This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 22, 2012 - Being a creature of habit, I need two things every morning: good strong black coffee (and plenty of it) and plain yogurt (preferably the thick Greek kind).
On my very first morning in Croatia, in the picture-postcard town of Rovinj, after a grueling day of travel (St. Louis-Detroit-Paris-Zagreb and then a three-plus hour drive), I made an alarming discovery.
The yogurt has the consistency of buttermilk (yech!) and the coffee -- well, just try getting a full cup of their so-so brew. That first morning, when I asked for a second half-cup of coffee, the exasperated owner of the bed and breakfast in Rovinj gave me a shocked look.
Throughout the trip, I tried ordering tall, I tried ordering Americano before I finally resigned myself to demi-tasse after demi-tasse.
Fortunately, Croatia has plenty of compensations to make me forgive the coffee and yogurt.
Like strudel -- cheese strudel, poppyseed strudel, apple strudel and even cherry strudel. My friend and I quickly became connoisseurs and finicky judges of the flakiest pastry.
At a bakery in Split, a brusque, busy woman behind the counter couldn't hide her impatience as we decided what to buy and then tried counting out the change for the purchase. The next day, when we returned -- more strudel, please -- her face broke out in a warm smile.
And the gelato, it just might be the absolute best ice cream in the world. We loved the fanciful presentation -- the slices of lemon or strawberry or kiwi on a swirling mound to indicate the flavor or the drizzles of chocolate and caramel just to make it prettier.
We fell in love with the dark chocolate, which was actually black in color. In town after town, we learned to scan the cases of gelato for the tell-tale black color. If they didn't have it, out we'd go. Toward the end of the vacation, in Dubrovnik, I decided to sample at least one other flavor. Not straying far, I went for the hazelnut and chocolate. Big mistake. It didn't hold a cone to the dark chocolate.
Oh, and the Adriatic.
Azure, turquoise, ultramarine. We couldn't believe just how blue, how clear and shimmering, the Adriatic is. It is so inviting, so captivating that nothing -- not even the uncomfortably rocky "beaches" -- could stop us from wading in.
In Rovinj, we could have driven to the beaches outside of town. But we were happy enough with a tiny, rocky cove below the city walls. As we found an alcove in the wall for our bags and towels, we couldn't help but notice that we were the only women in modest swimsuits. Just about every woman, no matter her age or shape, was wearing a bikini -- and sometimes just the bottom.
But, this being Europe, no one batted an eye.
In early September, the water is a little brisk, but just a little. Not much of a swimmer, I found a patch of smooth rocks in the shallows. I sat down, stretched out and let the water do its magic.
Too much history
Winston Churchill once famously observed, “The Balkans produce more history than they can consume.” He was right.
Twenty years ago, that history took a violent turn when Yugoslavia collapsed, and Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina declared independence. A brutal war erupted in Croatia and Bosnia as Serbian forces tried to maintain a Yugoslavia under Serbian control. Not only did the war transform the region, it led to NATO's first military engagement, the first instances of war crimes in Europe since World War II and finally a peace accord signed in Dayton, Ohio.
On the surface at least, Croatia seems to have rebounded. But the scars and reminders of war are occasionally visible.
Dubrovnik, a UNESCO world heritage site and arguably Croatia's most stunning city, came under an eight-month siege by the Serbs in 1991, and the walled city sustained considerable damage from mortar shells. Estimates of damage range from more than half to two-thirds of the buildings.
Today, you can visit a Museum of the Croatian War of Independence atop Mount Srd, next to the cable car station. In the Franciscan monastery museum, the entrance and exit holes of a shell have been purposefully left unrepaired. And posters advertising photo exhibits comparing then and now are plastered on building walls.
Perhaps the simultaneously most visible -- and invisible -- sign of the devastation are all of Dubrovnik's bright new orange tile roofs, easily seen from the viewing perch on Mount Srd. They replaced the roofs destroyed in the war, and thankfully the city did so in a uniform way, respecting the town's architectural integrity. It's a powerful symbol of recovery.
Not all the history is so grim.
From the vantage point of the 21st century, it is perhaps hard to believe but once upon a time Venice was a mighty maritime power, holding sway for hundreds of years over places like Rovinj, Split and the islands of Hvar and Korcula (reputedly the home of the Italian explorer Marco Polo).
Dubrovnik was the heart of the Republic of Ragusa, but even there the influence of Venice is everywhere to be seen, from the windows of the Sponza palace to the name of the main street, the Stradun.
In coastal Croatia, the effects of Venetian domination now seem rather benign. Many of the towns look and feel Italian, and especially in Istria, Italian is frequently heard and seen on signs. The food is distinctly Italian -- pizza, pasta and gelato are everywhere. And bas reliefs of the winged lion of Venice, the symbol of the city, can be spotted all over, including on the city wall of Kotor, Montenegro, which also belonged to Venice.
Before Venice, way before Venice, there was Rome, and some of Croatia's proudest attractions date back to that great empire. The gritty town of Pula boasts an incredibly preserved Roman amphitheater, the sixth largest in the world and still in use. The amphitheater is clearly Pula's crown jewel, but the town also has a Roman mosaic floor and a slightly battered Temple of Augustus in the main square. Hit by Allied bombs in World War II, the temple was rather haphazardly restored.
In the 4th century A.D., the Roman emperor Diocletian retired to his home, now Split, and built his palace, a vast complex including a temple and mausoleum abutting the Adriatic. The temple eventually became a bapistry and the virulently anti-Christian Diocletian may have suffered the ultimate indignity. His mausoleum became the smallest cathedral in Christendom -- a case of history having the last laugh.
Yet far from being a preserved relic of the past, Diocletian's palace is the living, beating heart of Split. It is the center of the old town where people have lived and worked since the Middle Ages -- a kind of medieval version of adaptive reuse. There, tucked in one of the narrow passageways, we found one of the best restaurants in Croatia: Trattoria Bajamonte where we savored a flavorful brodetto, or fish stew, with polenta.
A pedestrian life
For all the history, for all the art, the best times we had in Croatia were spent wandering or exploring, usually by foot. The compact walled cities, the palm-tree-lined promenades along the harbors, the town squares full of markets and cafes, the parks -- all are made for walking and, of course, lingering. Here are three favorite walks.
- Dubrovnik is one of the most famous, most intact walled cities in the world. What better way to get a sense of it than to walk the 1.2 mile city wall (about $13). At the advice of our landlord, we entered at the Ploce Gate (he said that minimized going up) and went late afternoon (after the heat of the day). For a different vantage point, the next day we took the cable car (about $13) for an incredible view from atop Mount Srd.
- Plitvice Lakes national park is perhaps Croatia's most entrancing natural wonder, a series of interconnected lakes at different elevations, cascading waterfalls and hiking trails and boardwalks. We arrived early enough to hike the upper lakes, oohing and aahing at all the waterfalls and the lakes' unbelievably azure color. Despite getting terribly lost and off-track, we also saw some of the lower lakes as well as Croatia's tallest waterfall. The next day, though, we woke to a torrential downpour, which sent us off early to our next destination. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the tour group -- decked out in raingear plus clear plastic ponchos -- as they assembled in the lobby for their walk. This was it for them.
- It's a very steep climb from Hvar town to the fortress overlooking the town and its harbor. Early on a sunny, balmy Sunday morning, after having been awakened by church bells, I took a leisurely walk to the fortress. From there I could see the orange roofs, the deep green of the pines, the white sailboats and yachts and the blue blue of the Adriatic.