On To Croatia

Posted by Emily

We left Sarajevo early in the morning to catch a bus to Dubrovnik, Croatia. This was a beautiful ride except for the fact that it involved so many border crossings because of the strange ways the land was divided after the war.

Dubrovnik is a beautiful city with and old town and new town (I think this exists in many touristy cities....old town pretty much means tourist area). We stayed very near to the old town so had very easy access to this charming area. It's surrounded by stone walls and all the streets and most of the buildings are made out of the same stone. One side is bordered by the harbor. We walked along the city walls one morning, which actually took quite awhile because everwhere you look is picture-worthy. Not sure not many pictures I took but I'm quite sure it was over 100!

Other than that took in some cool exhibits, both involving photographs but in different ways. The first was an exhibition called something like "Women War Photographers" and featured women, professional photographers I believe, who have taken an interest in various war-torn regions of the world, have moved there and have documented what they have seen. I can't even imagine how they could have photographed the images that they did. Not only did they actual witness these horrible tragedies in person(there were many funerals, wounded and bloody bodies, and just generally disheartening scenes) but they were close enough to take the pictures. Other than being glad they they could do this to show the rest of the world the realities of the conflicts and thinking that they are incredibly brave to undertake the work, I can't help but thinking it might be a little intrusive.

The second exhibition we saw was one room that featured the photographs of the 200 men in Dubrovnick who died defending the city when it was attacked in 1992. It was very simple with the photos on three walls, memorabelia in the center and a few flowers placed about. Despite this, it was very haunting to look into the faces of the people who have died. It is one thing to see graves and statistics and whatnot (depersonifying in a way....global studies anyone??) but seeing actual faces is pretty unforgetable.

Other than that it was pretty much beautiful views, a visit to a lovely island with a botanical garden, beaches and peacocks, and LOTS of great seafood and ice cream!!

After Dubrovnik, it was up the coast to Split, a port city. It wasn't my favorite city but there were some great things going on while we were there. We got there on a Saturday and the day after was the yearly celebration of the city's patron saint. Saturday night we had dinner at a wonderful local restaurant and while we were wandering home, we happened upon an AMAZING concert of a Croatian group that consisted of a violin player (she rocked!) drums, a keyboard, other random instruments and even an electic guitar at points. The style of music was kind of a modern fusion with Central European folk. So so good. PLUS, there were fire dancers, women with flaming things on the end of chains that they spun around. While leaving, we even caught a fireworks show. Such a good night.

The next wasn't too exciting. It involved walking around the crowded streets of the town and getting a little annoyed by that, but we also wandered through some quieter areas and sat by the waterside at the port where we could hear the mass that was being broadcast through the entire city. I couldn't understand it but the music was beautiful.

That night we took an overnight ferry even further north. This was quite an interesting experience. It was a bit like a cruise ship with a dining room, bar and duty-free shop, but not as nice I am told. The evening was quite uneventful except for a crazy game of cards that only became crazy because one of the other passengers kept forgetting the rules to very simple games. SUPER funny but also annoying.

Next day, took a few buses even farther north and ended up in the small town of Rovinj. Very beautiful, but again, not much going on. We mostly wandered around the little winding streets, many of them uphill. Lovely, quiet city but I'm glad we only spent a day there. It would be great for a vacation when you can really just lounge around, but when you are in travel mode and want to see things, it gets to be a bit dull.

Then it was off to Slovenia, but that's a story for another time!