Sailing

Sailing: the fine art of getting wet and becoming ill while slowly going nowhere at great expense.

Wednesday 26 July 2017

Rijeka



Our last stop in the Balkans was the city of Rijeka.  Rijeka is the main seaport and third largest city in Croatia.  The Italian and Hapsburg influences shine through in its architecture and the city reminded us of Budapest.  Rijeka is much more low key and less touristy than Zadar and was a nice respite from the crowds.
View of Rijeka harbour
The main shopping street - the Korzo
One of the beautiful buildings
The day before we were due to arrive, Booking.com notified us that the hotel we booked was having plumbing problems and there was no water.  They offered us alternative accommodation but it was quite far out of town.  So we quickly cancelled that booking and looked for another place which seemed okay.  When we arrived we saw a block of flats that was one step from the wrecking ball – graffiti on the outside and filth and peeling paint on the inside.  We went up a rickety lift to the 5th floor to find Granny’s flat.  It looked and smelled like Granny had just been wheeled out.  It was obviously a deceased estate that the agency was renting out.  The walls were covered with Granny’s needlepoint and her nice china was in the cupboards.  There was even Granny’s rocking chair. It was so bad it was hilarious.
Granny's rocking chair
The view from Granny's flat
Once settled we took a walk around the town.  The town had a good feel to it – a bit rough around the edges but a grand old lady.
The Maritime and Cultural Museum
St Vitus Cathedral
WWII Tunnel dug by the Italians
We visited the Maritime Museum which was quite an eclectic mix of nautical and cultural/historical exhibits of Rijeka - old furniture, costumes, ship models, sculptures, paintings and even an enigma machine.  There was a fun interactive exhibit where Bob and I could be knights and princesses.
Nice model of a Brig
Some Medieval statues
Bob being a fierce knight
Amazing sculpture - elves, pixies?
An enigma machine
 We took a bus to the suburb on the hill, Trsat, to visit the castle.  This was a refitted castle.  It was a few real ruins but the space was totally commercialised as a café/coffee shop.  We had a disappointing look around and then drowned our sorrows with a very nice Spritz.
Trsat Castle wall
Dragon at Trsat Castle
The castle taken over by a cafe/bar playing loud music
Rijeka was a pleasant stopover.  There is lots of history, beautiful buildings and good restaurants.  It is a not a peak tourist town but I imagine a very nice town to live in.

Thursday 20 July 2017

Zadar with a Splash of Split



We decided to break up our next bus journey with an overnight stay in Split, Croatia.  As we were in Split for such a short time we only managed an afternoon walk around the town.  It has a pretty waterfront and a quaint old town.  Prices in Croatia are quite a bit higher than in Bosnia and Albania so after a late lunch at a restaurant, we were glad we had a little apartment and could cook the rest of our meals ourselves.
Split waterfront
Old Town Split
An old penny-farthing
Funky fountain
In my first overseas trip as a naïve 24 year old, I had come to this part of the world and stayed at a small resort in Sveti Stefan.  One of our bus routes passed by this town and I got a chance to see it again from the cliff top.  I must admit my memory has faded over the last 40 years.  I realised that all this time I had been confusing Dubrovnik with Sveti Stefan.  I suppose writing a blog this time around will help with those memory faults.  (Not that I will be around 40 years from now, nor were there blogs in 1978!)
Sveti Stefan - I which I had been remembering as Dubrovnik
The next day we hopped on a bus to Zadar.  We were told that the trip would be only about 2 hours but we got the milk run and stopped at every little town on the coast.  Four hours later and no rest stops we arrived in Zadar.  The coast is very beautiful and a sailing paradise.  Terrific anchorages and islands dot the coast.
Zadar was a very pleasant surprise.  I had never even heard of Zadar before we started planning this trip about a month ago, yet it has a rich history and so much to offer.  Zadar is the oldest continuously inhabited city in Croatia with evidence of a stone aged settlement.  In more recent times it was ruled by the Venetians for several hundred years and there is definitely an Italian flavour to the city, especially in its architecture and food.   

There was one specifically Croatian dish that I was keen to try – Black Risotto.  A friend of ours, who had been sailing this area, raved about it so I made sure to try it.  It was delicious.  The squid melted in ones mouth and the taste was superb.
Delicious Black Risotto
One of the beautiful gates into the Old Town
Looking down on St Donat's 9th Century Church from the bell tower
We stayed at a lovely guest house, The Secret Garden, in the middle of the old town.  It was nestled into a community courtyard and had a delightfully funky outdoor sitting area. 
The Secret Garden
 
Whimsical rock collection
Zadar is a very musical city.  One evening we came across a group of men in striped shirts singing around the old town.  Their voices were quite beautiful so I recorded their singing on my phone.  I wanted to send to my father-in-law who sings in a chorus in Sydney.  As the audio file was too big for an email, I tried my had and making my first video adding a slide show with some of the photos I took that day to go with their melodious voices. I posted it on YouTube entitled Sights and Sounds of Zadar.
The choir group
The next night was the start of Zadar’s summer concert session.  An open air concert was given outside the medieval church of St Donats, dating from the 9th Century.  It was a great community event in lovely setting with superb orchestral and operatic music.
Orchestra playing outside St Donat's Church
 
 
 In the little peninsula of the Old Town there are at least 10 churches.  Their ringing of the bells at midday is quite impressive.  I made another YouTube video of the bells and church towers.
Ancient Roman ruins next to a medieval church
Romanesque Church built in 1175
Bell Tower
Between the ancient history, music, architecture, excellent restaurants and stunning setting, Zadar is a top spot to visit.
 

Sunday 16 July 2017

Mostar, Bosnia



Mostar is a very old and beautiful city with a sad and troubled past.  Today it is packed with tourists and the entire old quarter of stone buildings and cobblestoned streets has given way to restaurants and souvenir shops.  The main tourist attraction is the old bridge, Stari Most.  This bridge was built in the mid 1500’s by Suleiman the Magnificent.  At the time of its completion, the bridge was the largest man-made arch in the world.  It held pride of place for the town (in fact ‘Mostar’ means bridge keeper) for 427 years until it was destroyed 1993 during the Balkan War.
Stari Most

The bridge from the river
The fast flowing Neretva River
 Croatian forces bombarded the bridge with 64 direct hits before it fell.  This bridge was the last bridge that connected the eastern and western banks of the Neretva River which flows through the middle of Mostar.  After the war the bridge was rebuilt by an international team committed to restoring Stari Most to its 16th Century beauty.  The rebuilt bridge was opened in 2004.  A museum about the bridge tells the sad and proud story. 
The bridge a hundred years ago
The bridge after the War
Today, with the symbol of the town restored, Mostar is thriving with tourist but the scars of the war are still there.  We passed by many buildings where bullet holes peppered the stucco and graffiti remembers those who died.
Bullet holes in buildings
 
 

While in Mostar we read what we could about the Balkan War.  I must admit that in the 1900’s we were busy raising three small children and this European war was just an item on the news for us.  Our research has not made the origins and reasons for the war much clearer other than it was yet another example of man’s inhumanity to man fuelled by religion.  First, in 1992, the Croats (Catholic) and Bosniaks (Muslims) joined forces against the Yugoslavian Serbs (Orthodox).  Then, in1993, the alliance between Croats and Bosniaks broke down and they started fighting each other.  It seems that Tito, the dictator of Yugoslavia, was able to keep the lid on the festering cauldron of centuries of tribalism and hatred in the area but after his death the simmering pot exploded.  Over 2000 people died in Mostar alone.  

An excellent War Photography exhibit is housed in one of the towers of the bridge.  This is the work of a New Zealand photojournalist, Wade Goddard, who came to the Balkans in the 1990’s as a novice journalist and stayed to record what he saw.  The exhibit was very moving.  Some of Wade Goddard’s photographs can be seen here.

Yet Mostar was an example of ethnic harmony.  Prior to the war, one third of the families were mixed ethnically.  When we talked with one of the locals about the war he maintained that the political powers couldn’t have that harmony and stirred up ethnic unrest in the old ‘divide and conquer’ gambit.  Our host at the hotel also told us of her experience.  She said that when the conflict started everyone thought it would last just a short time and all would be sorted but the killing continued for 4 years.  Again the old refrain of ‘home by Christmas’.  Both these locals also expressed ambivalence towards the tourists who seem to come to take photos of the bridge and not understand the history of the town.  We certainly noticed the contrast of the empty the museums with thongs on the streets buying souvenirs.  
Tourist in the streets
Nevertheless we too were one of the visitors to the town and could be perceived the same way.  We certainly took many snaps of the beautiful iconic bridge.  We also went to the Hamam Museum which was one of the best we have seen and the Muslibegović House, a museum of a 19th Century residential building showing Turkish style rooms and displaying some interesting manuscripts from the 1700’s.
Beautifully restored Hamam
Silver soap dishes - a bit nicer than my blue plastic one!
Turkish style rooms
  

One of the big tourist attractions is for men to dive off the top of the bridge.  There is a traditional annual competition of diving off Stari Most held the end of July.  This has been going on for over 400 years.  The bridge is very high and the water of the Neretva River very cold.  Outside of the competition the practice today is for young men to stand on the edge of the bridge collecting money for the dive.  When 25 euros is collected then the men will dive.  We watched this going on and sadly it seems the money is collected but men are just possers in the budgie smugglers and rarely dive.  We met an old man in a shop who showed us pictures of when he dived in the 1960’s.  He very proudly said he did it for the tradition and no money was exchanged.
Thinking about diving
Collecting money
After three days we left Mostar awed by its beauty but a bit despondent about its history and what it reveals for today.
Stari Most at night