Stuff and Nothing

We spend a couple of days in Dubrovnik relaxing and taking it easy in what is mostly a pleasant place to visit.  Especially at this time of year when things are getting quieter, but the streets are still quite busy.  Tourists regularly spill out of buses and converge upon the narrow streets of the old City.  At the entrance of Pile gate a flamboyantly dressed man awaits with a perch full of brightly coloured parrots.  People (particularly children) gravitate to him as he places birds randomly on passersby, seeing how many of the disgruntled creatures he can bedeck someone with before they get antsy and start pecking at each other… “Don’t bite!” he cautions an errant member of his troupe before scooping another up and kissing it – freeze-framing at the right moment so the cameras can flash and capture the kodak moment.  His treasure chest sits below the bird perch awaiting donations from the masses.

The only broad street in the old city is lined with cafes and restaurants all boasting pretty much the same menu.  Old men pace the streets attempting to persuade some tourists to venture up the side streets to the cafes on the next level.  A steady stream of tourists hand over their coins to gain entrance to the steps leading to the top of the city walls where they can get a bird’s eye view of the city that is crammed onto this big rock.  All the stone is white – white blocks or white marble paving.  The roofs are a rich uniform terracotta red.  The colour scheme is exactly matched in the heights above us where the city has grown up into the mountainside.  The buildings are all tall, and most of the streets are narrow.  Even when the sun is at its fullest there’s plenty of shade amongst the side streets.  The somewhat haphazard growth of buildings always keeps to the traditional materials and endeavours to provide pedestrians with respite from the sun.  This is a relief as we venture up the infinite steps leading to new levels that can’t be seen from below.

There we find yet more streets full of cafes and restaurants before these give way to residential housing.  The further you climb, the more you can glimpse of the city.  I don’t envy whoever carts all the fresh produce up these steps every day to stock the restaurants.  After checking out the view we make our way back down to the depths of the city where the crowds are focusing their attention.  We stroll the streets getting orientated in the sprawling mass.  It’s like stepping into the middle of a medieval novel merged with a modern-day crowded island like Singapore.  Who knows what might be around the next corner?  An impressive amount of buildings have been crammed into a tiny space giving weird angles and levels with random dead ends.  You get a hint of Escher looking up at the higher levels that seem to go on t0 infinity.  Meanwhile you wouldn’t look twice if a medieval peasant or King passed you by on the street.  There’s a timeless quality to the city.

Sitting in one of the many cafes or restaurants you can watch the hustle and bustle pass you by.  Every hour the bells of the surrounding churches ring out in a clamour that drowns out all conversation for the next few minutes.  It’s as if they earn a few more Kuna for every extra peal that’s crammed in.  It’s clear that this is very much the off-season for Dubrovnik, yet despite the numerous closed restaurants it’s lively on the streets during the day.  You can only imagine how packed it must be in the stifling heat of mid-summer when every establishment is open and moving amongst the crowd of bodies is all but impossible.  As it is you have to constantly avoid colliding with a foreigner who is paying more attention to the sights than where they’re going.  This appears to be open season for the old folks and they’re out in droves, meandering somewhat aimlessly in all directions and doing their best to trip you up no matter how hard you try and dodge them.

The buses come and go, the day grows older and the streets are much quieter as evening settles in.  There’s a wide choice of location for dinner, but the fare is pretty standard regardless of where you go.  One evening we eat outside the city on a terrace with a view of the city walls and forts, the next we sit in one of the squares or at a pizzeria lining a narrow street in the midst of the maze inside.  The sound of jazz drifts across the square along with the now familiar smell of smoke.  A three piece band is luring in the straggling tourists that must have accommodation nearby.  They alternate between puffing away at a cigarette and pasting a cheesy grin on their faces as they trundle through a playlist of your average elevator jazz music.  At times it’s unclear if any of them are actually playing the same song as they ‘rock out’, looking disappointed when the elderly crowd are more interested in heckling them to play something else rather than applauding their efforts.  It’s entertaining in a car-crash kind of way.  This isn’t exactly the time of year or venue to go expecting quality jazz music, but the band adds a little something to the atmosphere in the surrounding areas and achieves its mission of luring a few more customers to the bar.

Dubrovnik is a stunning-looking city.  It’s easy to see why it’s such a popular destination.  It’s a shameless tourist-trap with expensive prices, but the food is hearty and unlikely to result in food-poisoning, and the ambience of the busy streets even in the quiet season is pleasant.  It’s well worth spending a few hours wandering up and down, back and forth through the maze of winding streets with their old-fashioned exteriors and modern interiors.  Information maps at the gates look like they’re depicting a giant game of battleship, marking out the areas that were damaged during the civil war.  It doesn’t take much imagination to picture the scene.  Thankfully it seems the occupants have made the most of their rebuilding and managed to keep the charm of the streets while fixing them up and melding in modern conveniences.

One of the lasting impressions of Dubrovnik however, will be the pervasive smell of smoke.  Constant clouds of ash have made their way into the fibre of my clothes.  It seems you can’t experience life here without coming away smelling like an ashtray.  In October the weather is mild and the smoke hangs in the air.  Any welcome breeze coming around the corner only brings staler fragrances with it.  The patrons of the busier restaurants contribute regularly to ensure it doesn’t get a chance to dissipate.  It sneaks in through the windows of our apartment and I’m pretty sure even the clothes in the suitcase that I haven’t worn yet are already in need of fumigation.  After a few days of taking it easy and exploring our surroundings we’re ready to move on from this tourist mecca and explore further up the coast.  Next stop Split.

It’s been almost a year since we last set foot outside of Ireland.  A long year with many changes (and many more to come before the end of the year).  Somehow we hadn’t managed to take a break at all during the year up until now, and were definitely feeling burnt out.  We decided to stay a little closer to home for our holiday and investigate more of Europe.  The word on the street is that Croatia is a beautiful place to visit.  Not many people seem to have actually verified this with their own eyes, but the country certainly has a good reputation to live up to.  So we booked ourselves some time off, with no real fixed plans other than arriving at Dubrovnik in the south of Croatia, and returning back from Venice in Italy approximately two weeks later…

As our plane begins its approach to Dubrovnik we see a rugged coastline stretching out below us.  A dry and rocky land, with sporadic greenery and buildings clinging here and there to the rocks along the outer belt of land that’s skirted by glittering blue seas.  From the air you can see that the population here is sparse and mostly limited to the very edge of the land.  A coastal road winds along, occasionally accompanied by a higher one far up on the rocky slopes.  The old city of  Dubrovnik itself is easily identifiable despite never having seen an aerial view of it.  A mass of buildings congregate in one area, lining the side of the mountain down to where a walled-in lip of land juts out into the sea, utterly covered in densely packed small buildings.  There’s only time for a glimpse before the plane continues on and begins its descent.

As expected, Dubrovnik airport is a tiny place.  Officials barely glance at the incoming passports while they stamp them with such little ink that the writing can barely be deciphered later.  We stand for some time watching luggage wend around the conveyor belts.  A number of large blue bags similar to ours rotate past repeatedly.  A couple of rotations later I check the name tag on one and realise that my memory of the design on the side of our bag is faulty.  Oops.  Lee makes a couple of snide comments followed by some muttering under his breath, and then it’s off out to pick up some Croatian Kuna and hop on a shuttle bus bound for Dubrovnik.  It’s a very simple operation compared to some of the countries we arrived in last year.  Now we just have to locate our accommodation for the night.  Hopefully this won’t be a similar experience to the numerous hours we wandered around Bangkok before finding out that Thai maps are quite inventive when it comes to placing landmarks correctly.

After a short drive the bus descends from the heights of a rocky road into Dubrovnik itself.  We round a corner and are suddenly faced with contrasting masses of rock towering over us on either side.  We continue through the narrow border between the competing might of nature and man.  To one side is harsh rugged mountain stone through which the road has been hewn.  On the other, massive worn blocks of white stone reach to the sky, marking the boundary of the weathered old city walls.  In strategic places, arches organically grow out of the mountainside, providing extra support and giving the impression that the city has literally grown out of the mountainside.  Before we have time to finish being impressed, we arrive abruptly at our destination of Pile gate.  We disembark to a chorus of queries from locals as to whether we’re looking for accommodation for the night.

On a terrace overlooking the Old City we pause to quickly take in a view of the city all lit up at night.  Time to decipher the couple of squiggles in my notebook that are meant to denote the general location of our accommodation.  The ‘roads’ on Google map are mostly narrow stone steps and ledges disappearing into the depths around us.  Only a stone’s throw from where we stand, but closer to the sea level is the hostel office we’re looking for.  The proprietor, Marko, bustles out.  Glowing with friendliness he bounds off down the narrow street, continuously offering to take the bag that Lee is bouncing off stone steps with a vengeance.  It doesn’t take long to reach the gate of the ‘hostel’.  We’re led to the top floor of a simple apartment block and offered our choice of the two rooms.  They’re virtually indistinguishable from each other.  Reasonably spacious rooms that should do the trick for our first few days in Croatia.

Once our gear is stowed away we venture out to see more of what looks to be a truly unusual city.  We’re situated right in the heart of things.  It’s a quick walk to the walls of the Old City and Pile gate.  The city itself looks like a mighty fortress from medieval times, its buttresses pushing out to the limits of the cliffs above the waters below.  This place was built to withstand a lot.  Within these thick walls are a crowded maze of buildings and streets built on several different levels.

The Old City is a strange mix of old and new that blends together impressively.  The old building fronts contain some very modern interiors that happily coexist without the expected discordant clash between old and new.  Shops and restaurants have been absorbed into nooks and crannies.  Tables and seating edge the sides of narrow streets, even in dark lanes of steps that lead further up to murky unlit levels we’re not inclined to explore this late at night.  The inner streets are quite lively with tourists rambling around.  A choir strides out the doors of a church at random and begins to regale onlookers with a rendition of something unfamiliar, but religious in tone.

After exploring enough to get our bearings, we retire back to the restaurant terrace outside with a view of the city walls, the sea, and one of many forts.  The white lights across the whole exterior make the stone appear to glow a little in the dark.  Small bats swoop across the sea here and there while waves roll in below us.  The food is nothing special, but it’s good and filling.  The service is almost non-existent however, and it starts to get very chilly sitting out and waiting to settle the bill.  The staff dealing with tourists in Croatia can be surprisingly sullen.  Maybe it’s just because it’s the end of a very long summer season, but they’re making Irish customer service seem incredibly friendly in comparison.  Something I never thought I’d be saying!

Our final stop of the night is one of the ubiquitous gelateries on the main street.  Put on the spot by another cantankerous employee, Lee is overly influenced by his impatient server and ends up with a colourful blend of red,white and blue that I’m not convinced he meant to choose.  I’m a little suspicious of the brightly coloured foodstuffs with unfamiliar labels.  I stall for some extra time and come out with a familiar mix of chocolate and vanilla.  It’s not quite the taste of Italian gelato I was looking for though.  Lee informs me that the blue one “tastes of domestos”.  I point out that the label for that tub was a list of E numbers rather than a flavour name.  Hardly a good sign to begin with.  And he’s right, it tastes exactly like I imagine domestos would when I sample it.  The vast majority of the icecream finds itself melting down the drain of our sink a short time later.  We agree that Lee is formally banned from selecting any blue-coloured icecream for the rest of the trip unless the label clearly states that it is actually raspberry flavour, not overpriced toilet bleach.