from Dubrovnik: city park

If you haven’t the room for a park in the city, then find room for it elsewhere. The people of Dubrovnik took that message to heart and put their park on an island, a dozen minutes away by boat.

And so when the city was feeling just a little too overrun by school grops, English pensioners and tourists speaking languages I cannot place – it was time to head for the park.



ferrying for an afternoon away from the city pace


The island of Lokrum is a quiet place. So close and yet so quiet! There is an old monastery and a small church, but you really come here for the lush vegetation, the coastal views...





...the winding trails, and the nudist beach.

Yes, that. We stumbled upon it by getting lost in the woods (I had the map and I forgot to follow it) and coming upon a sign that basically said put away your cameras and take off your clothes or stay out.

So, did I oblige or did I move on?

It turns out Croatia has a long “naturist” tradition. People expect to be able to go out on select beaches sans attire. They like the feel of water on their bodies. They’ve been commanded to do a lot of things in the past, but here, in these spots up and down the coast, they can do as they please.

They say the coastal waters got toasty warm – good enough to swim in – just this week. And the sun has been out daily, with pleasant breezes keeping the days at a perfect temperature. Why not swim and frolic and eat well at night. Why not…



a peacock watches



a boat goes by, taking it in




yet another place to swim on the island: the dead sea (cameras permitted here)




a late dinner, outside, by the sea

from Dubrovnik: about food, but not really

1. breakfast

At times I get immensely jealous of countries that have both the salty seas and the sunny spring skies. To do food well, they need only not ruin that which the season and the sea readily provide.

Dubrovnik does food well. It does not choke meats and fish with starch and cream in the central European way. It looks at a product and says – hey, it’s fine the way it is. Let’s just cut it up and put it on a plate. Like this:




…along with a good cup of coffee and some bready stuff, served early in the morning, on a sunny patio. Can’t go wrong.


2. lunch

I have a very complicated relationship to lunch. Back home I ignore it. Here, I am seduced by it.

It’s 1 in the afternoon. We have been walking the back alleys of this town.













The sun is warm, the air is still. It’s everybody’s lunch break. And so you sit down.
You are served this, with a glass of house white.



grilled veggies, octopus


The waitress hovers, fusses.
I like Americans, she tells you. Most of the time. But just now I had one take out his calculator and go over my sums. As if I can’t count! The other week, I was asked if I knew what a p.c. was. No, I count on my fingers and I come to work on horseback! Americans think we are so primitive.

Oh, that Eastern European complex. And that burning (not always untrue) image of the condescending American. They are a bad fit.
But I like your language. I studied it here, in Dubrovnik. I am an engineer in fact.
Underemployment, the problem of a country with a fledging economy

It’s 2:30, you move on to a café for a cappuccino and then an ice cream shop for a scoop of fruits of the forest ice cream. By now it’s nearing 5. One brisk walk out of the city, along the shore…





…and it’s time to think about the aperitif.


3. dinner

A new place opened up a year ago on one of the side squares of Dubrovnik. The tables are roomy, comfortably spread out over much of the square. To the side, at a jazz club, a combo plays an odd assortment of music. A boy runs past, kicking a “football.” From a doorway, you hear the sound of soccer on the screen, with occasional shouts of joy as one goal follows another. The stars are out.

The waiter brings a bottle of Croatian white, a bottle of mineral water, plates with fish pate, crusty bread.

We order. Time to try some Dalmatian favorites: risotto blackened with squid ink with chunks of seafood, a sea bass pan fried in olive oil, flavored with lemon and Dalmatian spices. A crepe with ice cream for dessert. Four people means two bottles of wine. The total tab comes to 560 Kn., which is about $100. The food at this place is so outstanding that it could survive the competition in the big capitals of the world.










I’m a failure in finding effective words of praise. They all sound so… standard. This is great. You are great. Wonderful, really wonderful. We are so glad we found you. We’ll have to return.

Maybe we will, maybe we wont. Who knows how the week will unfold. But there is always Ocean, the conveyor of important information. When next you are in Dubrovnik, eat there, at the Konoba Mediterano. And pat the guy on the back for his efforts. Or kiss him. Or leave him a big tip. Or write an effusive post.

(Being a tourist can be emotionally draining. So often you worry that you’re not doing a good job of it.)

from Dubrovnik: like a swallow

One writer noted this about Dubrovnik: if they were to design a Hollywood set that looked like this, everyone would think it to be fantastically unreal. Dubrovnik, in fact, looks unreal.

But it’s not. It is as real now as it was when the wall around it first went up more than 1000 years ago.

Walking the walls of Dubrovnik, climbing up at a gate and then walking the whole circumference. Hey there, Dubrovnik, I have looked at you from all sides, I have circled you like a swallow. You are stunning!



from the wall



old chimneys, new roofs



from the wall



Ocean author, on the wall


A walled, car-less city that sparkles. It is Venice in that its survival (and demise?) depends on the tourist credit card. It is unlike Venice in that it is immaculate. A street made of marble stone, cream houses, many with new shingles (because the old ones were shelled during the war of ’91-’92), flowers in stone crevices, blue waters with visible pebbles at the bottom and fish throughout.



just outside the wall, an inlet

















A young man scales the Dubrovnik walls and collects the plastic bottles that tourists tend to toss during their walk along the walls. Croats do their work well. But rarely do I see them crack a smile. I am beginning to think that history has given them too little to laugh about.


A break, I need a cappucino break. With a slice of cheese strudel. Followed by a quiet moment, studying a well placed orange tree inside a Franciscan monastery.








At dusk you have two choices: to sit down for some serious people watching or to be watched yourself. I choose the former. An aperitif out on the marble street. Colors of cream and orange again. I pay, leave a tip, always on the high end, I am sure of it, because there is always a look of surprise. Is that a good thing? Man, those Americans just throw their money around. Or: man, those Americans are cheap. Both are probably true. We tip well at home. Less so here. It seems we can't figure it out. Foreign customs are like foreign currencies. They confuse us. Best to stay home, tend to your own backyard. It's comfortably clear there.



campari based "summer festival"


The swallows use the long straight street as an aerial highway. They swoop down and fly away, quickly, quickly, only to return, sometimes in teams, sometimes alone. I'm remembering the small tattoo on my back. A swallow, poised upwards, in flight.

from Dubrovnik: a pearl

The airport is small. The flight is full. Croatians, conducting business in Zagreb, returning home. A handful of us are tourists. We take our bags and breathe in the sweetly scented air of a blooming Adriatic town.

I’m leaving in November, to go to the States, our driver tells us. He is cheerful, affable. He is also brutally realistic. I cannot make a life here. In the States, I can go out to eat four times a week. Here, we Croats cannot afford the prices that are set for you, the tourists. We can’t even afford to heat our houses.
Were you here during the war?
No, I was lucky, I happened to be in Turkey. Afterwards, there was so much hope, but now I think there is less. Privatization was a disaster. Two hundred corrupt people grabbed everything and got very rich. The rest of us have nothing. We are worse off than when we were part of Yugoslavia. Now they say we wont be ready for the Union until 2009. Me, I am against the Union. European countries, they are all so different! And that is a good thing, I think.
Beautiful views! Can we hike up into the hills?
No, there are no cleared trails and there are still land mines that are dangerous. Out on the islands, you can hike there.



approaching Dubrovnik



a close-up



and another


He waves to a little boy out on the road. Big smiles are exchanged, a shout back and forth.
You know everyone here?
I know that little boy. I chose to work in an orphanage instead of going into the army.
You’ll do well in the States. You have a winning personality!
I know I’ll do well. I already have. I worked for Marriot, they want me back!

Later:

I’d like to order the lobster and potato salad and then the buzzara (shrimp and mussels steamed in a spicy broth). Oh, and a good Croatian white wine.








The restaurant is on a street filled with outdoor eating places. As we walk to it, others ask us to come into theirs, to sample their foods. Tables tend to be empty at this time of the year.





At the close of the meal, a jug appears at the table.
What’s this?
Grappa, from us. Try some.





You speak English, right? I just wanted to tell you that friends ate here two years ago and told us we must dine here as well. I am so glad we did. You are a terrific cook.
I get many warm kisses for those words. Old, smiling eyes. What have they witnessed in the last two decades? A siege that made no sense. Destruction. Rebuilding, so that indeed, it is, to visitors at least, the pearl of the Adriatic.

The hotel where we are staying served as a shelter during the ten month siege. The roof was blasted away, but the walls remained solid. It was reopened last year, finally, and now it waits, splendid in its sunflower and orange tones. It waits for people who will be charmed by it, people like me, who will sit on the terrace and sip a drink late into the evening and then wake up the next day for a breakfast under the blue skies of a gorgeous May day.

from Zagreb: central Europe

If you have been there, you’ll recognize it instantly. The buildings, tramcars, foods, parks, people – what more can I say. Mitteleuropa: Warsaw, Vienna, Zagreb. They have more in common than anyone living there would probably want to admit.

The “other Camics” will not be arriving until late tonight and so I use the day to do some work and then to go out and get a grasp on the Zagreb Sunday. Is it more like an American Sunday or an Italian one? You tell me.



park bench, pink chestnut tree



park bench, markings on tree



watching magic performed on the square



old town, café life



for me: krustada with cheese and cherries, capuccino, lilies of the valley


They speak a butchered Polish here in Croatia. In Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia as well. They take my language, mess with some of the words and it begins to sound like Polish with a few too many beers thrown in. A Pole can listen to a Croat and understand a lot. And conversely, I can throw together some Polish-like words and a person from here will get it.

Still, Zagreb is its own place. Even though I do tend to pick up on the similarities – the flowers sold by old women (the intense smell of lilies of the valley…no lily of the valley ever gives such powerful perfume in the States; I do not know why), the cafés filled in equal proportion with beer, coke and coffee drinkers from morning onwards, the chestnut trees, the lovers, the dreamers, the smokers, the Croats the Poles the Poles the Croats. God, it feels awfully close to home.



I bought from her; they were fresh and she was honest.



at the entrance to the market



red strawberries, red bag, red umbrella, red shirt, black cloak



she sells small amounts of lettuce



old town, looking up



old town, looking down


Monday afternoon we fly down for a week in Dubrovnik. Incredibly difficult to get to by land. Minutes from Bosnia-Hercegovina, significantly damaged in the conflict some fifteen years ago, it is now in a state of recovery. I’m happy to put tourist dollars into its effort to again become a favored Adriatic destination. I want to get to it before it puts itself in the league of all the other beautiful and significantly unaffordable spots along the Mediterranean coastline.

Oh, a post script to Sunday: a perfectly beautiful Mother's Day gift is to have your daughters show up to join you for dinner. And what is a Croatian dinner all about? Mine had the taste of a country that bounces between a Mediterranean culture and central Europe.



tomatoes, mozzarella, melon



baked cheese strukli



daughters