There were a couple things scheduled for our first day
–Walk the gigantic wall surrounding the old city of Dubrovnik. (Game of Thrones fans, take note.)
–Take the cable car up to the top of the cliff over Dubrovnik, where Napoleon built a fort during his brief but productive occupation.
–Lunch.
–Swim for hours back at the hotel.
Even though I had seen the wall around red-roofed Dubrovnik, the gigantic fortress-like wall facing the sea, I really had no concept of the wall itself – how big it was, how it was a city in and of itself, until we got there.
Before we went to climb the wall, though, we walked around in the old city. Ante took us into the main entranceway of the walled city, stopping to point things out, giving us the bare bones of what we were looking at, contextualizing it for us. There was so much to take in, especially in our addled-brains, we whose bodies still felt like it should be 3 o’clock in the morning. But never mind. Ante was awesome. He did assume SOME basis of understanding. Like, you need to know what he means when he says “Ottomans” or “Venetians.” If you don’t know what those things signify, you may feel like he was speaking gibberish, you could never keep up. If you don’t know history, well … I don’t know what to tell you, crack a book? I was grateful for my own fascination with this whole Balkan area, so I am familiar with the conflicts and the timeline. But still! It was so much to absorb!
Also, we didn’t bring hats to Croatia with us, which was such a huge problem for us during the wall-walk in Dubrovnik that the second we came off the wall, drenched in sweat with sunscreen melting off our faces, we went into an overpriced tourist shop and bought big straw hats. It was a struggle for us to find hats that fit our large Irish heads (see: Conan O’Brien. And all O’Malleys) and we ended up buying the same hat, even though wearing matching hats made us look like nerds, or – as Rachel observed – members of a cult. (When Ante met up with us later, after we walked the wall, he stood by the car, smiling when he saw us, and Rachel heard him murmur to himself as he got behind the wheel: “Matching hats …” We ended up saying this ad nauseum to each other through the whole trip, murmuring just like he did, “Matching hats …” Pre-hat, we were two extremely pale women of Irish descent, slathering sunscreen on, sweating it off, slathering it on more, all as we tried to take in Ante’s introductory remarks.
The walls are these huge unbroken structures, with little crenels way way up top, spaces in the stone to shoot … arrows or stone catapults or whatever the hell the people back then did, to ward off invaders. Dubrovnik was an independent Republic back in the day, the only place on the Dalmatian coast to resist the Venetian occupation and stay independent. The Venetians provided protection, which I suppose was necessary for smaller towns and ports, especially with such prime real estate as that coastline, but Dubrovnik was like, “Thanks, but no thanks, we’re good.” From the likes of it, the Dubrovnik people were industrious, slightly obsessive, hard workers, and determined. They had to rebuild so many times. The city was practically destroyed by an earthquake in the 17th century and the people rebuilt it just exactly as it had been before. They liked their city exactly the way it was, as it had always been. A specific building or church was destroyed? They rebuilt it with the exact same dimensions, same steeple height, same everything. I find this fascinating.
Even more fascinating: over every single entrance through the wall, a statue of St. Blaise stands in a little alcove.
Every square, every church, every building … became like a game of “Where’s Waldo?” St. Blaise is not just over every entrance. He is everywhere, in general. He perches on top of churches. He lingers in stone alcoves. He hovers over buildings. The patron saint. Ante told us to look carefully at him: In his left hand, Blaise holds a model of Dubrovnik, a perfectly rendered miniature, like a Dubrovnik in a snow-globe. The Dubrovnik people were so into themselves and their city and I just love this. They had reason to be proud: this was their place, their safe haven, a world in and of itself. Ante pointed out that when the city was destroyed in the earthquake, only one building remained. It’s this building here at the end of this little street.
(Side note: On the top of the hill above in that photo is the fort Napoleon built. Just FYI. It also shows, as I mentioned in the first post, the vulnerability of Dubrovnik to attack from above.)
If you peer at that building in the photo, you can see Mr. Blaise, in an alcove over the front door. He’s always in the same pose, he’s always holding that little replica of Dubrovnik’s buildings. So when the earthquake leveled Dubrovnik, except for that building, the smartypants Dubrovnik builders/planners/whoever used Blaise’s model as a guide to reconstruct their city exactly as it had been before. And they did. It took a lifetime, practically. But they did it. Same thing when the Serbs destroyed 75% of the city. They’re still working on that reconstruction. There are still remnants of the war in the 1990s. For example, look at this statue of Marin Držić, a famous Renaissance-era playwright, born and bred in Debrovnik. (There’s a legend – well, among tourists – Croatians are like, “Uhm, we’ve never heard of this” – that if you rub his nose, you’ll be lucky, or whatever, something dumb. Hence: his golden nose.) If you look at his collar, you can see the hole from a Serb bullet.
Ante walked us around inside the walled city. I have been all over the United States which, I would remind snotty Europeans who say Americans never go anywhere, is a continent. It would take a lifetime to explore every corner of America. I’ve been to Ireland a million times. But I have never seen a place like this in person: those stone cities from the Dark Ages, from the Renaissance, with leftover Roman elements, waterworks and sewers, and tiny “streets,” and alleys coming off from the streets – all the things you see in movies taking place in Italy and Greece, or described in books. We just don’t have anything like this in the States. Our history as a nation doesn’t go back that far. So it was a weird thing. I was in Dubrovnik for the first time, but I’ve SEEN such spaces so many times in movies, described in books, in my own dreamspace, that it felt like deja vu. I was like: “Oh. Yes. This kind of street. I know about this kind of street.”
I felt the same way when I saw the Grand Canyon for the first time. We all know about the Grand Canyon. We can picture it in our minds, even if we’ve never been there. Same with the Eiffel Tower. The Coliseum. The Great Wall. The Pyramids. They already exist in our minds. They are already THERE. So when you see them for the first time, it’s like seeing an old friend, an old friend you’ve never met. I was like, “Oh. Hello, Grand Canyon. Yes. I know you. You’ve been with me always. It’s so so good to see you.”
That’s how it felt walking around through Dubrovnik.
Ante would stop every now and then to point stuff out. Give a little background. Answer questions. I felt instantly, from the second he picked me up and we talked on the way to the hotel from the airport, that this was an amusing and personable man. He got excited when we understood something, when we grasped the larger concept of what he was saying. I said something like, “Wow, so the people in Dubrovnik were … really obsessed with their own city, it seems like.” He said, “YES. YES” happily and hugely. I got it, in other words. He had done his job as a guide.
Now I am not going to weigh in or take sides in the 1990s war, let me say that straight up. And I was only in Croatia for a short time. But I will say that the scars are still fresh, and there’s still a lot of bitterness.
“Do you think there will be another Balkan War, Ante?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes. But not right now. Everyone remember the last one and are tired. But people who come later will have forgotten and it will start up again.”
Rachel is a huge Game of Thrones fan, and much of it is filmed in Croatia. It became a running joke, because neither Ante, nor Davor, nor myself, watch the show. Rachel would explain to us the significance of each site we saw. She became the tour guide. Croatia appears to have mixed feelings about Game of Thrones although it’s been a boon for tourism. There are Game of Thrones tours, etc. Ante was like, “I don’t watch the show but there are some stairs where a big scene was filmed …” Rachel said, “The ‘Shame Shame Shame’ stairs?” Ante started laughing, because he had heard that before, “Yes. Shame. Shame.” He took us there. Rachel murmured to herself, “Shame. Shame. Shame.”
There are open-air markets, cafes, wine bars. People still live in the walled city (no cars allowed … I mean, the streets are too narrow anyway). Inhabitants had strung their laundry up, where it flapped in the breeze over our heads. It’s extremely expensive to live there, obviously, and it must be kind of a nightmare, like living in the middle of Times Square. But we did get glimpses of the ordinary life people lived, surrounded by history: a basketball court, seen from above as we walked the wall, a high school with open windows and you could hear the cacophony of 100s of teenagers talking and laughing, small shuttered windows high up in the walls.
Finally, Ante dropped us off at the entrance to the wall itself, and told us to meet him at the entrance at such and such a time. Up we climbed. It was only once we were up there that the two of us – height-phobic – realized that this walk might be a little bit challenging if you are afraid of heights. There were moments where we tried to hug the inner wall, away from the sheer drop to the sea on the other side, moments where we had to keep our heads down. But then, when you peek up, all you saw were these extraordinary vistas, of sea, and mountains, the surrounding areas, the places where the Serbs shot down on the city, the ocean, a bunch of kayakers filling the little bay, headed out for a long journey, the boats, the nearby island – uninhabited except for a Franciscan monastery, the views we got of the city inside the walls, its steeples, domes, red roofs, its warren of alleys and streets. It was astonishing. Even though we were baking in the sun, and nervously applying sunscreen, sweating it off, applying again, wash/rinse/repeat … even though at every pausing spot, we huddled together in the tiny patch of shade … these walls were really something to see.
The first half is a gradual incline. Endless stairways up. Then you dip back down, descending. Then you climb and climb and climb again to get to the wall facing the sea. We did pretty well, all things considered, even though we were hat-less and jetlagged. It was the highest part of the wall, facing the wide sea, no land in sight, that was the most dizzying, the most spectacular. I got vertigo, I had that unmistakable sensation that I might not be able to control myself and jump off into the abyss. As an East Coast person, the Atlantic doesn’t really have vistas like this. The Pacific does. Highway 1 gives you a wide view of the ocean from on high, and so does this wall. The sea looks END.LESS.
When we came back down, we were exhilarated, sweaty, and in dire need of hats. On our way to find a rando place that sold hats, we came across an Irish pub, hidden down an alley. The whole “let’s find an Irish pub” thing became an ongoing joke. We didn’t go INTO any of these pubs, but the decor was the same as any Irish pub you find anywhere in the world. We had to take a picture.
With all that we did, as far as we went, we managed to meet up with Ante at exactly the proposed time. He was right where he said he would be. (“Matching hats …”)
Our bodies ached, but it felt great, all that climbing. I don’t know what I will do now that I’m back, I’m so used to climbing stairs up mountains. It feels like that’s all we did. The subway stairs just aren’t going to cut it.
Next up: riding a terrifying cable car up the side of the mountain, to where Napoleon’s fort was at the top. Ante assured us it was only 4 minutes long. This also became a running joke, our fear of heights, and Ante’s insistence in bringing us to the highest places possible. “I am afraid of heights.” “Let me drive you on a narrow switchback road with no guardrail up a mountain. At 80 miles an hour.” It was awesome.
Once inside the cable car, this annoying American woman was jabbering on about literally nothing. “God, it’s so airless in here. Do these windows open? I wonder if we can open a window. I really need some air. WHOO. It’s hot.” There are like 15 people in this cable car and nobody else is talking because we’re getting ready to have an experience, right? We are all literally on top of each other. Rachel and I heard a low adult male voice say to the woman, “Mom? Let’s practice something called Quiet Time.” Oh my God, it was so hilarious. But she was incapable of practicing Quiet Time. Halfway up the mountain (only a 4-minute ride), she started talking about how she packed and how one bag is in the other bag and my God, how fascinating, thank you so much for sharing. We are flying through the air looking down on Dubrovnik all to the accompaniment of the banal chatter of this wretched woman. (Rachel and I kept saying, “Mom, let’s practice something called Quiet Time” for the rest of the trip.)
But besides THAT, it was beautiful. And it required deep Zen-like breathing to not freak the fuck out about being up so high.
At the top is an observation deck, and a restaurant, with Napoleon’s fort off to the side, still damaged from the war in the 90s. If I’m remembering right, the Croat soldiers used Napoleon’s fort to ward off the Serbs, who were in the surrounding mountains. I remember some of those stories. The fort is not open to the public, and the masses of tourists were hanging out on the observation deck, so when Rachel and I moved off to go check out the fort we found ourselves almost alone, which was kind of extraordinary. There isn’t even an official cement path to the fort. It’s just dirt and pebbles. The fort is not in great shape, and there are wild flowers growing out of its battle-scarred walls.
Ante said earlier, when he first pointed out the fort: “Before Napoleon came, we had been living in dirt and filth for hundreds of years. We tossed our slop out the windows. Balkan culture. We had not good air, and we were very dirty.” (His words, not mine.) “But he came, and he built roads, and he cleaned everything …”
“He whipped you all into shape?” I asked.
“Yes. This is why we love Napoleon here. He was very good for us.”
The other person they love there, even more than Napoleon, is Bill Clinton, for obvious reasons if you remember the 90s. (The bomber jacket he wore on his visit to Croatia became a popular and coveted item. Everyone was wearing them after his visit. Everyone wanted the exact same model. This is all according to Ante. “We wanted Hillary to win just because the last name Clinton means so much to us here.” He pulled up pictures of Clinton in that bomber jacket to show us.)
Standing on the cliff outside the fort, you can see for miles and miles and miles. Down the coast, down onto Dubrovnik, up the coast, and then inland as well: a long valley, with big grey mountains beyond it. That’s Bosnia-Herzegovina.
I’ll get to Bosnia next time. I want to go to Sarajevo. But at least I got to “see” the country.
Ante refused to let us eat in the tourist restaurant. “No. I know better place. Good place. No crowds.”
We got back in the car and careened down this mountain road, so narrow that cars have to basically pull over in the strip of grass on the side to let each other pass. At a random point, Ante took a left, and we drove down this dirt road into what appeared to be a forest, and there in a glade was this small restaurant. We were the only ones there. Ante ordered for us, in Croatian. He ordered wine. The place was quiet, cool, with cool tiles, sunlight outside, dappled shade. We were so so glad we weren’t eating in that tourist trap next to the observation deck. This was much MUCH better, and would be how we ate for our entire trip. This is the good thing about hiring these guys. They’re locals, and they weren’t trailing 40 tourists behind them who all had to eat in the same spot. It was just me and Rachel. The food was delicious. (I did not have one piece of processed food the entire time we were there. Okay, we did buy a bag of pretzels once when we were desperate. But other than that …)
It had been a long long day and it was only 2 p.m. or whatever. Ante drove us back to the hotel. We were crazy out of it. Dehydrated, jetlagged … and inordinately proud of the fact that neither of us were sunburned at all. We kept talking about it. We had trouble with the elevators. We went to the wrong floor. Twice.
We then swam, and lay on deck chairs (shaded by an umbrella, of course), and tried out the hot tub next to the infinity pool, and swam again in the Adriatic. We ordered wine and carried it out to our deck chairs on the big stone slabs cut out of the coastline. We dozed off. We woke up. We swam again.
I mean, come on. It was heaven.
– highly recommended! Who had the salt determined the health of the empire. Wars were fought. Borders drawn. Empires rose, fell, based on salt. Humans need salt. It’s as essential as water. So there were oyster farms dotting the bay, but also these large white salt pans, which you could see, but you really couldn’t grasp what was going on until you climbed up the wall and looked down on them. There they were, gleaming white “fields”, marked off, in the water. So fascinating. So the Republic placed the wall at this point, so they would own the oysters and the salt. 
, edited by David Remnick; ‘The Duke In His Domain’, by Truman Capote
