croatia week: outstanding universal value or spaghetti western

We visited some of Croatia's amazing and varied natural landscapes, including the cascading and constantly changing lakes of the Plitvice national parks (Nacionalni park Plitvička jezer) whose unique character is due to the malleable tufa that dams up the rough and eternal karst foundation of the Kvarner Gulf.
This lime- stone funda- ment is reminiscent of County Connemara in Ireland, whose sweeping plains are rivulets of the jagged rock face—with little top-soil but still managing to hold fast an ecosystem that supports everything from mosses up to cows—and people, rising also to form pseudo-fjords in parts.
The pools and lakes here and waterfalls are created by sediment that transforms into basically a chalky, soft substance that is much less permanent than what lies beneath and has given rise to wonderland, which was already duly recognised as one of the world's treasures by UNESCO in 1979 as one of the first natural places on the register.
Tourists can visit the park by sticking to these wooden gangways that look like the walkways from the Ewok village on the Moon of Endor. The wildlife here includes wolves, bears, otters, owls, vultures and lynxes but most shy away from the visiting crowds and the trails close promptly at sundown. A bit further south, past the Velebit mountain range, was the nature reserve of Paklenica canyon, and we hiked the trails there as well. It was easy to conjure up any number of adventures transpiring here.
Not too far away are much more arid climes, baked by the Adriatic sun and unrelenting Bora winds (a gust characteristic of the area that barrels downhill and snowballs once it reaches the lowlands), like these desert hills of the Isle of Pag—whose moonscape made me think of Tatooine. They were filming something there, but we suspect it was a car commercial, to appeal to customers' off-road fantasies even though it's doubtful they'll ever be realised.
It turns out that these natural backdrops were indeed made famous on celluloid in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the cinematic adaptations of German adventure-writer Karl May's novels of the Wild West, whose success spurred on other franchises like the Lone Ranger and Zorro.
May came to claim his cowboy-and-Indian stories with such iconic characters as the wise Winnetou, chief of the Apaches, and Old Shatterhand, his white blood-brother and the author's vicarious alter-ego, but May never saw these exotic places for himself—though compensating well with his imagination. It seems appropriate that the wilds of Yugoslavia (at the time) could be a fitting understudy and perhaps more authentic and awe-inspiring than those locations never visited.

croatia week: founding fathers or the secret of nin

One of the many great and heretofore unknown places that we discovered and explored while a vacation was the town of Nin, close to Zadar. The most ancient part of town, which goes back three thousand years, is situated on a little islet in the bay, connected to the mainland by a bridge and surrounded by salty marshes where salt harvesting from the Adriatic carries one to this day as it had for milennia. At the head of the bridge, there is a bronze sculpture of Duke Branimir of Croatia—the figure credited with first winning independence for the Croatian state by his allegiance to the Pope, who was the authority on sovereignty back then, and converting en masse his people.
Beforehand, the lands of Dalmatia had always been either under Byzantine or Frankish rule. Another influential figure from Nin—also captured in sculpture, subsequently threatened to jeopardise that relationship with Rome. Gregorius, Bishop of Nin was constantly courting displeasure by saying mass in his native tongue, instead of Latin, so his congregation could understand and interpret the message of the sermon for themselves.
Here, as powerfully imagined by artist Ivan Meštrović, Grgur ninski looks like a Disney villian or some fire and brimstone preacher but still invites one to rub his toe for a blessing, and the statue was placed in the courtyard outside the Church of the Holy Cross (Crkva svetog Križa), the former seat of the bisphoric. Gregorius' career was obscured by Church politics and during his tenure the bishop of Nin was dissolved, which enjoys the somewhat misleading distincion of being the tinest cathedral in the world.
Gregorius and the partitioners of Nin were not punished with this diminutive gathering place for their vernacular rebellion (and since there is no longer the office of the bishop in Nin, it cannot really be called a cathedral), as it was rather built probably as a private chapel for the neighbouring ducal residence originally. Research into its design and orientation also suggest that the structure functioned as an ingenious sun-dial and calendar (with the placement of the portals along the roof and wall) to trace the sun's path throughout the day and year.

croatia week

More on what we did for our summer vacation is coming with reflections on travels in Istria and along the Dalmatian coast. Više doći.

sretan put!

 

PfRC will be taking another sabbatical soon, so stay tuned to our little travel blog for continuing adventures. Zbogom!

italy week: along the ligurian coast

Primarily, we came to the town of Rapallo in order to take the ferry to Porto Fino but it turned out to be an interesting destination in itself, including a lesson in relatively recent recent history formative to world geography and political developments.
 There were two treaties of Rapallo in quick succession: the first was a settlement in 1920 between the Kingdom of Italy and the lands that would become Yugoslavia in the aftermath of WWI to allow Yugoslavia access to the sea and repudiate the secret agreement made between Italy and the UK during the fighting that promised Italy retention of its historic holdings in Croatia; the second Treaty Rapallo in 1922 was between the Germans (the Weimar Republic) and the newly established Soviet Union.
The delegates of these two powers retreated to a sea-side hotel, actually in neighbouring Santa Margherita Ligure, and during what became known as the Pyjama Conference as the Communists, fresh from the October Revolution found themselves basking in the luxury resort, began their own negotiations, the main meeting in nearby Genoa having not proved favourable to either party. Because of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet Union was not able to fulfill commitments it had made to the Entente powers, as the Russian Empire, and France demanded that the new government stick to the previous obligations and that Germany pay right away for war damages. Also due to the revolution, the retreating tsarist powers had no choice but to abandon their western provinces to the Central Powers, Germany Austro-Hungary, the Ottomans and Bulgarians, which temporarily gave them a great swath of Poland, the Baltics, and Ukraine until their the surrender to the Allies when these territories were created as independent states. Separately, the German and Soviet negotiators agree to pact where neither side would demand reparations from the other and that Germany would recognise the Bolsheviks as the legitimate government and normalise diplomatic relations, as both countries were isolated as an outcome of the war.
This agreement led to secret military cooperation and the partitioning of this buffer zone in later years. These heady circumstances were not weighing us down, however, as we explored the bay with evidence all around of more ancient history to consider, defense from marauding pirates and connections to Columbus' voyages. We did not come to this area during high-season but the crowds were already encroaching a little, but we came also to learn that Rapallo and the neologism Rapallizzazione, referring to indiscriminate building up and catering to the tourist industry (which came after the Gilded Age addressed above) made this place on the Ligurian coast a symbol for contention between locals and the throngs of holiday-makers.

brusselsprout oder marco... polo

Some euro-skeptics have maintained from its conception that the union was a means for Germans to enjoy a Mediterranean holiday with minimal fuss. I do not share that opinion and believe that there are far nobler causes and potentials behind this experiment of a united and inclusive continent.

Reading the litany  of disadvantages, usurious baiting—money that's already spent, and generally bleak outlook, however, I have to pause and wonder whether membership has its positive mutually positive aspects. I do hope that this rather sombre assessment is wrong, but presented the way it is, it seems like manufacturers in Germany stand to realise a dramatic, albeit short-lived, windfall by way of new markets. A new sizable demographic has opened up to those companies with the removal of Croatia's tariff regime, no longer an outsider. A discount to further entice consumers, however, bodes only ill for an already struggling financial household (that looks already like a disqualifying factor), threatening to steamroll remaining locally owned enterprise with competition and shove the economy more towards the service and tourism sectors. Of course, other outcomes are just as likely but reciprocation does not seem entirely forthcoming and jubilation is scarce.

marco polo or year of the water-dragon

Today marks the first day of festivities for the Lunar-Solar Spring Celebration, more popularly rendered as Chinese New Year. Though there is a lot of regional variations and private, family traditions, this time for reunion and renewal is an affair spanning several days to nearly a full two weeks, with different auspices and ritual attached to each day of the festival. There seem to be a lot of birthdays observed in this period, too—the second day, according to some traditions, is the birthday of all dogs, for instance, and the ninth day is the birthday of the Jade Emperor of Heaven. I can't say for certain there are Western analogues and I would like a better cultural understanding the significance and symbolism. Understanding is not only in what's parallel at first glance and sometimes seeking the familiar carries with it the risk for over-simplification. The Chinese calendar, whose years are reckoned from the reign of the legendary Yellow Emperor, cycle through more than just a mythological menagerie and the ruling animal is also paired an element, making for a sixty-year series. Asian astrology is more akin to Western Numerology and the animal year of one's birth only determines one’s outward projection, while inner perceptions are flavoured by months, days--true animals, and even by hours, secret animals. On the most basic level, water dragon is "hidden dragon" and most have an optimistic outlook for the coming months. Another event coinciding with Chinese New Year is Croatia’s plebiscite for European Union membership. The Croatian island of Korčula, a thalassocracy in its own right, along with the Most Serene Republics of Venice and Genoa, claims Marco Polo among their native sons--sort of like the competing Belgian, German and French claims for Charlemagne. It was through the travels and writing of Marco Polo that Europeans were first exposed to the lands of the Orient, and his reconnaissance and engagement helped inspire the golden age of exploration. Although I guess no one knows when or where Polo was born but I do wonder what the secret animals of his hours said of his character and ambition and what the timing of this decision has in store for Croatia.