13 September, Airbnb, Dubrovnik, Croatia
No air-bridge for our budget flight, but we were treated to
another beautiful, clear, crisp, early autumn morning as we boarded our flight
to Dubrovnik. Although the English have been complaining about the heat this
year, they must surely appreciate this Indian summer weather.
From the outside, Stansted looks like a fairly small
terminal. It isn’t on the scale of Heathrow, but it is much bigger that it
seems. It is, however, very traveller friendly, and far better organised than
other, much larger European airports.
Customs in Dubrovnik was relatively painless; again a small
airport, with high volume traffic and well-organised processes. Our Airbnb host
was to meet us at the Main Bus station in the city. We were sceptical, because
we have never managed to have a pre-arranged pick-up actually work. But against
all odds, there he was, Luka, our man.
Our bus from the airport had made a stop in the centre of
the old city. Thousands of tourists were massed in the small square, lined up
behind guides waving numbered paddles in the air. Oh no! Our worst fear. Cruise
ships! Sure enough, as we approached our stop, the Main Bus station at the
harbour, there they were, lined up in their multi-storey grossness. Our host,
Luka, didn’t seem too happy about the thronging crowds either. His advice was
reassuring however. The boats will leave tonight and it will be quiet for a
couple of days.
It has to be said, so
let’s say it now. Your average Croatian is not one of the world’s happiest souls,
avoiding eye contact, grunting a begrudged greeting to our cheery hello and ignoring
our attempts at thank you, which, in Croatian is easy for us, “koala,” or
that’s how it sounds. We have encountered this attitude in the past throughout
much of Eastern Europe and in some parts of Russia, although it must be said
that it as not quite as pervasive in western Russia. Perhaps we have just been
a little overwhelmed by our week in England, where everybody is so cheery that
it becomes just a little too much of what we call “jolly hockey sticks”
behaviour. We exclude Luka from this generalisation, of course.
Our home for the next few days is a modern apartment a few
minutes’ walk from the Old City.
14 September, Dubrovnik
Most of our previous travels in Europe have been in the
shoulder, or even off season. We have become accustomed to chilly weather,
forests of leafless trees and quiet streets with mostly closed shops,
restaurants and attractions. This trip, we are just off the top of the peak
season, particularly on the Dalmatian Coast. Dubrovnik was positively drowning
in tourists today. Cruise ship shore parties moved through the streets like
herds of cattle, tagged with their group number and following a cheery leader
waving a numbered paddle. More subtle were the electronically-tethered groups
with their earpieces and chest-mounted receivers all radio-tuned to their guru.
There were also a few umbrella- waving Asian group leaders, steering their
highly-disciplined charges along the ancient streets of this beautiful city.
Who can begrudge the good citizens of Dubrovnik this tourism
bounty? Less than a quarter of a century ago the city was under siege, its
ancient city walls and narrow, medieval streets shelled and bombed, in the
worst European war since the end of WWII. So, pack a stack of cash or a big
credit card limit before you take to the hot, crowded streets of modern
Dubrovnik, because its good citizens are out to make up for their losses.
For younger folk, there is a lot to do in the pristine
waters around the city. Armadas of kayakers paddle around the beautiful rocky cliffs,
jet-skis zoom hither and non and thousands of sun lovers lounge on the beaches.
The less adventurous wander the narrow
streets and steep lanes and gasp at the panoramas that can be seen from the
2kms of city walls.
High summer here must be almost unbearable. It was a
beautiful day today with a forecast temperature of 29C. But down amongst the
white, reflective marble pavements and walls of the crowded city, the “feels
like” temperature was more like 35C.
We had planned just one day for Dubrovnik itself and that
was all we needed.
15 September,
Dubrovnik
An early indication of the political complexity of the
Balkans was the fact that our tour today was to include six border crossings. Our
bus pickup point was just a couple of minutes away from our apartment, so we
were away quickly enough on what was to be a very long and somewhat confusing
day. We were travelling 90 kms to the city of Mostar, in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, another place that had fallen victim to the horrors of the 1992-5
Homeland War.
Our guide was an extremely well-informed and articulate young
woman who was very keen for her charges to gain some understanding of the
history of the Balkans and of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in particular.
From what we can gather, the problems of the region started from the first time
roaming Slavic tribes from the north moved into the peninsula, about 600AD.
Previously, coastal ports like Dubrovnik and Split had been settled by the
Ancient Greeks and then the Romans. What the Slavs bought to the region was an
unsettled tribal settlement pattern that was to prove difficult enough, but
added to this mix the invasion of the Ottoman Turks and, much later, the
Austro-Hungarians and the stew becomes frightfully lumpy!
Today the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina is really two
clearly-defined geographical regions, Bosnia and Herzegovina, plus two internal
republics, one Serbian Orthodox Christian and one Bosniak Muslim. The republics
form a federation, but are not adjacent geographically. They are determined by
the ethnic mix of an area. Simple enough so far? Wait, there is more. Bosnia
and Herzegovina has three Presidents, one Bosniak Muslim, one Serbian Orthodox
and one Croatian Catholic. Yes there are significant numbers of Croatians in B&H,
about 20%, so they get a say as well, but not their own internal Republic.
These Presidents rotate through the position.
In Mostar, as in many
other cities in the Balkans, the scars of the Homeland War, at least the
physical ones, can still be seen. While most of the beautiful old town has been
rebuilt, there are still bombed-out buildings everywhere and shrapnel scars on
many other buildings.
We were lucky enough to be able to engage a group of young
people in Mostar in an interesting conversation about how modern B&H works.
To cut a very long and very frank conversation short, it doesn’t. The contrast
between Croatia and B&H is stark. As soon as we crossed the border, housing
standards declined dramatically, deserted factories haunted the outskirts of
the towns and many houses looked deserted. Apparently B&H is experiencing
about 40% unemployment and a serious population decline, as those with
marketable skills emigrate to countries in Western Europe.
Despite all of this, Mostar itself is booming. Tourists
throng the rebuilt streets of the Old City and marvel at the reconstructed,
arched bridge over the river that divides the minaret-spiked side of the river
from the cross-topped towers on the Christian side. The young people we spoke
to told us that they know many people who have never crossed that bridge and
never will.
On the way back through four more border check points, we
stopped off at Kravica Waterfalls, nice and very popular with the locals and
throngs of tourists as well, but we think we have been spoiled by our recent
visit to the Iguazu Falls in Argentina.
16 September, Airbnb,
Split
Five hours on the bus today, but the scenery along the Dalmatian
Coast made it well worth while. We are fairly regular users of long distance
bus stations, most notably in South America. Our experiences have almost
universally been confusing at the best and terrifying at worst. We had high
hopes of a far more organised experience in Croatia. Not to be. Seems bus stations
the world over work on the principle of the more chaotic the better.
Despite the crowds of puzzled punters roaming aimlessly
along the platform and not at all helpful signage, we did manage to find our
bus which, with true European efficiency, departed two minutes early.
Split is a much bigger city than Dubrovnik, so we hope that
the thousands of tourists corralled on the cruise boats we passed lurking in the
harbour on our way into town will be a little more spread out here. We have
never been fans of the notion of cruise ship-based tourism, but that is just a
personal travel preference. What we do have a difficulty with is the many
thousands of people these ships off-load into popular places like Dubrovnik and
the hundreds of other ports around the world they visit. Locals we speak to in
many of these popular destinations are also beginning to oppose the massive
influx of bodies into their city.
While there is no question that the thousands of tourists
delivered to their towns are a financial boon, in many places the numbers are
just unmanageable. In Dubrovnik, for example, the city has now restricted the
number of ships allowed to off-load passengers to two per day, in response to a
recent incident where 14,000 visitors were unloaded within a few hours,
physically clogging the entrance to the old city, while the hundreds of buses
required to move them about blocked the narrow city streets, causing total
gridlock.
We understand that local people in other popular
destinations such as Venice are having the same reaction. It is impossible to
imagine what will happen when the Chinese tourists we are now seeing in fairly
small numbers in Europe start arriving en masse.
17 September, Split
The harbour was clear of cruise ships this morning. Those we
spotted on our way into town yesterday must have skulked away in the night. This
morning we were able to walk the narrow streets of the Palace of Diocletian,
the original Roman town, in reasonable peace.
Split is very different in appearance from Dubrovnik. The
heart of the old city is the palace itself. Around 3000 people live within its
walls. Over the millennia, they and their predecessors have rebuilt the city,
creating a fascinating mix of styles which reflect the major phases of the city’s
history.
Much of what we see today seems to have been built using
original Roman building materials. Roman temples have become Cathedrals; ancient
palace portals have become the entries to medieval palaces and more modest
pillars and arches grace the entry to currently occupied private houses,
restaurants and public buildings. Ancient palace walls support more modest
homes, probably built in the late middle ages.
The Greeks, Romans, Barbarian tribes, Venetians, Slavic
tribes, Hungarians and Austrians have all had their turn at changing the
character of Split. Through all this, the mercantile nature of the city has
allowed it to trade on and continue to reinvent itself.
Despite previous comments about the universal chaos of bus stations,
we are finding the online booking of buses extremely convenient. E-Tickets,
using QR Codes on our smart phones, are accepted by many companies. So far we
have been able to book our travels with companies that don’t require printed
tickets. What is a bit of a shock is that some companies charge for luggage, not
a lot, just a few dollars a bag. So far there have been very frequent services
between our destinations and fares are very reasonable at about AUD$6-7 per
hour of travel, even less on longer trips. Sadly, buses are nowhere as flash as
in South America. Perhaps we were just spoilt by fully reclining seats and
cabin service.
18 September, Split
The number 37 bus was just where it was supposed to be in the
northern bus station in Split, 1km or so from our apartment. Even at 9:30am the
walk became more of a very slow stroll in the early morning heat. We were off
to visit Trogir, a well-preserved medieval old town and Solin, an outer suburb
of Split, where extensive ruins of the ancient Roman town of Salona can be
found.
Our trip took us through those ugly industrial suburbs that
are characteristic of most of the world’s port cities, though Split’s
industrial areas are in very sharp contrast to the beauty of the old city
itself.
Trogir is fairly much a mini-Split. The cathedral and tower are
cut-down versions of the more grand Split ones, although the main difference is
the more medieval feel to the city. It is about an hour on the local bus to
Trogir, but very few travellers arrive this way. Most take tours out of Split,
an option we had considered, but the cost difference was enough to see us on
the number 37 local bus at around AUD$8 each return to Trogir, as opposed to
$60+ each for the tour. We also wanted to stop off in Solin on the way back,
which turned out to be more of a hassle than we had expected.
The Roman ruins in Solin are not very well known and seem to
be off most of the main tourist bus menus. We were not well prepared for our
visit. We knew roughly where to get off the bus, but we weren’t sure where the
entry to the site was. A quick consultation with a very hot and weary looking
German couple at the bus stop put us on the right road to the entrance, which
was about 2km from where we got off the bus. The temperature was in the high
20s – low 30s, but the sun was a demon! To top it off, we were short of water
and for once there weren’t any shops in sight. It might sound silly from us, coming from the
sub-tropics as we do, but this Mediterranean heat is a bit of a killer. After
another application of sunscreen we finally found the entrance and a water
fountain.
The ruins were quite extensive and fairly well-signed and
best of all, we had them fairly much to ourselves. The Romans were no fools,
the hillside site they chose picked up the breezes from the sea below and, as
long as there was some shade, it was a reasonably pleasant stroll through the
ruins and the olive trees and grape vines that were interspersed with the stony
tracks that, in some areas, exposed Roman cobbled streets. As with many ancient
sites, it is interesting to see what those who followed the original builders
did with the ruins they came across. Christian occupiers built churches with
the same stones their pagan predecessors had used. Even today, houses that
border the original Roman site have been constructed using rubble from the
ancient ruins. The best-preserved ruins were those of the old amphitheatre at
the lower level of the old city site where the oval-shaped arena was fairly
intact, as were the arches that would have held up the higher levels of seating.
Dreading the hot climb back up the hill to the site entrance
and the long haul back to our bus stop, we explored a little bush path behind
the amphitheatre that brought us out to a short stretch of two lane, un-crossable
freeway. All was not lost. We spied an
underpass that led us to a bus stop on a service road, saving us a 3km walk in
the blistering sun.
It will be a civilised start tomorrow to catch the 10:15am
bus to Zadar, our last stop on the Dalmatian coast.
19 September, Airbnb,
Zadar
Packed bus today for the 2hr 30mins trip to Zadar.
Nevertheless, it was a very comfortable trip on a super smooth motorway. Many
of the legs of our journey through Croatia have not been served by regular
train services. Though we prefer train travel where possible, the cost
difference in these parts is prohibitive. A bus trip like ours today cost around
AUD$15 each and the buses leave every hour or so. Trains for a similar distance
are around AUD$50 or more and the frequency is down to a couple of trains a
day.
Bus travel is not for those who lump heaps of luggage about
with them. The companies here charge for extra baggage above a 20kg limit. Some
even charge a small amount for any bags stowed under the bus. Bus stations are
often crowded places where you don’t want to be struggling between parked and
moving buses dragging a couple of trundle bags.
Longer trips, more than a few hours, can be a bit of a
bladder challenge. In South America, the buses have good, generally clean
toilets. Here, longer trips do include the odd comfort stop, but they are
usually only 5 minutes, just enough for a quick fag for the frequently puffing
Croatians, more on this later, and a quick dash to the, usually, pay,( two to
five kuna) loos.
While the towns and cities of Croatia are amazing, with
interesting histories and great architecture, the countryside of the Dalmatian
coast is less than inspiring, with stony hills covered in stunted vegetation,
peppered every now and then with struggling olive plantations or vineyards. However,
the deep blue waters of the Adriatic and the sunshine surely compensate. It was
surprising to find that the coast line is almost continuously built up. Although
Croatia has a population of just over four million, smaller than New Zealand, the
number of condos and holiday homes crowding up the coastal slopes could easily accommodate
twice the local population and there are enough boats moored in the hundreds of
marinas along the coast to evacuate Dunkirk a hundred times over.
But back to the frequently puffing Croatians. The number of
smokers here is just staggering. We have noticed the same sort of plain packaging
with dramatic and graphic photographs of cancer sufferers as we have at home,
but it isn’t having the same impact. School kids light up on the footpath
outside their schools. Twenty-somethings roll their own in street-side cafes,
where smoking is still allowed and most older folk seem to be smokers too. A
contributing factor may well be the cost of cigarettes. A pack of 30 is just
AUD$6!
20 September, Zadar
We have settled into
a routine, staying three days in a city, one to arrive and get sorted and
oriented, one day to see the local sights and a side trip for the third.
Our main reason for coming to Zadar was the city’s proximity
to the Plitvice Lakes National Park. We had investigated a full day tour for
around AUD$100 each, but then we came upon the Elegance Tours no-frills option.
This company has hit on a niche market aimed at those who don’t want the fully-guided
tour, which may well provide a guide and some, hopefully, well-informed
commentary on the area and those who don’t want to negotiate the local bus
network to make the trip to the park.
Our trip was just what those who paid the AUD$100 got, but
without the guide. We paid under half the price of the guided tours and got
fairly much the same thing. We met at the company office in the city and walked
to the nice air-conditioned, 15 seater bus for the two hour drive to the Park.
We were given good advice on how best to see the park and set loose for six
hours to do our own thing.
The park is large and a little crowded, but we understand it
is much worse in peak season. The entry fee of AUD$35, not included in the $100
option either, included a bus ride through some of the less scenic areas and a quiet,
electric boat trip along the lakes. It was a mild, 20C day and most of the walk
around the lakes was in the shade of the birch and pine forests. We probably
covered 10 to 12 kms, but at a very sedate pace as the ever-present tour groups
still managed to clog the paths, waving their selfie-sticks and posing with
their group while the rest of us waited patiently on the narrow boardwalks
behind them.
21 September, Zadar
We had never heard of Zadar until we started to do some
research on Croatia. The city is a real find, small enough to be easily
manageable on foot, yet far enough away from the cruise liner routes to be not
too crowded. The city’s narrow medieval and even ancient streets are lined with
coffee shops and restaurants for those who wish to join the locals for the
seemingly all day drinking and talking-fests that occupy the lives of many of
those who live on the beautiful Dalmatian coast.
The Croatians have a real knack for combining building
styles from the many cultures that have dominated their region over the past
2000 years or more. The Romanesque church of St Donatus is a prime example.
While extremely Roman in external appearance, it was actually originally built
around 950AD, using materials scrounged from the ancient Roman Forum, on the
original pavement. Inside the church, stone blocks bearing Roman inscriptions
hold up more modern pillars. The external walls are also built on a base of
fallen sections of fluted ancient Roman pillars. The structure has been
modified by the Ottomans, Venetians and, more recently, by European builders in
the early 20th century. To complete the long history of
modernization, a computerised light and sound display runs in the church every
night.
We usually visit archaeological museums in places like this
and to be honest they get to be a bit same old, same old. The Zadar Archaeological
museum is a significant exception. Sure, it has the same old stuff, but with a
well-sequenced and extremely well-written commentary. They even go to the
trouble of providing translations of the Roman inscriptions on the many large
and small artefacts on display. To top it all off, everything is linked to the
city of Zadar and surrounds.
22 September, Airbnb,
Zagreb
Leaving our apartment in Zadar was a bit sad. It’s the best
Airbnb we have had on this trip, a real “don’t judge a book by its cover” story.
The place was an absolute gem, newly-renovated, beautifully fitted out and
right in the centre of the city. Sadly for the hosts, the building looks like a
run-down tenement block and the four flights of stairs and no elevator would
put many people off. We loved it.
Settled into our Zagreb apartment tonight, we have done our
shopping, thrown our bags on the spare bed, hung up our gear for tomorrow and
cracked a couple of beers.
Our bus was 30 minutes late out of Zadar, then there was an
hour-long traffic block due to road works on the motorway, so we ended up over two
hours late. Luckily, our apartment is just over the road from the bus station
and we were in constant communication with our host, who had the keys, so he
wasn’t hanging around for all that time. The supermarket is five minutes down
the road, so we have “hunted and gathered” our dinner and done a quick
orientation of the neighbourhood.
Sounds like good luck doesn’t it? Not at all. It’s all down
to planning, which is not difficult at all with the technology available to us
today. We constantly wonder how on earth we managed 20 or 30 years ago with
just paper maps.
Silly as it might sound, we can’t remember whether we have
been in Zagreb before. If we have, it was over 30 years ago when the Balkan
states were Yugoslavia and our memories are of depressing, dark, dismal cities
and country roads, where old women carried bundles of sticks on their backs and
men pushed wheel barrows, loaded with produce, along rutted roads heading to
town and village markets. That was Yugoslavia in 1987. Even in 2000, neighbouring
countries of Eastern Europe like Romania and Bulgaria were much the same, with
horse-drawn carts and people travelling on donkeys a common sight.
24 September, Zagreb
Zagreb was a little slow to awaken yesterday, on what was a
fine autumn Sunday. The area we are in is very close to the old city centre,
but the view from our 11th floor perch is of rows of renovated Soviet-era
housing blocks, thankfully not as depressing as they would have been in their
original livery.
Our usual round of museums was easily achieved in a half day
or so. Of note were the Zagreb City Museum, surprisingly large and informative,
the Archaeological Museum, with its excellent Egyptian collection and best of
all, the Images of War Photographic Museum. We have become interested in the
complex history of the Balkans and in particular the wars of the 1990s. This
small exhibition of, often graphic, war photographs is a moving condemnation of
the almost tribal infighting that bought misery and tragedy to this region.
We were awoken this morning by howling winds at 4:00am and
shuddered at the thought of following through on our plans to bus it out to the
small city of Varazdin, with its well-preserved, medieval Old City. After a
miserable start, the skies cleared and by the time we reached our destination,
it was sunny and clear.
We have constantly complained about the crowds in Dalmatia.
Today we had the town to ourselves, almost. There they were, a small group of
Chinese tourists, just five or six young people, but they are what we call “The
Vanguard,” scouting out possible destinations for the inevitable hordes which
will follow. In Australia they came from nowhere to be the largest group of
incoming tourists in less than a decade.
Everything was closed in Varazdin today, Monday. We had planned on just a few hours anyhow, so
we were happy to wander the cobbled streets and small squares.
Our bus trip back to Zagreb was through beautiful, almost
Swiss-like countryside. The storms overnight had cleaned up the air and visibility
was almost limitless. Rolling hills, with colourful villages topping the ridges
and fields flowing down into the valleys met our view at every turn. Again we wondered
how four million people could inhabit so many houses. Surely we have seen
enough apartment blocks and houses to accommodate many times the nation’s
population.
Tomorrow we leave Croatia after almost two weeks. We can’t
help but feel great sympathy for the Croatians in their struggle to maintain
their national identity in the face of the tensions in the Balkans, not just in
recent history, but over the centuries. We have only heard one side of the
story, but the arguments are cogent and credible.
Visitors to Croatia shouldn’t expect a uniformly open and
warm welcome. There is a certain gruffness in the national character that many
outsiders may find abrasive. This is merely our impression and doesn’t apply to
all.
27 September, Airbnb,
Ljubljana, Slovenia
We’ve had a busy couple of days since arriving in Ljubljana.
Again, our apartment is just a short walk from the bus and train stations and
ten minutes or so from the centre of the old city. Yesterday we took the local
train, an hour or so, to the small village of Postojna and then walked the two
kilometres to the caves of the same name, one of Slovenia’s main tourist
attractions.
The temperature has dropped markedly since we left the
coast, so the walk to the caves, in the autumn sun, was a welcome heart
starter. We had pre-booked our tour of the caves and a visit to nearby Predjama
Castle, which was probably a good idea. Even this late in the season, plenty of
buses were disgorging hordes of excited tourists in the carpark as we arrived.
The caves are the largest we have visited. Twenty four kms
of caves have been explored, though only about 4kms are included in the
extremely well-organised tour. When we booked our visit to the caves and
castle, we thought there was a free shuttle bus between the two as they are
nine kilometres apart. To our dismay, the shuttle service ended in very early
September and we were up for a 30 euro taxi ride to the castle and back.
Talk about the luck of the Irish! As we were asking the
staff in the Ticket Office to call us a cab, we overheard a young couple at the
next counter being told that they would need to take a cab as well. After a
quick negotiation we agreed to share a taxi. The young guy was in fact Irish
and we thought his partner was English/Indian. During the taxi ride, we got
chatting about our travels and the young woman’s accent took on a fairly
obvious Australian flavour. Turns out she was from Melbourne, born and bred. He
was from County Wicklow where Paul’s family originated and his mother was an
O’Neill. He had lived and worked in Australia as well.
The castle was spectacular, built into a large cave opening
and incorporating the hidden, natural tunnels and caverns behind it into its
design. At one point in its history, it withstood a year-long siege by bringing
food and water into the castle through the cave system. To rub salt into the
wounds of the frustrated attackers, the besieged garrison taunted them by
throwing them food from the castle walls. At one point, in shades of Monty
Python, they threw a freshly-slaughtered cow down to feed their enemies.
Another beautiful, clear, but crisp morning of 4 degrees
greeted us today. Ljubljana is a great city for walking, with a touch of Vienna
and Prague about it, not surprising given how long it was under Hapsburg rule.
We headed for the castle that overlooks the city centre, taking the funicular
rather than the long, steep, walking path. Sadly, it was a disappointment.
Rebuilt, rather than restored, it felt a little like a Disney Fantasy World
experience rather than an historical one. An open-air restaurant in the courtyard
didn’t fit with our ten-year old memories of a lovely old castle. However, we
have to admit it is tourist-friendly, with well-presented exhibits and a safe
climb to the tower. For the rest of the day we wandered through the mostly
pedestrian-only streets, visited a couple of museums which chronicled the
archaeological and social history of the city and country and lapped up the
increasingly warm sunshine and central European ambience.
We have returned to the land of the Euro, but supermarket
prices are on a par with the Croatian kuna and museum prices accommodate us old
folk. The cost of the funicular plus castle was seven euros per person, about
AUD11 and the museums were four euros, about AUD6.50.
