Croatia - Day 5, Korčula

Booking a ticket for the six-kilometre crossing to Korčula was very straightforward and didn’t involve the same administrative arrangements of providing passenger names that there are in Greece. I suppose that because Croatia isn’t in the European Union yet then it can safely manage without some of its bureaucratic procedures. The ferryboat was part of the Jadrolinija fleet, which is the largest in Croatia and carries nearly ten million passengers a year. It was called the Sveti Krševan, which is the name of the beautiful Romanesque church in Zadar that we had visited last year.

Once on board we found a seat on the top deck, opened a can of Karlovačko and sat in the sunshine to enjoy the thirty minute crossing to the island. The Croatian archipelago is the second largest in the Mediterranean after the Greek and there are that there are approximately one thousand two hundred and fifty Croatian islands in the Adriatic stretching all the way down the coast from Istria to Dubrovnik. This compares to about one thousand four hundred Greek Islands but includes quite a lot of islets and reefs so although this sounds a lot only sixty-six are actually inhabited compared with almost four times as many, two hundred and twenty seven, in Greece. Last year we visited Hvar, this year we choose Korčula just lying to the south of the slightly bigger island.

The ferry docked efficiently just outside the medieval city and we drove the short distance to the old town and after a bit of parking confusion found a perfect spot just outside the harbour and we set off to explore. Immediately it was obvious that Korčula isn’t very big and so because we had all day there pencilled in for tomorrow we decided not to do too much of it today. We walked around the outside of the town and restricted ourselves to the main street that runs through the middle and then found a pizzeria with a table overlooking the sea and the Pelješac peninsular. We choose a speciality pizza and the waiter asked if we wanted it cutting into six or eight slices, we said six because we didn’t think we could manage all eight.

It was a pleasant little lunch but as we sat there the sky hazed over and although it was still bright and warm the new arrangements robbed us of the blue that we like best. On the way out of the old town we visited the Konzum mini-market, which is the largest supermarket chain in Croatia, and purchased breakfast items for tomorrow and alcohol supplies for later on.

Our accommodation was just a few kilometres out of the town in the village of Grgic and the driving instructions were perfect until we reached the final few metres where the instructions petered out into an unhelpful ‘take the turning up the steep slope to the apartments’ – not very helpful because every turning had a steep slope so it looked as though we might have to try them all until we struck lucky As it happened there was a village shop where we stopped for directions and when we arrived the owner was waiting to greet us. We told her that a sign would be useful and she said that one was being fitted that very afternoon.

On the website the accommodation looked quite special but it didn’t quite live up to its billing. It isn’t very often that we are disappointed but this was one of them. The place wasn’t finished and it appeared dull and in need of a freshen up. The room was pleasant enough with a large balcony and a good view but inside the furniture was desperately out of date, the bed linen was old and faded and the towels were threadbare and worn out. Worst of all as we had the guided tour I spotted a cockroach in the kitchen area so I quickly stepped on it and hoped that Kim didn’t hear the crunch as its disgusting shell split in two and killed it instantly. I scooped the remains up in a tissue and flushed it down the toilet.

It wasn’t all bad of course and on the positive side it was in a very good location and the views from the pool side terrace area were magnificent. We sat and chatted to other guests and were served some home made liquors and pastries. These other guests were just finishing a fortnight holiday here and I found it almost impossible to comprehend how people could spend so long in one place. They seemed fascinated by our do-it-yourself approach to travel and spoke to us as though we were great adventurers so we felt obliged to tell them just how simple it is – book the flights, find some cheap hotels, hire a car and off you go!

The sun stayed behind the high haze for the rest of the day so eventually we abandoned the pool and retreated inside to prepare to go out for evening meal. Later we drove out and as we left the driveway to the apartments we couldn’t help but notice that the sign at the bottom had failed to appear. It was a lovely warm night and Korčula was delightful in the evening, the white stones and pavements were almost luminous and there was a friendly relaxed ambiance around every street corner. After we had walked around for a little while we selected a Croatian/Italian style restaurant and in the shelter of a side street sat we each had a pasta meal and shared a jug of wine and after that we wandered through the quiet streets back to the car and returned to the apartment.

Croatia - Day 5, Ston

It was another perfect start to the day on Friday morning and we had our breakfast outside and were amused by the gardener who was watering the plants in an inefficient way that involved a fifty metre trek in between each inadequate fill of the watering can. After we had eaten, packed and checked out of the hotel we joined the rush hour traffic and crawled out of Dubrovnik towards the E65 main road. Our destination was north but first we went a couple of kilometres south to find a viewing platform with a last panoramic view of Dubrovnik. It was quite stunning and quite difficult to leave but we had quite a long journey ahead so dragged ourselves away and set off for the islands. Today we planned to fulfil our original objective of visiting the countryside, the coast and the islands.

It took about forty-five minutes to reach the turn off for the Pelješac peninsular which involved a long hold up through a series of road works where the main peninsular road is being upgraded at its junction with the E65 ready for all of the additional traffic once the new Bosnian diversion bridge is completed. The drive ran along an unspoilt coast, peppered with small harbour villages and oyster farms because this is a region famous for its crustaceans. After we passed the walled port of Mari-Ston the first town that we reached on the peninsular was Ston and we pulled in to a car park to pay a visit. I was in a rush to get to the medieval walls and passed what I thought was a discarded meat pie by the side of the road but Kim more correctly identified it as a tortoise and she stopped to investigate. She was worried that it was close to the road and so moved it to safety so I pointed out that it was probably about a hundred years old and been crossing this road forever and didn’t need this nanny state interference. There were a lot of road signs warning motorists about tortoises but we were a bit surprised to see one like this.

Ston is only a small town but it has great strategic importance because it is a natural bottleneck through which invaders on the way to the islands have to pass and here can be slowed down and stopped. The defensive walls were built originally to stop the Turks reaching Korčula and they served the same purpose again in 1991 to prevent the Serb and Montenegrin armies getting through to the peninsular. Circling the town, the walls climb up to the hilltop Pozvizd Fortress and then follow the line of the isthmus to meet up with the walls of Mali Ston. They are fortified with ten round and thirty rectangular towers and we climbed to the fortress tower that looked out protectively over Ston and could clearly see the remains of some damaged roofs that had been destroyed by Serbian shells.

The walls are six kilometres long and after Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England are claimed to be the second longest defensive wall anywhere in Europe. From the top we could see the important saltpans and the little town spread out in front of us. From the top we walked down the other side only to find our way blocked by building work so we had to climb back to the top and then negotiate a slippy little mud track back to the town. On the way we passed another tortoise that was protecting two eggs in a hole next to a stone wall and was attracting a lot of attention from passers by. It was quite a difficult descent and it was very hot now so we were very glad to get to the bottom and find a shady street with a nice bar called the Sorgo which looked as though it would provide a nice lunch but it was too early so we made do with a cold beer.

We were running short of fuel but the nearest filling station meant going back through the road works and I really didn’t have the patience for that so on the advice of the owner of the Sorgo calculated that there was enough fuel to get us to Korčula and so we took the main road into the peninsular. On leaving Ston we had a last fantastic final view of Croatia’s defensive wall with its impressive combination of fortresses and battlements built to keep people out but we were through and on our way.

It was about fifty kilometres up the Pelješac and the road kept to the east of a mountain range that forms the backbone of the peninsular and took us through the region that produces the famous Croatian red dingac wine. There were lots of vineyards and invitations to visit and taste but we were intending to catch the one o’clock ferry so we just kept driving. Eventually there was a gap in the mountains and the road crossed over to the west and in front of us we could see Korčula across a narrow stretch of water. We continued to the town of Orebić and joined the queue for the ferry with about twenty minutes to spare.

Molly Talks

Molly continues to grow and achieve important new milestones. She is beginning to get the hang of speech and we have had the first real couple of words. Researchers now know that long before a baby utters her first word, she's learning the rules of language and how adults use it to communicate and by listening to others speak a baby learns what words sound like and how sentences are structured. In fact, many researchers believe the work of understanding language begins even before birth and that she is already familiar with important people’s voices on the first day of life.

Molly’s first words are animal related. She is fascinated by the cat and as soon as she spots him she points and says ka, more like the Ford car than the animal, but we all know what she means. She crawls after him and desperately wants to touch but when she catches up with him there comes a last minute uncertainty and she becomes apprehensive. After a while she gives the thing a pat and waits for a reaction. Luckily the cat is old and knackered and whilst a few years ago it might have objected to this unwanted attention now he just hasn’t got the energy left to do anything about it and he just wanders off in an indignant sort of way.

Her second word is qua and I know that doesn’t sound like a real word at all but it is short for quack as in duck and she says this when she is playing with a felt mobile that hangs from the light fitting in the dining room. Sometimes she uses the shortened alternative k and all she needs to do now is put the two ends together to get the full quack! Most of her talking is about mimicking other people and it is possible to have quite a lengthy conversation with her using meaningless sounds and expressions. All of this is important of course because it means that she is experimenting with new sounds and how to use them.

Progress towards first steps seems to have slowed down but she if pretty quick on all fours. Sometimes when she is standing the first step is nearly there and she seems to be really thinking about it but then she drops to the floor and uses the crawl instead because I suppose it must be easier. She is working on balance and poise and I am certain it will come sooner rather than later. One thing she is especially good at is the bottom shuffle turn around and she can do an impressive 180º turn with a little kick and a quick spin, which gets her exactly where she wants to be.

She has got a house full of toys of course but she has a preference for things she shouldn’t be playing with and as well as the TV remote controller and the car keys she likes to play with cables and mobile phones. Given the amount of time that Sally spends on hers it must be in the genes and it seems to becoming naturally to her. This weekend it was golf clubs, which was my fault for leaving them in the house but uncannily once she had found them she seemed to know exactly what to do with them and certainly wasn’t going to have them taken off of her without a struggle.

She had a good time painting as well because Sally bought her some brightly coloured finger paints and she put together one or two little masterpieces in double quick time. In between getting smothered in yucky luminous paint Sally was trying to teach her the colours and by the end of the session she could pick the one that she was being told – or maybe it was just good luck. As well as the pictures she painted she also managed to paint her face and her vest and a substantial amount of the tabletop as well. At one point she experimented with eating it and then colouring her hair. Painting it seems is going to need constant supervision for quite a while to come.

http://babyparenting.about.com/od/childdevelopment/a/babytalk.htm

Croatia - Day 4, Naked Sunbathing

It was midday and hot so we found a table at a waterside bar and thought about lunch. We ordered two dishes; one of calamari and another of small fried fish for what we thought was going to be a light snack. However I think the kitchen must have over ordered today because we actually received two absurdly huge portions and despite doing our best to force it all down had to return quite a lot back at the end of the meal. We were in a perfect spot next to the men trying to sell thirty minute tours on glass bottomed boats and watching the guided tour parties trying to make decisions about who was going on and who wasn’t. Eventually we tired of watching the people parading back and forth, left the harbour and went back into the city.

We did some more wandering about but we were beginning to cover the same ground now so we left the walled city by the Pile Gate and with the unused portion of yesterday’s ticket for the visit to the walls visited the adjacent fortress of Lokanda Peskarija which included an awful lot of steps to climb but the reward was an excellent final view over the city and its famously restored red tiled roofs and I wondered just why anyone would want to destroy something so beautiful.

The trouble with climbing steps up is that you have to climb back down again and by now it was a very hot afternoon. We could see that the bus was approaching so we descended as quickly as we could and made it to the bus stop just as the driver closed the doors and moved away which meant that we had to wait another fifteen minutes for the next one for the short journey back to the hotel. We were at the front of the queue of course but this wasn’t especially helpful because the concept of a queue is something that Croatian people seem to understand even less than the French and when the bus pulled up an undisciplined rugby scrum formed and there was a lot of pushing and shoving to get on.

With the sun still shining we walked through the fringe of trees down to the stony beach where we found a spot to paddle in the sea that was reflecting the light from a perfect soft blue sky with soft clouds and just the occasional flick of grey. From here we could see the beach stretching out around the headland and as we walked further we came across the naturist beach and debated the subject of just what makes people with brains in denial and bodies desperately defying gravity, remove their clothes and proudly show everything off.

There is a question I’d really like the answer to? Why don’t super models sunbathe naked? These people’s bodies needed to be put through the hotel bedroom trouser press before coming out in the morning to get all of the creases out. The Germans were by far the worst of course; I have never seen so much pubic untidiness. Naked sunbathing is really quite nice and swimming in the sea with the water around the places where the sun doesn’t normally shine is a really pleasant experience, it’s just a shame that the people with bodies past their sell by dates like to do it most of all.

When I was a boy there used to be a top shelf magazine called ‘Health and Efficiency’ which showcased people, usually Germans, who were committed naturists. As adolescents with raging hormones, it was always a thrill to come across a discarded copy of this magazine; it wasn’t the pursuit of naturism that interested us of course because we were only really interested in seeing pictures of ladies bare breasts. You can still buy the magazine but it isn’t top shelf any more and I’ve had a look and you can get it on-line as well.

We abandoned the naturist section of the beach and returned for a second visit to the beach bar where there was a good view across to the islands and we watched little tourist boats going backwards and forwards carrying passengers from the new harbour just around the corner. After a couple of drinks in the sun we walked back to the hotel through the impressive swimming pool area stopping only to buy more Croatian merlot and then we rested for an hour before going out for the evening.

Next to the hotel was a small purpose built holiday complex of concrete tourist shops and restaurants which wasn’t very thrilling but it was too far to go back into the old town so we selected a friendly looking place and had an acceptable meal that actually turned out to be a bit expensive. It was our final night in Dubrovnik so we went back to the beach bar and spent a relaxing hour under the stars drinking wine, listening to the sea and looking forward to the nest stage of our journey to the island of Korčula.

Croatia - Day 4, Pearl of the Adriatic

We were relieved to find that despite a gloomy weather forecast on Croatian breakfast TV the sun was shining again because there was much more of Dubrovnik yet to see so after an excellent buffet breakfast at the hotel we caught the bus once again into the city. The streets were busy this morning and the bus quickly filled up as it crawled through the early morning traffic competing with local people going to work and a procession of taxis ferrying people from the cruise ships in the harbour making their way like us to the old town. Even though it was early it was already busy and we had to negotiate crowds of people as we entered the city walls for the second time.

The medieval city of Dubrovnik was founded in late antiquity and grew first under Byzantine and then later under Venetian rule before becoming an independent republic in 1358. It developed into a maritime and trading power that rivalled the Venetian Republic and reached its zenith in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It even managed to keep its political independence under Ottoman rule, which began in 1526 but it was sacked in 1806 during the Napoleonic wars, and lost its status as a city-state two years later. It came under French rule and was ceded to Austria in 1815. A century later, it became part of Yugoslavia.

First we walked along the polished white paving stones of the main street occasionally taking detours into intriguing little side streets and alleys. We admired the reconstructed Rector’s House and the Cathedral, wandered through a street market and then to some of the quieter little streets underneath the walls that we had walked yesterday. The old city dates from the thirteenth century, when the imposing fortifications began to be built and the elegance and charm of the historic centre is a perfect blend of Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture. Not surprisingly the place had an Italianate feel with pizzerias and waiters pestering for business in that unique Italian sort of way but we didn’t mind this and just politely said no thank you in an English sort of way and walked on.

About mid morning we visited the Rector’s House museum which had a few rooms with interesting exhibits, a dungeon and a shop and although we thought we had bought a multi-visit ticket we were disappointed to find that we hadn’t when we tried later to use it to enter the maritime museum, and despite my perfectly reasonable request, there was no chance to upgrade it after the initial purchase and error. So we didn’t see the maritime museum!

By the time we had walked underneath the walls of St John’s Tower and into the old harbour I was beginning to understand why in 1929 George Bernard Shaw described Dubrovnik as ‘Paradise on Earth’ and I was sure already that it was a place that deserved to go into my top ten of must see places. This nearly wasn’t possible of course because during the war of independence Dubrovnik was attacked by the Serbian-Montenegrin army and besieged for six months during which time about two thousand shells rained down on the walled city, damaging seventy percent of its buildings and two-thirds of its famous red roofs. Dubrovnik’s ancient heritage was threatened with destruction and we stopped to look at a plaque within the central streets that showed all of the major strikes on public buildings and churches, cobbled streets made of Dalmatian stone and irreplaceable statues and monuments.

Europe and the World watched most of the dreadful events of the Yugoslavian wars on television screens but took no action but for the west at least the destruction of Dubrovnik overstepped the mark and brought pressure on the warring factions to stop. It was almost as though the World was prepared to watch ethnic cleansing, death and destruction in cities that meant little to them but when a UNESCO World Heritage Site was attacked and a city that was seen to belong to the World and not a single place, collectively they said ‘enough is enough’.

At the beginning of the bombardment, the city was placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger and quickly after it was over UNESCO launched an action plan to save Dubrovnik and the reconstruction work began. To rebuild the roofs the original sixteenth century rafters had to be strengthened and almost half a million tiles had to be replaced. The original tiles had been made in the village of Kupari, about fifteen kilometres from the city, and dated from the time of the Dubrovnik republic but the workshops had closed at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and specialists faced the task of finding a kind of tile which could as far as possible be made using the original materials and methods of construction. Eventually French and Croatian specialists managed to recreate the original technique and the famous roofline was perfectly restored.

The cost of the restoration was estimated at $20 for the old city within the walls and $30 million for the urban area as a whole. Much of the funding came from the new Croatian government and the Dubrovnik Reconstruction Office but also with aid from private Croatian sources and from UNESCO itself. Croatian and international teams of architects, sculptors, restorers and other experts managed to complete the bulk of the work within seven years and in December 1998 Dubrovnik was taken off of the danger list.

Bird Watch - June/July

June and early July haven’t been especially exciting months in the garden but it has been very busy. The Starlings have still got lots of juveniles with them that continue to demand assistance with feeding and in the last couple of weeks a couple of baby Goldfinch have started to visit the seed feeder with their parents. There are lots of young sparrows as well and the Blackbirds must be raising a second nestful of chicks because they are backwards and forwards all day long.

There are some new visitors to the garden this year because behind the house in an old orchard there are a couple of pairs of breeding Jays. They have been there for a while but although the adult birds rarely come near there is a juvenile bird that pays a visit most days. This is exciting because although they are the most colourful members of the crow family, Jays are actually quite difficult to see because they are shy woodland birds, rarely moving far from cover. It is a handsome buff coloured bird with blue wing tips, a white rump and a white face streaked with black and although it is a bit aggressive towards the other birds, especially the collared doves, it is a welcome addition to the garden visitors.

There are a lot of Blackbirds in the garden at the moment and they seem to a lot more sociable with each other now. There are about four or five male birds and there aren’t nearly as many squabbles as there were this time last year. One Blackbird is especially friendly and will sit at the door and look through the glass in anticipation of a handful of raisons and when the door is open he will even pop inside to see if any have been spilled on the floor. He will quickly eat three or four himself and then he carefully assembles a food parcel in his bright orange beak to take back to the nest. I watched him this morning and by arranging and rearranging he managed to collect and secure eight raisons before flying off to feed the young.

An interesting fact about the Blackbird is that it is the national bird of Sweden and although many World countries have national birds this is the only one, apart from the English Robin, that I can find that has chosen a bird that I have found in my garden. Many countries, especially in the tropics, prefer for their national bird colourful specimens like parrots, the French have the Cockeral and the USA the Bald Eagle and others like to choose something spectacular and powerful. The most common national bird is the Golden Eagle which is claimed by both Austria and Germany, Kazakhstan, Mexico and Scotland.

When I said it is not exciting at the moment I forgot that the female Sparrowhawk has been popping by now and again looking for a meal. Each adult Sparrowhawk will kill and consume a couple of small birds a day for themselves and when they are breeding at about this time of the year a pair needs to catch another ten or so just to feed the chicks. According to the RSPB there are forty thousand breeding pairs in the United Kingdom so by my calculation that is twenty thousand nests with an average of three chicks each so to feed themselves and their chicks this means three hundred thousand murders a day and that means nine million in the thirty days of June which, according to Katie Melua, is the same as the number of bicycles in Beijing.

With all the extra mouths to feed at the moment buying food from the garden centre or the supermarket can start to get a bit expensive so I have carried on preparing my own fat balls but this has started to present a bit of a challenge because in the warm weather they do tend to melt quickly and make a mess. What I do now is pop them in the freezer overnight then put them out first thing in the morning in a shady spot without direct sunlight. So far this has been successful and anyway, once the Starlings find them they don’t last very long at all and the one that I put out this morning at eight o’clock was gone by ten-thirty.

Croatia - Day 3, Dubrovnik

After we left Bosnia there was still fifty kilometres to go and the worrying thing was that we were leaving the clear blue skies behind and travelling south east directly towards nasty black rain clouds. I complained about this (several times) and was chastised for negative thinking but it really didn’t look very promising at all and my mood was in freefall. Despite the weather the scenery was good with tall grey mountains covered in lush green trees to the left, scarlet poppies by the roadside, blue sea to the right and a very good view over the green islands.

We had been driving non stop for nearly four hours now and I was beginning to get a bit irritable and my mood wasn’t helped when just as we approached the outskirts of Dubrovnik there were rain spots on the windscreen and still in the rear view mirror I could see the blue skies that we had left behind us. To be honest this had not been a great journey! Dubrovnik turned out to be much bigger than I was anticipating and this meant that inevitably there was difficulty finding the hotel. We were staying a few kilometres outside the city centre on a peninsula full of modern tourist hotels and do you think we could find ours? No of course not! We drove around in circles looking for signs or inspiration and my mood was deteriorating and my nerves fraying with every passing moment. Eventually we found it of course and as we pulled into the car park I wondered whether I should enrol for hotel location anger management lessons when we got back home.

The room wasn’t quite ready so a tension reliever was called for and was supplied with a relaxing glass of Karlovačko from the hotel bar. We sat outside and as if by magic the irritating clouds completely disappeared and in a matter of minutes left behind a clear blue sky. There had clearly been a lot of rain this morning and the improvement in the weather instantly brought guests scurrying from their rooms. They emerged blinking and adjusting to the sunlight, reaching for sunscreen and making for the swimming pool. They were obviously relieved to see the sun and so was I.

The Tirana is a modern package holiday hotel that had been built in the Yugoslavian holiday boom of the 1970s in a functional sort of eastern Europe concrete sort of way and refurbished just a couple of years ago. We had a nice room with a shady balcony and although it is not the sort of hotel that I would say is my first preference it was clean and comfortable and the service was excellent.

One thing that we really wanted to do was see Dubrovnik in sunshine and as the weather seemed to be a bit unpredictable we decided to go and do it straight away. There was a bus stop at the end of the hotel drive so we walked there, caught the bus and went to the city. The old town looked spectacular as we walked through the sixteenth century Pile Gate and were transported into an alternative world of narrow medieval streets, magnificent buildings constructed of white Dalmatian stone and a riot of red tiled roofs. We knew that we had all day tomorrow to explore the city but we were impatient so purchased our tickets and climbed to the top of the walls for the two-kilometre walk around the splendid tenth century guard’s walkway.

It took a couple of hours to complete the walk around the city stopping frequently to admire the breathtaking views of the cathedrals and churches, the battlement and towers and the busy streets bustling with activity at the base of the walls and through the city to the other side. The route took us first alongside the Adriatic and then at the Fort of St John into the old city port past fishing boats, yachts, pleasure craft and water taxis all floating gently on the gentle sea within the protective walls of the harbour’s medieval defences. Then we were on the land side where there were there were the best views of the tiled roofs and on to the highest point at the Minceta Tower where there was a steep climb rewarded with an expansive panorama of the city and the vivid blue sea behind it.

After the walls we agreed not to spoil tomorrow by doing everything in a rush today so instead we found a restaurant with a pleasant garden and as we had missed lunch due to the long drive enjoyed an early evening meal before catching the bus back to the hotel where we relaxed, drank a bottle of Croatian merlot and prepared to go for a final walk.

It was getting dark when we left the hotel and followed the path to the stony beach where there was a bar where we finished the day listening to the gentle lapping of the sea rearranging the pebbles on the beach and watching the occasional Mediterranean cruiser slipping out of the modern port en route for its next destination. Eventually we tired of the tedious conversation at the next table where a group of elderly travellers were competing with each other with tales of wondrous holidays and grand family events so we climbed the path back to the hotel and after taking a last look at a clear ink black sky finished the day in an optimistic weather mood.

Croatia - Day 3, The Dalmatian Coast

I woke in a pessimistic mood and first checked for stomach cramps and when there were none and it was obvious that last night I was being a total drama queen I then strained my ears for the sound of pelting rain on the balcony of the room. But there was good news because I couldn’t hear water gushing or a pitter-patter or even a solitary drip and when I nervously opened the window blinds I was greeted with a perfect blue sky and uninterrupted views across the Adriatic. The sun had decided to visit Croatia and I couldn’t wait to get the day started.

It was a fabulous start to the day with a brilliant blue sky and a bright sun burning in the east and this meant that Iveska had once again arranged breakfast on the terrace and she supplied a never ending supply of hot tea and local Croatian pastries. Iveska was the perfect host, she was Croatian but had moved to Canada when she was young and then returned later to get married and to run the Pink Inn. She was full of information about Croatia and made useful tourist recommendations.

After breakfast we left the hotel after making arrangements to return in five days time and then set off south towards our destination of Dubrovnik about two hundred kilometres away. The first part of the drive wasn’t especially scenic and after thirty minutes we arrived in the busy town of Omiš where there was an opportunity to head inland through the mountains on a scenic detour along the river Cetina. We followed the route for a few kilometres but then ran into some road works and a long hold up so after awhile took our prompt from the local motorists who were turning around and going back the way they came and being naturally impatient and assuming that they knew something we didn’t we did exactly the same and turned around and returned to the coast road.

The views didn’t improve a great deal as we drove through redundant shipyards and derelict industrial areas south of the town but eventually we left these behind and reached a sign declaring that we were now on the Markarska Riviera, which is a forty kilometre stretch of beautiful coastline with the Dinaric Alps inland to the east and a ragged coastline of inlets and beaches and the islands of Brač and Hvar sitting close by out in the Adriatic to the west.

It is a driving rule in Croatia that main beam lights must be used at all times and I kept finding this quite difficult to remember. This rule seemed a bit unnecessary to me because the weather was bright and the driving conditions were perfect but the advice was that it is important to remember because the police don’t like it if you forget and can administer a hefty on the spot fine.

I was a bit uncertain of the driving rules and the speed limits so kept checking that my lights were on and kept diligently to just about fifty kilometres an hour. I was sure that this was actually a bit too slow because after a short time I managed to get an impressive build up of traffic behind me but at least it gave me the opportunity to do my Lincolnshire tractor driver impression and pull over every now and again to let things past. I felt a bit like a bit like a cork in a champagne bottle because every time I pulled over there was a rush of appreciative traffic speeding past in an effervescent flow.

I continued to take it steady and we made frequent stops at laybys with scenic views to let the line of traffic building up behind me pass by and to admire the scenery. We drove past the holiday town of Makarska and then Gradac where we had stayed for a night last year. It was about eleven o’clock and we weren’t making the sort of progress that we had anticipated and the distance to Dubrovnik seemed to remain stubbornly high. After Gradac we arrived at the city of Ploče where the road temporarily left the coast and for a short while followed the river Neretva flowing down from Bosnia and forming a river delta where it met the sea with many hectares of valuable fertile land with an abundance of crops growing in the fields.

After the little inland detour we were soon back at the coast and heading for Dubrovnik. At this part of the journeythere is an interesting diplomatic arrangement at the town of Neum which is the only seaside town in Bosnia and occupies about twenty kilometres of coastline that splits Croatia in two and which requires driving through border controls at both ends, which quite frankly is a bit of a pain in the arse for traffic travelling to and from Dubrovnik. The two countries are currently in negotiations about the establishment of a ‘privileged economic zone’ for Bosnian businesses within the port of Ploče to give Bosnia an economic supply line from the sea but this is hindered by the opposition of Croatian people to the concept of a partial loss of sovereignty. In exchange Croatia would like easier passage through the narrow strip of Bosnian territory near Neum but this is opposed by the Bosnian people. Why can’t people get on I wonder? The Croatian solution is simple and they have begun construction of a three thousand metre long bridge that will cross to the Pelješac peninsular and solve the problem by bypassing Bosnia altogether and not surprisingly the Bosnian Government doesn’t like this either. Why can’t people get on I wonder?

Croatia - Day 2, Diocletian's Palace

We walked through the centre of Diocletian’s Palace, which is the centre of the old city of Split where all the most important historical buildings of the city are to be found. The Palace is important as a historical monument because it has survived pretty much intact and is remarkable for the diversity of its buildings, which include an octagonal domed mausoleum, a rectangular Temple of Jupiter, a cruciform lower level of the Vestibule, and circular temples to Cybele and Venus.

Diocletian became Emperor or Rome in 284AD and set out to reorganise the huge Empire that had become unwieldy and difficult to control. He separated the Empire in two between east and west to make it more manageable and after governing for twenty years became the first Emperor to resign from the job and he built the massive palace for his retirement after abdicating in 305 AD. When it was built one of its four gates led directly to a quay side but an impressive new promenade has separated the Palace from the sea and the entrance is now through the Palace basement and past a row of market stall vendors.

Inside, the Palace is a dazzling mix of styles and ages and although parts of it have been dismantled and rearranged by succeeding generations the basic structure is intact and small streets lead from one exciting discovery to another. The Palace is built of white local limestone of high quality, most of which was from quarries on the island of Brač. The nearby island is famous for its stone which has been its main export since ancient times and has always been highly valued and has been used in some of the most famous buildings in the World including the White House in Washington D.C. Limestone tuffa was taken from the nearby river beds and bricks were made in the nearby workshops of the Roman city of Salona. Some material for decoration was imported such as Egyptian granite columns and sphinxes, and the fine white marble for external decoration produced in workshops in Proconnesos, which is the modern day Turkish island of Mamara.

The palace was built not just as a retirement home but as a Roman military fortress as well with walls two hundred metres long and twenty metres high, enclosing an area of thirty-eight thousand square metres and it is one of the best preserved Roman palaces in existence because after the fall of the Romans within the defensive walls it effectively became the city of Spalatum which eventually evolved and became Split and today it continues to host the old town even though there is some more recent inappropriate construction inside.

The sun was beginning to poke through now so rather than visit the underground basement halls we decided to continue our walk along the harbour and we passed through Republican Square with its elegant buildings painted red and its Venetian architecture modelled on St Marks Square in Venice. From here we passed into some back streets of tiny houses and began to climb towards the city’s park at the western end of the harbour and with good views back over the city. The clouds were breaking up quickly now and although they remained stubbornly attached to the ring of mountains surrounding Split out to sea it was clearing nicely, the sun was out and we were getting warm.

From the top we could see why Croatia’s second largest city is so important as it occupies a position of strategic significance on the Adriatic and because of this Split suffered damage during the war. Probably the most tragic incident of all occurred in November 1991 when the Yugoslavian frigate named Split fired shells at the city. The damage was insignificant and there were only a few casualties but this was the only time in history that a city has been bombarded by a military vessel bearing its own name.

It was nice in the sunshine and we walked back down to the harbour around the back of the Palace and back inside through the main gate to complete our tour. We had missed the basement halls last year so were determined to see them today so after a late lunch sitting in the welcome sunshine we paid for our admission and went underground. The vast rooms were mostly empty but there were some exhibits here and there but what was really interesting was to see just how well the Romans constructed their buildings. We were able to see all of this because they are so well preserved because for more than a thousand years they had been used as a convenient waste disposal and sewage site as residents in the medieval city above simply filled them up with debris and rubbish. As recently as fifty years ago these basement halls were inaccessible but then archaeologists began to excavate and investigate and when it comes to understanding the ancient Romans they are now a very important evidence base for study.

It was late afternoon so we walked back through the market and caught the bus back to Podstrana where it was hot enough to sit on the balcony and watch the cloud formations out to sea as the sun probed its way through the grey to form puddles of cheerful sparkling reflection on the surface of the sea. The weather continued to improve so later we walked to the beach and watched a good sunset over Split. What a great time of the year this was to enjoy the end of the day on the beach, the place was deserted except for one or two local people and the nearby four hundred room Meridian Hotel, that didn’t look like our sort of place, wasn’t yet fully open for business this year.

In the evening we returned to the fish restaurant close by that we had used last year and began to make our choices off of the menu in anticipation of another good meal. But for some reason I was feeling a bit nauseous and unwell and although I kept this to myself and made an attempt on the shared octopus salad I just couldn’t face the black squid risotto that followed so I had to make my apologies and leave Kim to finish her meal alone. I blamed the fish salad that I had had at lunchtime and feared that I had poisoned myself on the very first day of the holiday. I went straight to bed and became anxious about finding the hospital later but I needn’t have worried because when I woke in the middle of the night everything had settled down and it had passed as quickly as it came on and I slept contentedly for the rest of the night.

Croatia - Day 2, Split

In the morning it had stopped raining but it was one of those days when it was only a matter of time before it started again and judging by the clouds accumulating over the island of Brač just a few kilometres away in the Adriatic Sea we probably wouldn’t have too long to wait. It stayed fine long enough to have an excellent Pink Inn breakfast outside on the terrace and where Iveska explained that there had been a heat wave during the previous week but the forecast for the next few days wasn’t very thrilling and we cursed our luck for picking the wrong week.

Today we were planning to visit Split but as we were preparing to catch the ten o’clock bus the clouds began there relentless march inland and the heavens opened again and we watched as first Brač and then Split itself slipped from view under a thick grey shroud. When it had slowed from a downpour to a drizzle I was sent to the shop down the road to get alcohol supplies in case we were forced to spend the day in the room, which at that point seemed like a distinct possibility. At the shop I couldn’t remember which beer I preferred, was it Karlovačko, Ožujsko or Laško so I bought one of each so that I could try them all just to be sure.

By the time I returned the rain had eased and the horizon was much clearer so we made the decision to go to Split as planned and with umbrellas at the ready we set off for the bus stop nearly opposite the hotel. The short ride took about twenty minutes and it was worth the ten kuna fare just to avoid any parking difficulties and the bus dropped us off conveniently at the green market quite close to the old town. Here there were lots of local people selling produce that they had grown themselves and the stalls were bursting with colour and groaning under the weight of freshly harvested crops. It must have been raining hard here too because the old ladies doing the selling were wearing plastic bags over their shoes and had black refuse sacks draped over their shoulders to keep them dry. Kim tried to take photographs of them but one in particular took offence at the intrusion and shooed her away with a scowl.

The sky remained grey as we walked along the recently improved pedestrian area next to the harbour with its rows of bars and cafés and immaculate gardens and lawns as we retraced our steps along the waterfront from the previous visit last year. We were heading for People’s Square with its bars and restaurants and pretty medieval buildings and we arrived just in time to make the shelter of a pavement umbrella before it started to rain again. This didn’t stop us sitting and having a beer and we sat and watched as people hurried past under the shelter of umbrellas and a young beggar with twisted legs made a sweep through the bars collecting coins from customers as he went. I am usually suspicious of beggars but this chapped looked genuine enough so I transferred the loose change from my pocket into his begging cap and he moved on.

Suddenly a wind appeared and a sudden squall created chaos when it lifted the ivory coloured umbrellas right out of their metal stands and sent them all crashing through the tables and chairs with the bar staff frantically chasing them down the street. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time when seconds earlier they had tied them altogether to improve the shelter from the rain but it wasn’t so clever now as they all lifted off together scattering all of the customers. We didn’t need excitement and danger like that so we finished our drinks and left and continued our visit.

Croatia - Day 1, Irritating Things & a Thunder Storm

It was a late afternoon flight to Zadar in Croatia and so we left home at about lunchtime giving ourselves plenty of time to get to Stansted and it was a good job that we did because as usual the A14 resembled a war zone and with hold-up after hold-up and a couple of circuitous detours we found ourselves with little margin for error by the time we pulled into the mid-stay car park.

My patience doesn’t hold out long in traffic but this was soon forgotten once I had had a pint of Stella Artois in Wetherspoons and began to look forward to the holiday. Kim’s patience doesn’t hold out long when there is a baby crying on the aeroplane and the flight started badly when a young child, just two rows in front, started to grizzle even before take off. Since becoming a grandad this doesn’t bother me any more but the poor thing cried for the whole two and a half hours of the flight and by the end Kim had had quite enough.

One thing that might have bothered me is mobile phones and I was alarmed to see overhead signs that permitted their use in flight. I really dislike the indiscipline of mobile phone use especially on public transport. I am grateful for them of course but I wish people would have the good manners to use them considerately and have a thought for other people when they do so. In virtually every public place you go now people are shouting into mobile phones and there are few things more irritating than being compelled to eavesdrop on one half of a unnecessary conversation. The worst place of all is on the train where dozens of commuters insist daily on competing with each other to have the loudest conversation which all end at exactly the same time with the words “Just a minute I’m going into a tunnel, hello, hello, HELLO, HELLO…”, followed by frantic animated redialing, a repeated conversation and another tunnel, followed by….

Now they can be used on aeroplanes and I just know that this is going to irritate me. Luckily no one seemed to want to use the mobile phone on this particular flight probably because it is prohibitively expensive. The Chinese girls just in front of us probably couldn’t use their phones anyway because they were all wearing ludicrous face masks, presumably to guard against the evil swine flu pandemic.

As the plane flew south the weather started to deteriorate and by the time we landed in Zadar at half past eight it was cold and miserable with a few spots of rain. ‘Welcome to Croatia’ I muttered to myself knowing that Kim doesn’t like me to be negative about the weather. And it was cold and what made this worse was that we had left behind in the United Kingdom the hottest June day since the end of the last ice age!

The man from the car rental company was there to greet us and he went through a procedure that consisted mostly of an explanation about all the extra things they could charge me for if it didn’t come back in the same state as I was picking it up. He assured me that it was in perfect condition and I had to take his word for that because by now it was dark and it was a black car so an examination was pointless.

We left the airport and joined Croatia’s only motorway, the A1, and began the one hundred and fifty kilometre journey to Split. At first it was really easy going because the A1 is a toll road and as elsewhere in Europe the local people tend to avoid it and stick to the congested old roads. This was quite unlike the A14 in Cambridgeshire and with nothing to hold us up we made steady progress even stopping at one point to purchase essential alcohol supplies for later. There was a red sky behind us but we were travelling into thick black clouds ahead and then it started to rain and this slowed down our progress.

Actually it didn’t just rain it poured and the deluge turned the motorway into a river with water flowing down the carriageways and making driving quite difficult. As we drove past the city of Šibenik things became even worse and as we climbed into the mountains there was a spectacular electrical storm with heaving thunder and constant lightening flashes all around us. ‘Welcome to Croatia’ I said out loud this time, we’ve had the decency to visit, you would have thought that Croatia would have at least arranged some decent weather.

When we reached the exit for Split I was glad to pay the 48Kuna fee (about £7) and get off the motorway and drive towards the city along empty roads because it was getting late and no-one was daft enough to be out driving on a night like this.

We drove past Split and on to nearby Podstana because we were staying at the Pink Inn where we had stayed last year so at least we knew exactly where we were going and there wouldn’t be any last minute dramas. After two hours of nerve jangling driving Iveska welcomed us back and showed us to the best room in the hotel on the top floor with a great view of the rain lashing down over Split. It was too late to go out looking for food so we had to make do with a bag of crisps but at least we had plenty of beer and wine to keep our spirits up and after a couple of drinks we went to bed and listened to the rain bouncing like shrapnel off of the balcony floor outside. Welcome to Croatia!

http://www.pinkinn.com/

Blue Flag Beaches

The Blue Flag beach award was originally conceived in France in 1985 where the first coastal municipalities were awarded the Blue Flag on the basis of criteria covering standards relating to sewage treatment and bathing water quality. Two years later, 1987 was the ‘European Year of the Environment’ and the concept of the Blue Flag was developed as a European initiative by the Foundation for Environmental Education in Europe to include other areas of environmental management, such as waste disposal and coastal planning and protection and in that first year two hundred and forty four beaches from ten countries were awarded the new Blue Flag status. Twenty-one years later in 2008 there were two thousand seven hundred and ten (up by ninety-eight from 2007) and the updated 2009 list will be revealed in the early summer.

Thirty-eight countries are currently participating in the Blue Flag Programme: Bahamas, Belgium-Flanders, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Dominican Republic, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Russia, Romania, Scotland, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey and Wales,

Spain has more blue flag beaches than any other participating country with four hundred and ninety-three along almost five thousand kilometres of coastline, the United Kingdom by comparison, has only one hundred and seven in nearly twelve thousand five hundred kilometres. Sadly this is thirty-seven beaches down on the previous year, which means we must be getting dirtier. Greece has the second most blue flags at four hundred and twenty-five (down five) and the most in the Mediterranean Sea. Even though France increased its successful beaches from two hundred and thirty-eight to two hundred and sixty-three it has been replaced in third spot by Turkey, which has increased by fifty-one to two hundred and eighty-six. The full top ten is:

1 Spain 493
2 Greece 425
3 Turkey 286
4 France 263
5 Italy 225
6 Portugal 225
7 Denmark 217
8 Croatia 114
9 United Kingdom 107
10 Ireland 74

What is interesting however is to put this into context by relating success in terms of numbers to the total length of coastline because that reveals that Slovenia has a blue flag beach every six kilometres, Portugal every eight and Spain every ten. In the United Kingdom you have to travel one hundred and sixteen kilometres between each blue flag beach and that puts us twenty fifth out of the top twenty-five. That is even worse than our annual performance in the Eurovision song contest! Mind you would have to travel a lot further in Norway because it has only three blue flag beaches in eighty-three thousand kilometres of coast (including all the fjords of course).

To be honest I am not really a beach person, I get quickly bored and I think that sand is completely incompatible with the intimate nooks and crannies of the human body but one blue flag beach that I have visited and enjoyed is Jurmala in Latvia. The first time that I saw Jurmala was in June 2006 and it was a real eye opener because this was a very high quality beach with miles of scrupulously clean sand, three blue flags and a clear Baltic Sea stretching out over the Gulf of Riga towards Sweden over the horizon. I had expected the sea to be grey and forbidding like the North Sea of my childhood holidays but instead it was a serene denim blue and looked genuinely inviting. There were a few holidaymakers on the beach but not many in the sea because I suspect that looks were deceptive and that the Baltic remains fairly inhospitable for most of the year.

Under the Communist regime up until 1991 this was a popular destination for high-level Communist Party officials and it was a favourite destination of Russian Presidents Brezhnev and Khrushchev. I cannot help finding it ironic that Blue Flags should be awarded to a Red Army beach.