Trial and Error Pharmaceuticals


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Europe » Croatia » Dalmatia » Dubrovnik
September 4th 2016
Published: June 14th 2017
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First cab off the rank this morning is the Rector's Palace in the Old Town. I'd always thought a rector was a religious figure, but apparently not so, or at least not here in Dubrovnik. The Rector was effectively the town's governor during the 450 years of the Republic of Ragusa. Barbie says she read that they changed the Rector every month to avoid corruption, and the new Rector was decided by a meeting of the townspeople. This sounds like an interesting form of democracy. I wonder if the townspeople ever got tired of having to go to meetings every month. I hope there were enough people here to make sure that no one had to be Rector twice. The Palace was built in the fifteenth century, and is on three levels around a central courtyard. The displays include a range of fancy chairs enclosed in glass with handles attached to them, which were presumably used to carry the Rector around. The town isn't very big and I suspect it might have got a tad warm inside the glass on days like today, so if I'd been the rector I think I might have preferred to walk. Apparently the Rector was also the Chief Magistrate, so the Palace also has its own prison cells. Other exhibits include a sobering display of photographs of Dubrovnik during the Homeland War.

Issy's not feeling all that well so she heads back to the apartment. We all wonder if she might be suffering from rocket fuel poisoning, as we all had a bit to drink last night. Barbie suggested to me at one stage that I should retire and go and live in Mali so that I could advise its government on water matters. I'm sure that the people of Mali have got more than enough problems of their own without having to put up with me telling them what to do. Issy tried to order liver for dinner last night, but the waiter told her that it wasn't good, and suggested that she order something else instead. He didn't say why it wasn't good, but he made it sound like it was off. It sounds like Issy's lucky that she's not currently suffering from both rocket fuel and liver poisoning at the same time. I wonder why they'd put something on the menu if it was off. Sally says that what we mightn't have noticed was that immediately after the waiter told Issy that the liver wasn't good, he served it to the man on the next table. I wonder how that guy's feeling right now, and what he did to deserve being served off liver. I think it might be best if we didn’t go back to that restaurant.

Sally and I visit the Dominican Monastery. It's built around a central courtyard and its massive bell tower is a distinctive feature of Dubrovnik's skyline. Most of its church's stained glass windows look relatively new, and we wonder if it was damaged during the Homeland War. Paintings on display include one by Titian. A small room near the entrance houses modern art works painted in oil on the back of glass. The artists' signatures are in childlike handwriting, presumably because they had to be written backwards so they'd come out the right way when the glass was turned around. I can sympathise with the artists - I have enough trouble writing my name neatly normally let alone trying to do it backwards.

We've seen a lot of distinctive statues here of a robed figure carrying a model of Dubrovnik. We read that this is the town's patron saint, St Blaise, who was also previously the Protector of the Republic of Ragusa. Apparently his relics, including his head, a bit of bone from his throat, and both his hands, are housed in St Blaise's Church in the Old Town, and are paraded through the streets on his feast day every year.

We go into the Franciscan Monastery church, and its adjoining pharmacy. The pharmacy's been in operation since 1317, which apparently makes it the third oldest pharmacy in Europe, and the oldest that's still in operation. The pharmacy's museum houses a display of ancient books full of pharmaceutical formulae, and a vast array of highly accurate looking scales and other measuring paraphernalia. The monks apparently didn't charge anyone for their concoctions. I wonder if any of them worked. Presumably at least some of them worked otherwise people wouldn't have kept coming back for more. I suspect there might have been quite a bit of trial and error involved, and I'm not entirely sure I would have wanted to be on the wrong side of any of the errors.

I head back to the apartment via the hillside at the eastern end of the town. For reasons unknown, I want to see if it's possible to do this without using any steps. It proves to be a bit problematic. I end up in a housing estate full of dead end streets which all seem to end in steps. I abandon my mission and resort to steps to continue on up the hillside. The views over the Old Town from up here are excellent. I reach the main highway to the airport. I know this leads to the apartment, but it doesn't have any footpaths. I don't think I'm supposed to walk along the edges of the traffic lanes, but I'm now faced with Sophie's choice of dodging heavy and fast moving traffic or navigating a narrow ledge outside the crash barrier and risking falling hundreds of metres down a sheer cliff.

Issy's at least partly recovered so we venture into the Old Town's Sponza Palace, which was built in the early 16th century, and now houses the town's archives. It includes a photographic memorial to all 300 soldiers and policemen from Dubrovnik who died during the Homeland War. We're sad to be reminded again that this all happened so relatively recently. The Palace also houses an excellent exhibition of 1930s photographs of Dubrovnik and other southern Croatian towns.

We have dinner in a square next to the Cathedral, where we're treated to the dulcet melodies of a guitarist playing on the Cathedral steps. I'm again served rocket fuel as a digestif; this time the ladies seem to get something far less potent. We move our candles to one corner of the table, and the rocket fuel to the opposite corner, and the chances of the table exploding are now hopefully slightly reduced.

Sally and Barbie will be flying back to the UK in the morning so we say our farewells. We're feeling very sad to be leaving them; we've all had a lot of fun here.

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