija too
The Frankopan Castle
Peace of the Heroes. manicured and fairly boring (despite the bold and fairly hilarious advances of a certain married ice cream salesman), I enjoyed my trip up to the Frankopan castle in Trsat, which is only ten minutes from the Rijeka center, and overlooks the port. It is the seat from which Frankopan dukes ruled the region for over a couple of centuries. I found the inscription above the castle - Mir Junaka (“the peace of heroes”) - either very misleading or very sarcastic, given the fact that the land was fought over and divided so much that its history is the very antithesis of anything peaceful.
Rijeka has a very happening nightlife, which I got to fully experience thanks to Valentina and Carlo. One night I danced until 4 in the morning with them and their friends at a thumping little house bar called Vox on Riva Street. I haven’t had that much fun in way too long! The next night I joined them, along with an Australian and Finn from the hostel in tow, for the annual Hartera Festival of electronica music in a nearby abandoned paper mill. We joined a slow-moving exodus of electronica junkies across town and under the
Hartera Festival
A poster for the electronika festival in the abandoned paper mill/castle. I have no idea what the half-skinned sheep and half-fish creature is supposed to symbolize. bridge to the factory, which, with its stone walls and heavy wooden gates felt more like a castle than a warehouse. Steve Lawler was the headlining DJ. We scrambled up to the roof, where we danced in a truly surreal setting. The turrets of the Trsat Castle were behind us, while a thoroughly modern bridge was in front of us, that, all lit up, looked like a landing spaceship. (I wasn’t smoking anything, I swear!)
The next morning I set out for the island of Rab.
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