Category: Eastern Mediterranean 2013

July 29, 2013
We didn’t go too Hvar, but we did go to Hvar
One of the islands we stopped at today was Hvar, (it’s not hvar from Split; the ferries in the harbor at Split left every half hour) and it says a lot about a Mediterranean climate that hotels at the island charge only half price if you’re there when it rains. The island enjoys about twice as much sunshine as Paris, though I’ll bet there’s more to do when it rains in France than when it rains in Hvar, though most people, apparently, don’t find out. It’s no wonder the population is almost triple in the summer, with pebbled and sand beaches, a 1600 foot climb to the mountain backbone (that’s on bike route 1), and the usual panoply of agriculture in the Mediterranean—olive trees, fig trees, with some special herbs, including a variety of lavender that was the backbone of the economy until the locals discovered tourism
was easier and paid better. But I did find out that a) lavender ice cream is tasty, and b) there are at least five varieties of lavender.

The settlement of the island goes back a long ways (like everyplace around here), with Greeks from one of the islands invading (too much population at home) in the 4 th century BC and settling; as usual, the Romans followed, but the formative years were under the Venetians, who shaped Hvar, and helped beat back the Turks, who twice burned Hvar to the ground. The port city has a stunning fort on top of the hill, and a wall that has an unusual history—it encircled the nobles’ portion of the town, because the nobles and the tradesmen fought—in fact there was a four year war in the early 16 th century that culminated in a truce, celebrated by building a theater!
The town had the usual sights—summer items including snorkeling gear, restaurants and bars, coffee shops, and the standard Benedictine/Franciscan/Cathedrals. The unusual Benedictine nunnery, though, has the motto, “work and prayer,” and, according to our guide, the nuns exit only for funerals or other emergencies. The main fundraiser is an exquisite lace, made from agape leaves (the century plant), that
is made for displays. The cheapest one is $67, so a postcard for 50 cents had to satisfy my curiosity.

Every family on the island, supposedly, makes its own wine, and to prove how good it is, we stopped at a vineyard where the owner described the different wines (4) that she and her husband make—the fifth generation to do so. The operation was near a fortified church, fortified after a Turkish invasion in 1571 (the last time the Turkish navy invaded Europe), whose walls looked for all the world like the prow of a ship.

It was that Turkish invasion that contributed, in part, to the charm of the next port of call, Korcula; the view from the Adriatic as we approached the fortified city was stunning. Though the walls are half as high as they originally were (over 60 feet), many of the original houses within remain. It was a walled city, one of the oldest settlements in Europe. The main entrance to the town is through a gate that has a street straight through the city; the side streets are curved and narrow. They tell us that from above
Korcula looks like a fish bone. The reason is that the straight street catches the breeze in the summer (our guide referred to the “air conditioning,” and it’s really breezy today), while the side streets being curved block the bad winds in winter. If you burn down cities often enough, you eventually learn how to build them right.

We were in Korcula on a special day—July 29 is the feast of St. Theodore, and Croatia, being 95% Catholic, celebrates Saint’s days. There was a special procession from the Cathedral of St. Marks, the main church in the old city, with a golden sarcophagus containing the remains of St. Theodore
(supposedly). Twice a year (the other day being Good Friday, clothing (a 16 pound vestment), the ancient mace, etc. are trotted out to be in the parade. The town also has a folk dance, which used to be only on July 29, the Moresca, a battle between good and evil warriors that we were told has its roots in the enmity between the Turks and the Croatians. (I don’t think they get many Turkish visitors, but nowadays the dance is described as a war between the Black King and the Red King.)

Like many of the Dalmatian coast areas, this was settled first by Dalmatic tribe, then Greeks (a wave from Corfu, who gave it the name Korcula, meaning black for the forests they saw, then another wave of Greeks (300 BC) who had a more lasting impact, writing a covenant that divided the land between the two tribes (constituting one of the first written documents in the now Slav world, we were told), then, for 500 years, was under the Venetians. The Venetians gave language (the local dialects are closer to
Italian than to Hungarian, unlike northern Croatia) and architecture, among other things. There were the loggias and other archways characteristic of Venice. Napoleon’s conquest and establishment of the
Kingdom of Italy temporarily put Korcula in that country—until it was captured by the British and was ruled by the Brits for a few years; the Congress of Vienna in 1815 made it part of Austria-Hungary until 1919, when it became part of Yugoslavia. Now, having established their own country for the first time since the 12 th century, some Croatians are opposed to being in the European Union because “it takes away our independence.”

Korcula’s main claim to famous personages is Marco Polo, who was probably born here. Interestingly, after coming back from China, he raised enough money to equip a warship against the Genoans, was
captured in a battle off Korcula, and spent a year in prison. He knew lots of languages, but couldn’t write; his memoirs were dictated  when he was in the Genoese prison. While he died in Venice and is buried there, Korcula boasts two Marco Polo related museums (one a chronicle of his life with dioramas; the other the tower of his supposed birthplace), and no fewer than 6 Marco Polo officially-approved souvenir shops. Not bad for a town of approximately 3000 people today, some of whom are named de Polo.

The other highlight? We had enough free time to swim in the Adriatic, which was quite salty. Clear, not as warm as it looked, with crabs visible, it was still a nice treat on a hot day.

July 28, 2013 Split

We came to Split to get aboard the Athena, our home for the next 11 days. However,  I chose this trip partly because Split was one of the places I HAD to visit—it houses (literally) one of the finest Roman ruins of Late Antiquity, the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian.

The Emperor, who apparently was born in Illyria (the Roman province we call Dalmatia in honor of one of the first Illyrian tribes to settle here—the Dalmatia, but equally well known for the dogs which Disney made famous!) at what was then the nearby capital, Salona.  Inheriting an empire in shambles, Diokles (his Greek name), was quite a warrior.  He reconquered Egypt (which accounts for the sphinx in the palace, transported from Thutmose’s tomb, as well as columns from Aswan, used to build the palace), but decided that the empire was too big to succeed, and accordingly, appointed a co-emperor, and two successors.  Having stabilized the government, and reorganized the military, after 20 years on the throne, he abdicated as emperor, and got his co-emperor to do the same, elevating the successors as co-emperors of the Roman empire.  Until Diocletian, our guide quipped, Rome changed emperors in the late 4^th century as often as babies changed diapers.

He retired to his palace in Split, which he’d spent 10 years building, employing 20,000 workers to surround the son of Jupiter (as he was wont to call himself, as the last pagan emperor) with the splendor he had known in Nicomedia (where he was based; it’s near Istanbul).  The result was a walled enclosure 750 feet long and 450 feet wide that housed military, religious, administrative, and residential quarters, with 16 gates (3 of which still stand) and a number of towers (none standing).  One impressive feature—since he was the emperor, he could not go up and down stairs, so the whole complex—being built on the Adriatic, had to be level, requiring an extensive foundation that has since been excavated, revealing the superior architecture of late Roman antiquity.

After his death, some subsequent emperors used the palace, but eventually a city grew up within, especially using the walls as one of their walls.  It is mostly this jumble of medieval and ancient that greets the visitor today; as our guide noted (he was funny!), it’s probably the only 1700 year old ruin where you can see people hanging underwear to dry.

In other ways, the results were not what Diocletian might have anticipated.  He might have been right in anticipating that the Empire, as constituted, was too big to succeed, but his tetrarchy (2 emperors, two successors) might have worked in his reign—a statue of the four looking harmonious, was carted from Constantinople by Crusaders to St. Marks in Venice, where it remains today—but the rise of Constantine and  the creation of Constantinople (the new Rome) marked the end of the successful Eastern and Western Emperors.  Rome never became the capital again, and the last Western Emperor (by some reckoning), died in the palace in Split in 480.  Even Split came, eventually, under Venetian rule, as the Eastern Empire crumbled after 1204, when the 4^th crusade got misdirected on its way to Jerusalem, capturing, sacking, and ruling the Byzantine Empire for a half century; Venice took many  of the former Byzantine possessions, ruling some areas of the Adriatic until Napoleon ended the Venetian Republic (our Croat guides were bitter about the Italian connection, noting the Venetians forbade the use of Croatian; she added that when Croatians drove out the Germans and Italians in World War II they also destroyed many of the Venetian relics that still remained).

The biggest irony of Diocletian’s palace, though, involved his mausoleum.  Diocletian was buried in the palace. He was also known for his persecution of Christians—many Saints date from his efforts to suppress Christianity.  He even executed his wife and daughter when he discovered they had become Christians.

When Constantine issued his declaration on tolerance of Christianity, and eventually converted to  Christianity, the Christian community in Split eventually (in the fifth century) converted the mausoleum to a church, destroying Diocletian’s sarcophagus, and 200 years later, the mausoleum designed to house the remains of Diocletian, worshipped as a god by the Romans, became a Cathedral, home of the archbishop of Split. It is still in use as a church today.  We left just before the mass started this morning.

 

 

July 27, 2013

Split from Zagreb—splitting to Split

We left Zagreb early this morning to make the 300 mile trip to our boat, anchored in the harbor at Split, Croatia’s second largest city.  Split is located in Dalmatia, an area as different from northern Croatia as night is from day.  Along the coast of the Adriatic, it’s an area even more influenced by the West (especially Italy and Venice) which has probably given Croatia more of a Western than an Eastern feel.  In part due to the rivalry of Byzantium and Rome for supremacy in the Christian world, the pope allowed Croatia to use Golgolithic, the local language, long before the Vatican approved (wasn’t in the 20^th century?) the use of the vernacular.  Partly for that reason, Croatia is over 90% Catholic, rather than Orthodox, and one of the few Balkan countries that doesn’t use the Cyrillic alphabet.

On the way, we made two interesting stops.  One was in a “Military Border Area.”  Once a border between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottomans, with a fort built for the purpose that turned the area into an important military center even after the Turkish threat faded, the area figured prominently in what young Croats call “The Homeland War.”  When Yugoslavia collapsed in 1991, the Serbian-dominated army started a four year war to create an enlarged Serbia; Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence.  Four years and 20,000 deaths later, the United States helped bring about peace in the area which resulted in the independence of the former Yugoslav states.  The war museum we visited was mostly weapons from the period, but a reminder of the recent troubled history of the area. (Not to mention the Second World War, when the Germans created a puppet Croatia that was very pro-Nazi).

The other stop was at one of eight National Parks—a stunning alpine like series of lakes and waterfalls with brilliant turquoise water—lots of fish clearly visible, and wall-to-wall people.  It was both a Saturday and the beginning of European “holiday” season.   With a sweltering heat wave in Europe, it’s no wonder many people are heading to the beaches, a lot of them going where we’re sailing after tomorrow.

At least we’re off the highways, and onto the boat, a smallish one with about 50 passengers.

July 25, 2013
Zagreb, Croatia
Carolyn and I are in a Palace—the well-named Palace Hotel, that is—in Zagreb, the capital of the newest member of the European Union (as of July), Croatia. Zagreb is a city of almost 1 million people inland from the coast, less congestion than any city I can remember in Europe.

It’s not actually a “palace”—the last King of Croatia died childless over a thousand years ago, and the King of Hungary was only too happy to join Croatia to the Hungarian Kingdom, beginning a long ménage a trois with Hungary and Austria that lasted until the First World War. The location, however, is palatial, since much of the area beyond the central district has the block housing/high rises that marks Eastern Europe under Communism, when Croatia was one part of Yugoslavia.
The immediate area of the hotel resembles many of the other former Austrian provincial capitals I’ve visited–such as Lvov. Stately late nineteenth century buildings, large squares with statues of local
heroes (Jelencic here was the governor of Croatia during the 1848 Revolution; he mustered troops to defeat the Hungarian uprising in the vain hope of getting greater autonomy for the Croats; he did get the main square named for him, although I believe the statue was hidden between 1867, when Austria became a “Dual Monarchy” with Hungary and the first world war), and lots of yellow, solid looking buildings that 18 th century Empress Maria Theresa adored. And because she liked the color, architects liked the color!

This area is one of three in the central area that distinguish the city. We went through the mostly late 19 th century area to get to the two medieval parts that are on the posters. The upper old town had two basic sections—the church and the merchants, occupying two different hills, separated by a now paved-over creek. The church area had the cathedral (the Hungarians established the seat of a bishop, after the Croatians helped the King of Hungary when he fled through the area trying to escape the Mongols,
which led to a walled church that is still partly walled). The Church’s original name honored St. Stephen, the Hungarian King who brought Christianity to the Magyars, but today it honors Mary, and was rebuilt in magnificent neo-Gothic after an 1880 earthquake. The German architect who built it, though, had limited funds and built out of sandstone, so the church is currently being rebuilt again, this time with sturdier materials.

The merchant side is where the parliament, courts, and president function, and has the old, narrow streets on something of a hill that once provided some protection for the city. Its most prominent feature is the old parish church of St. Mark, with a roof that our guide said looks like it was “built with Legos”—colorful tile with the shields of Croatia and Zagreb—rather like the church of St. Matthias in Budapest (there’s that Hungarian connection again).

We had the tour of the city center this morning, which included the sights above, then had a free afternoon, which I spent conquering as many museums (6) as possible. Many of them were worth visiting for the buildings that housed them. One of the more unusual, included on our tour, was a “Naïve Art” museum, which featured Croatian artists who were part of an early 20 th century school that emphasized “primitive” art—colorful pictures, many of peasant life that could easily be mistaken for Breughel. I had to go to the Mestrovic museum because our guide said Croatia’s most famous sculptor, who studied under Rodin, eventually taught at the University of Chicago, and has a Grant Park statue called the Indians. Now I have to see that one.

The most unusual museum was started by an entrepreneurial type—the Museum of Broken Relationships. If you ever break up with someone, and she/he left something you want to get rid of, and tell the story (“she brought a cat hair roller—it was the only thing she left me”), the museum will be only to happy to get the artefacts from you. As everyone the right age knows, “Breaking up is Hard to do.” But not all of you remember that song.
The Ottomans never got here, partly because of the defense fortress we’re going to see tomorrow.

July 26, 2013
Castle, Fort, Museum—3 of my favorites
Yesterday was about palaces in Zagreb. Today we took a bus tour almost to the Croatian/Slovenian border (about 50 miles from here) to visit the town of Varazdin, once the Austrian provincial capital of Croatia. Varazdin didn’t make the cut in our Lonely Planet guidebook of Eastern Europe, but it well
could—for its castle and for its baroque central area. At one time it even had the largest Levis factory in the Balkans, but that’s another topic for another time.

The central piece was to be the fort, built as part of the bulwark against Turkish incursions into the Balkans. Suleyman the Magnificent passed this way mid 16 century, and appropriately concerned Austrian rulers built the original fort, with a moat and walls to protect the area. The crown also invited many non-Croatians to settle and farm in the area to defend the realm, too; a similar story played out in most of the borderland areas. Germans were especially prone to leave the then troubled German states in return for land in Eastern Europe; the day of reckoning tended to be 1945, when their descendants were unceremoniously ordered back to the fatherland. That made Varazdin more cosmopolitan than many other cities, and when the Turkish threat faded, the Austrians made Varazdin the first center of government in the area.

Unfortunately for Varazdin, a major fire (started supposedly by a farmer who was smoking and annoyed a pig, which attacked him and sent the flame into nearby straw) destroyed the city. Austria transferred the seat of government to Zagreb, but the Varazdinians rebuilt the city—in wondrous baroque style, leaving the central business district as charming as more well known old cities such as those along the Rhine. We had an hour to wander around the old city, which now has lots of shoppes, but few tourists;
the baroque churches are especially stunning.

But we had really come to see the fort; when the Turks no longer threatened, the fort became a castle, owned by a Hungarian/Croatian family, that kept it until after World War I. Impoverished, or at least
unwilling to maintain the upkeep, the family sold it to the town, when then created a museum. Hence, it was a fort, a castle, and a museum, three of my favorite places to visit! All in one place.

The museum had a variety of furnished rooms, with detailed furniture from the original time period down through late 19 th century Biedermeier, a German style. The weapon room had halberds, which I learned had a hook on the one side to pull armored horsemen from their horses, where, burdened by 80 pounds of armor, they were relatively helpless. One room had old guild signs, and the sign for an 18 th century inn called the “Wild Man” Inn—which made me wonder….

When we got back, I got to rent a bike, finally mastering (I hope) the system of rent-a-bike that had baffled me in Paris and Berlin earlier this summer. For about two hours I was able to cover most of the central area of Zagreb, admiring those wonderful Austrian buildings that housed the Ethnography, Arts and Crafts museums, etc—after all, I visited only 7 of the 30 museums in the city!