After spending a week in Austria, we had traveled from Salzburg to Zagreb, and then from Zagreb to Split, Croatia, where we would join our Road Scholar program, titled "
The Best of Croatia."
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All photos © 2017 Tom and Marcia Murray
Split is a historic city, on a site that has been occupied since at least the third century B.C. Its centerpiece is the 4th-century A.D. Diocletian’s Palace. Diocletian was a Roman Emperor who had the structure built as a retirement home and lived there for the few years between his abdication in 305 and his death in 312. Here’s an artist’s conception of what the palace looked like soon after its completion:
Over the centuries, the city of Split came under the rule of the Croatian kingdom, the Hungarian empire, and the Republic of Venice. For most of the 19th century, and through the end of World War I, it was ruled by the Habsburg Monarchy and its successor, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the war, Dalmatia became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which in 1929 became the Republic of Yugoslavia.
As these political changes went on around it, the one-time palace and fortress was becoming a residence for much of the city’s population. That tradition continues today. Although its massive walls and interior structures have suffered the ravages of time, as seen here near the east entrance to the palace, known as the Silver Gate…
the residents and the community as a whole have a strong incentive to maintain the structure since it is the focal point of Split’s main industry in modern times, tourism.
Diocletian’s Palace is home to many shops, restaurants and museums. One of its most prominent features, which can be seen from many viewpoints around the city, is the bell tower of the Cathedral of Saint Domnius. It dates from 1100 A.D. but was substantially reconstructed in 1908.
The octagonal cathedral itself was originally the mausoleum of Emperor Diocletian. As tour guides like to point out, there’s considerable irony in this, given that the emperor persecuted Christians during his reign.
Just outside the perimeter of the palace, in Voćni trg (Fruit square), is another octagonal structure, a fortress tower constructed by the Venetians in the 15th century as they sought to fortify the city against potential invaders.
Near the north entrance to Diocletian's Palace, known as Golden Gate, is an eight-meter-tall statue of Gregory of Nin, a bishop of the tenth century, who is credited with introducing the vernacular Croatian language into the Catholic mass. The statue was created by Croatia’s best-known sculptor, Ivan Meštrović, in 1929. It's one of several of his sculptures in and around Split; there is also a museum devoted to his work in the city.
From viewpoints outside the palace, such as this one on the rooftop of our hotel, the view of the city is of a sea of red-tile roofs on buildings composed mainly of locally-sourced limestone, or karst.
The Jadrolinija ferries come and go constantly during the daylight hours, en route to and from nearby islands. There are 69 populated islands in the Adriatic, most of them near the Croatian coast. Altogether, there are over 700 Croatian islands in the Adriatic.
Before we boarded our boat to leave Split, we spent part of one day visiting the nearby town of Šibenik, founded by Croats in 1066. One of its most prominent structures is the Cathedral of St. James, constructed between 1431 and 1536.
Around the exterior are the faces of 71 individuals, each seemingly modeled after a different person.
From Šibenik, we went up a winding road and past several vineyards…
to a 350-year-old farm in the hinterlands, over the first hills from the ocean. The priest/owner met us with homemade grappa and dried figs.
He explained the interwoven history of the property and his family, after which we visited the stone buildings around the central courtyard: kitchen, gathering room, museum, a room for lace making, and a chapel.
Soon we sat down at long tables in the dining area...
and were served delicious lamb and potatoes, cooked “under the bell” on coals, in a pan covered with a domed clay or metal bell, plus wine made with Babić grapes which only grow in a 25-mile stretch of the coast. This was a memorable lunch.
From Draga, we returned to Split and boarded the
M/S Casanova, which would be our home for the next seven nights as we traveled down the Dalmatian coast to Dubrovnik. It’s a new (2016) vessel with capacity for 38, but there were only 26 of us on this tour, plus our Croatian guide, Biba. The crew consisted of five brothers under the age of 40 from a Dalmatian seafaring family, plus two non-family members who prepare meals in the galley. The photo below shows our captain (in red shirt) preparing for departure from Split.
Over the course of our six-day, seven-night cruise, Biba gave several talks on the history and economy of Croatia, all of them informative and engaging. We also had guest lecturers and local tour guides along the way. As with most Road Scholar groups that we’ve participated in, our fellow travelers were both well-informed and curious to learn more, and we had lively Q&A sessions following many of these talks.
After three nights in Split – two in a hotel, and one on the boat – we departed for our first stop, Trogir, just a short distance from Split. As we left the harbor at Split, we got a great view of the city and the mountains behind it.
Trogir’s history has many parallels with that of Split, at least in terms of changes in governance through the centuries. When arriving by boat, the first structure that comes into view is the Kamerlengo Fortress, built during the 15th century when Trogir was under Venetian rule.
Like many of Dalmatia’s smaller cities, Trogir's main cathedral, whose construction started in 1213, is among its most prominent features, but the city has several other churches as well. In this photo, the cathedral’s steeple is at center right, and our boat, the Casanova, at left.
Our next stop was Hvar town (on the island of the same name), a hub of yachting and tourism southeast of Split. Here, the fortress lies at the top of a steep hillside, overlooking the town and harbor.
From Hvar, we moved to the other side of Hvar Island, to the town of Stari Grad. It was much quieter than Hvar town.
A highlight of our stop in Start Grad was the male singing group, Faroski Kantaduri, (or Faros’ cantors) who performed for us in their traditional a
cappella style, known as klapa. It was a fabulous hour-long concert in
the dining area of our boat.
After leaving Stari Grad, we returned to the south side of Hvar island, cruising past several towns, including Sveta Nedilja, where vineyards grew up the steep slopes toward the ridge in the center of the island.
Our next stop was Korčula. As we approached the harbor, we looked to the north and saw a red-roofed church situated well up the mountainside. This, we learned, was a Franciscan monastery, Our Lady of the Angels, built in the late 16th century. As in many parts of Dalmatia, the people who selected this site seemed to have chosen the most dramatic – not the most convenient – place to build.
Like almost every other major town that we saw, Korčula was well fortified, with towers strategically located so that potential invaders could be spotted and dealt with as quickly as possible. In the Middle Ages, there were twelve such towers.
Korčula lays claim to the honor of having been the birthplace of Marco Polo, although the city of Venice fiercely disputes this.
At Korčula, as in several other places where our boat spent the night, there wasn’t enough docking capacity for all the tour boats. For that reason, it’s common practice for boats to tie up alongside each other, meaning that passengers from the boat farthest from the dock must negotiate all the closer-in boats to reach shore and to return to their quarters at the end of the day. It can be exciting, since the configuration of each boat is different, and there may be a large gap between certain boats. At Korčula, our boat was fifth in line from the dock.
The mountain in the background is Sveti Ilija, on the Pelješac peninsula.
We departed Korčula around 6 o'clock the next morning...
and headed for the port of Pomena, at the west end of Mljet island. After docking, we were met by a local guide who would lead us on a walk into Mljet National Park, for a visit to a 12th-century Benedictine Monastery on the Island of St. Mary. The island is situated on the larger of two adjacent salt-water lakes (called, simply enough, Small Lake and Big Lake) near the west end of the national park. We walked over a hill from Pomena, and then followed a trail around one side of Small Lake to reach a dock on Big Lake where we boarded a boat to reach the monastery.
The monastery is said to have acquired its fortifications during the 15th and 16th centuries when conflicts with the Ottoman Empire put the facility’s safety at risk.
After leaving Pomena, we cruised along between Mljet island and the Peljesac peninsula, and then passed the island of Olipa, where the only evidence of human activity were a lighthouse (at the far left in the photo below) and a two-story house.
The topography of the Dalmatian coast is often dramatic, with steep hills and rocky shorelines. It must have been a dangerous area for sailors before lighthouses and other aids to navigation.
Our destination was Šipanska luka, on Šipan Island, a short distance northwest of Dubrovnik. It’s a tiny town, and it seemed to be heavily dependent on summer tourism to support the upscale Hotel Šipan as well as the various restaurants on the waterfront. But as in so many towns, the dominant architectural feature was the town’s church, situated on a hillside above the harbor.
The next morning we made an early departure from Šipanska luka for Dubrovnik, arriving there a bit more than an hour later. The first thing that came into view was a lineup of three large cruise ships with a total passenger capacity, we later learned, of more than 7,500.
The sight of these ships confirmed our expectations that we would be competing with a lot of fellow travelers for the limited real estate within the walled city of Dubrovnik.
The port was about 10 minutes from the old town area, so after we docked, we boarded a bus, and headed toward the city. As soon as we were off the bus, we found ourselves in the midst of a throng of fellow tourists. Still, we managed to follow each other across a drawbridge and through the Pile gate, on the west side of the old city.
Soon we connected with our local guide and began our tour at St. Saviour Church and the adjacent Franciscan Monastery.
This panoramic map (on display at the Monastery), even though it is from the Middle Ages, conveys the layout of Dubrovnik's walled city, and its relationship to the land around it.
The crowds and the heat defeated our ability to gain much from the tour, but we did at least get oriented so that, with the aid of a map, we could find our way around city’s streets, many of which were quite narrow.
Marcia’s cousins in Finland, who had recently visited Dubrovnik, had suggested a restaurant called Domino, and since we were free for lunch, we found our way there. We already knew that one of the owners was an American, but after we got there and had finished our lunch, we met him and learned that he grew up just north of San Francisco, less than an hour from our home in Santa Rosa. He and his Croatian wife met at the University of California Berkeley. Her father had managed the restaurant for many years but when he was no longer able to do so, they had moved to Dubrovnik and taken it over. Aside from good food, one thing to recommend it is that it’s slightly off the beaten path for the throngs of tourists who descend on the city during the busy season, and we found it to be a peaceful oasis.
This would be our last night on the Casanova, so our evening meal was the captain’s dinner, with music, dancing and good times. There were two musicians, an accordionist and guitarist, who played between courses (salad, pasta, monkfish, and frozen dessert). Several of the women in our group danced and danced to all the music, and we sang along to many familiar English-language songs. Dinner started at 7:00 and ended at 9:30.
The next day we had a much better experience in the old city, even though it lasted only about three hours. We boarded our bus early and beat most of the cruise ship people (by this time there were three new ships in town). Instead of entering through the Pile gate, Biba had the driver drop us off on the east side of the city, and we went in via the Ploče Gate. It was much less busy than the Pile Gate had been when we entered the day before. The people visible at top right are making their way along the stone wall surrounding the city.
On the way into the city, in we had this view of the Old Port section of the city. At left is the Fort of St. John, which was designed to protect the city against incursions from the south.
This entrance had far fewer tourists, and it was ideal for those of us (including Tom) who wanted to walk along some or all of the wall.
The dimensions of the wall are impressive: 1,940 meters (6,360 feet) feet in total length, four meters (13 feet) to six meters (20 feet) thick and up to 25 meters (80 feet) in height. We’ll spare our readers any further details on the engineering of the wall, but they’re easily obtainable on the Internet.
Circulation around the wall is counterclockwise, so when Tom entered the wall near the Ploče Gate, he soon found himself walking along the north perimeter. The views of the city were excellent. In describing Dubrovnik for us, Biba had mentioned that the city was under siege during the Croatian War of Independence by Serbian forces, in the form of the Yugoslav People’s Army. During this time, the city was blockaded from the sea, and shelled from the ridgeline overlooking the city to the northeast. The shelling lasted from the fall of 1991 into early 1992. During this time, more than 80 Croatian civilians, and almost 200 Croatian military personnel, were killed.
But for the most part, life in Dalmatia generally and here in Dubrovnik seemed to have returned to normal. For example, there was this home snug up against the wall, where the residents were drying their laundry.
It’s also noteworthy that Dubrovnik has been one of the main filming locations for the TV series, “Game of Thrones.” One particular site that is a mecca for fans of the series is Fort Lovrijenac, just outside the wall on the west side of the city (at the upper right in the image below). In the series, it is known as the Red Keep, in the southeastern corner of King’s Landing.
As we left Dubrovnik, our bus stopped at an overlook east of the city, where we had this view of the city, the surrounding islands, and the Adriatic.
For the final two nights of our Road Scholar tour, we would stay in another former Yugoslav socialist republic: Montenegro, which has been an independent country since 2006, after 14 years of federation with Serbia.
We found that crossing from Croatia into Montenegro was a two-step process. First we had to surrender our passports for inspection by the Croatian border patrol; and then we repeated the process a short distance away at the entrance station into Montenegro. Fortunately, our documents all passed muster with the two countries’ border guardians.
We stayed at a hotel in Herceg Novi, which is located less than 20 km from the borders with both Croatia and another former Yugoslav republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Located on the Bay of Kotor, Herceg Novi was founded in 1382 when a fortress was built there by a Bosnian king.
Today, Herceg Novi is a tourist destination, in part because of its proximity to the Igalo Institute, a rehabilitation and therapy center specializing in (according to its web site) “the promotion of the healthy way of living, correction of the bad living habits…, the benefits of aroma therapies, massages and face, body and soul pampering treatments.” This is a view of Igalo from our hotel room.
We would have one full day in Montenegro, and we started with a tour of a villa built for Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito, adjacent to Igalo. From the driveway that leads up to the main entrance, it does not seem as grand as one might expect for a leader like Tito.
However, once inside, the grandeur does become apparent. The villa includes meeting rooms, bedrooms for Tito and his wife Jovanka (hers done in shades of pink, his in blue), a bathroom with blue marble walls and a barber’s chair...
a spa with a large swimming pool...
a fallout shelter, a movie theatre, and an office for Tito with a splendid view of the Bay of Kotor.
This was one of many villas around Yugoslavia that were available for Tito’s use, but it is said to have been the only one specifically built for him. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to use it for long, since it was built in 1976 and he died in 1980. He reportedly only used the villa four times over that period. After years of neglect, the villa reopened for public tours, under the auspices of Igalo, in 2014.
Today, almost four decades after his death, Tito remains a beloved figure by some in the former Yugosalvia, which is understandable given the turmoil that overtook the region after his death. This may explain why one of the restaurants in Herceg Novi uses his name in its advertising:
After the villa tour, we boarded a bus that would take us around the Bay of Kotor, whose shoreline is 107 km (66 miles) in length. The Bay is surrounded by mountains, many of which run right into the bay, with only a narrow shelf of land (or, in many spots, no land at all) suitable for building. This is the town of Perast, whose founders managed to find a mountainside with a relatively gentle slope to build on.
We stopped at Perast for a boat ride to the Church of Our Lady of the Rocks, built on a man-made island opposite the town.
While we were at Perast, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, the Rhapsody of the Seas, with a capacity (we later learned) of 2,435 passengers, made its way through the Bay, en route to a stop at Kotor. It seemed completely out of scale for such a small body of water.
Kotor was where we were headed next, too, but fortunately our bus beat the ship and while the town was crowded, we imagine that it got more so after the ship docked. Among Kotor's most impressive features are the 16th-century fortifications and watchtowers built along the steep hillside immediately behind the town's center.
We saw only a small part of Montenegro, but enough to understand how well its name, which translates as “Black Mountain,” fits this beautiful country.
Our day along the Bay of Kotor marked the end of our Road Scholar program. That evening we had a farewell dinner at our hotel, and thanked our excellent guide, Biba, for everything she had done to help us better understand this part of the world.
but before we left we got a commitment from them to let
us return their generous hospitality when they come to California. They
wouldn’t commit as to the year this would happen, but we are confident
that it will.
