Tales of an Amorphic Destiny

Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina

July 1st, 2009 at 11:55am James

After a night wrapped up in jackets and sleeping bags to offset the cold of the overly air-conditioned cabin, we awoke as our ferry approached the port of Dubrovnik on a perfect Summer’s morning.

With only a few days before we needed to be in Slovenia for Metal Camp, our time was becoming somewhat limited. So we opted to take a 90 minute walking tour of Dubrovnik’s stunningly beautiful and well-preserved old town, formerly the Republic of Ragusa and whose origin is still under debate.

We turned out being the only people there for our timeslot and so we were lucky enough to get our own private tour. To top it off our guide was a metalhead and so our discussion of Dubrovnik’s landmarks and history was interspersed with talk of bands and the Summer’s metal festivals.

The guy is lucky enough to actually live inside the old town, but this wasn’t always such a good thing – as a young boy in 1991 he had to temporarily flee with his mother during the attacks by the Yugoslav army. So much of the town was damaged and burned, but with a great deal of financial help from UNESCO most of the damage has been repaired. Apparently UNESCO were very particular about keeping repairs historically accurate and from the town walls we could see roofs that had been repaired with tiles made especially for the Dubrovnik buildings in traditional style.

Apparently football was as popular as ever in medieval times, as the planners of the old town cleverly designed one of its back streets in the exact dimensions of a medieval football field. This gave the locals a perfect area to play their favourite game, but this didn’t please everyone. Backing onto the football street was a church and on one of its walls was an interesting piece of graffiti written by a priest who was apparently rather fed up with the noise…

it is written in Latin and apparently translates as “Peace be with you. Remember you will die, you who play with the ball”.

As the tour came to an end our guide showed us a fantastic and secluded bar perched on the rocks between the town wall and the sea.

We were incredibly tempted to walk back to the car for our swimmers but yet again we had to push on, so after a quick beer and walk around the top of the town walls, we continued on towards the historic town of Mostar in Bosnia & Herzegovina.

After the relative safety and familiarity of the places we’d visited so far, crossing into Bosnia felt like quite an adventure. To begin with, it is recommended to stick to paved roads due to the risk of land mines and it was odd to be somewhere in which any piece of uninhabited land is a potential threat.

We only had plans to spend the afternoon visiting Mostar before returning to the Croatian coast, but apparently this didn’t exempt us from paying €20 for a week’s worth of Bosnia-specific third-party car insurance that the border guard insisted was an entry requirement. To be fair he was very patient and helpful and we got “Bosnia & Hezegovina” passport stamps for our trouble.

As with so many beautiful European towns, Mostar itself has become quite a tourist trap. But while the pretty streets of the historic old town are lined with souvenir shops, bars and restaurants…

…there are still numerous stark reminders of the Bosnian conflict of the early 1990’s. On the edges of the old town are bombed-out, bullet-ridden and shrapnel-damaged buildings and most notably the bridge from which the town derives its name is newly rebuilt since it was destroyed by the Croats in 1993.

We wandered the town for an hour or so and had a beer under the bridge, before heading back to Croatia via the “scenic route”. This involved us driving around Bosnia for a lot longer than we should have thanks to several brand new roads, unknown to our sat-nav or roadmap. When we finally made it back to the coast it was a little late and dark to be searching for a campground, so we decided we’d suffer a night of luxury in one Croatia’s seemingly endless coastal guesthouse/pensions.

In the end we stopped at one of the many “Rooms/Zimmer/Chambre” signs, where a family were enjoying an alfresco dinner and what sounded like copious amounts of wine in their front garden. A room was quickly arranged and upon seeing the “Australia” sticker on the back of the Sunny, the man of the house told me in broken English that his wife’s uncle, (“my woman – the brother of her mother”) lives in Australia. She couldn’t remember the name of the place, so she brought out a letter to show us his return address. Lo and behold he lives at Umina Beach, around the corner from James’ grandmother’s old house!. She was tickled by this – “the world is very small!” she said.

Refreshed after spending the night in a real bed, we drove north to Split. Croatia’s largest coastal city, Split is dominated by the 4th-century Roman remains of Diocletian’s Palace. we took a walk around the ruins and narrow streets, stopping for another luxury – our first ice-cream of the trip.

One of the coolest things in Split is this statue of Grgur Ninski (Gregory of Nin). He was a bishop who rebelled against the establishment and introduced Croatian language into church services, but the statue makes him look like some kind of kick-ass arcane wizard…

Croatia is blessed with a beautiful, seemingly endless coastline and driving further north after Split we resolved to find a nice spot for a quick dip. In the end we found the perfect place, though it had a curious surprise in store…

On the whole, the water was lovely and warm, as it is along most of the Croatian Coast. But in this spot, random currents of icy cold water also flowed, which was quite a shock! Our best guess was that the water was flowing up from an underwater spring somewhere.

For our last night in Croatia we found a cute little camp ground nestled in a small, secluded bay. After setting up camp we enquired about dinner and the old man running the restaurant was extremely eager to cook for us. He didn’t speak English, so in German he enthusiastically describd to us the seafood feast that he would prepare including prawns, calamari and three whole fish. How could we refuse?

In the end he was true to his word – the seafood platter he prepared was both bountiful and delicious and as the sun set across the bay, the setting couldn’t have been more perfect.

We rounded out the meal with a complimentary shot of grappa and retired to our tent before our push north to Slovenia and Metal Camp the next morning.

There’s some more pictures of Croatia here and of Bosnia & Herzegovina here.

Entry Filed under: Europe