Homeland War


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Europe » Croatia » Dalmatia » Dubrovnik
September 2nd 2016
Published: June 14th 2017
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The shower in the apartment is a bit unusual. It has a shower head on the end of a flexible hose, but with nothing to hang it on. I try to wrap it around the soap holder so I'll have two hands free to wash myself, but it's now squirting water straight into the wall rather than onto me. I think that Issy might be struggling with it as well. She says she was having so much trouble trying to control it that she forgot to close the shower door, so the bathroom's now flooded.

We've arranged to meet Sally and Barbie down at the main town gate. I count the number of steps as 358. Issy only counted 351 going up last night, but this was just after she'd drunk two strong whiskies, so I decide that my count is more likely to be accurate.

It seems that there are a number of cruise ships in port today, and the town is very crowded. We visit the two kilometre long walls which completely encircle the Old Town. It's a steep climb up to the top, and there are a number of other steep flights of steps up and down along the way. The path's very narrow and we're only allowed to walk one way. We get particularly stunning views from the highest point, the Minceta Tower, over both the Old Town itself, and along the coastline. Sea kayakers are setting off in groups to paddle around nearby Lokrum Island, and enthusiastic bathers are swimming off the rocks at the base of the walls. We've read that most of the reconstruction work to repair the war damage was carried out in the late 1990s. The reconstructed buildings are very obvious from the relative newness of their roof tiles, and it looks like more than half the town's been rebuilt.

We have lunch and then start the long trek back up to our accommodation. We take a different route. Issy's disappointed. She was keen to prove that her step counting is more accurate than mine.

We catch the cable car up to the top of Mount Srd to watch the sunset. We've noticed that quite a few Croatian words don't seem to have any vowels in them, which leaves us wondering how we're supposed to pronounce a word like Srd. We're also wondering how to pronounce the Croatian word "s", which we've also seen on a lot of sign boards. I wonder what it means. The views from the top are spectacular. Issy and I visit a Balkans War photography exhibition housed in the so-named Fort Imperial next to the peak. It commemorates the 200th anniversary of the Fort, which was constructed by Napoleon. Napoleon certainly got around a bit. I didn't realise he got this far. The exhibition also commemorates the 20th anniversary of the liberation of Southern Croatia in what is known here as the Homeland War. The Fort played a key role in that conflict, and is now symbolic of the defence of Dubrovnik. It seems that a relatively small Croatian force was able to defend the Fort against the Yugoslav army, with no casualties, and thereby prevent the town from falling into enemy hands. The exhibition is very sobering. It includes a detailed history of the conflict, graphic photos, a video of the conflict's history, and a compilation of video news reports. The Croatians weren't at well prepared to defend Dubrovnik, as they firmly believed that its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site meant that it would be spared, and they were clearly very disappointed at the lack of support from the international community when it did eventually come under attack. It's particularly sobering to see pictures of the beautiful Old Town that we were in a few hours ago, with its buildings in flames, and panic stricken residents running for cover as the shells rain down. Mournful violin music's playing in the background. We're both very affected by the exhibition. This all happened so very recently.

The station at the base of the cable car is still quite a long way up the hill from the centre of the Old Town, and we find ourselves needing to climb down lots of steep steps along a narrow alleyway to get there. It's also now dark, and there are no lights. Issy says that she can't see any of the steps, so she insists on holding my hand so that I can guide her down. I don't think she realises that I can't see anything either. Issy always says that she likes it when we do things together, but I'm not entirely sure that this extends to falling down long steep flights of steps. I wonder if we'll get beds in the same ward at the hospital.

We eat in one of the main squares. In stark contrast to last night, the food and service are both excellent, and we're more than a little tempted to dispatch our friendly waitress to last night's establishment to train its staff. We decide to leave her a substantial tip, so we all put in 50 Kuna which is about 10 Australian dollars. I'm carrying both Kuna and Euros in my wallet, and accidentally put in 50 Euros instead, which is about 75 Australian dollars. The service was good, but not quite that good. I realise my mistake milliseconds before the tip is whisked away. I think it might be a good idea if I kept my Euros somewhere else from now on.


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