After visiting Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro, I am surprised not that Yugoslavia split apart, but that it ever stayed together (kudos to Tito). My sojourn in the Balkans was full of contrasts. (Both my guidebooks include these countries in Eastern Europe, but to me they are part of the Balkans, with a different history, such as rule from Venice and/or Istanbul, and a different experience of Communism from countries like Poland.) The first contrast, reasonably enough, was with Western Europe: the contrast between the Italian side of the border and the Slovenian was as pronounced as that between Vietnam and Cambodia. The Italian side: intensive agriculture, the Slovenian side: much more rural, with an Alpine look to the buildings, and becoming hilly and forested as we progressed.
The train from Venice to Ljubljana (the capital) seemed crowded, until I discovered that the smoking carriage was nearly empty. Still, Ljubljana appears to be a popular destination, especially for conventions. Justifiably so - it's a charming, walkable city with a big river, pretty bridges (including one with dragons) and plenty of atmosphere, not to mention plenty of outdoor cafes. A good-looking-at-a-distance castle hovers over the city, whose old-world center is surrounded by Communist-era apartment blocks. While I admired some of the older buildings, I failed to fall for the hometown architect, Plecnik (1852-1957). Although I enjoyed the tour of the house he designed for himself and his siblings (the round rooms and double-glazing impressed me) I felt that his obsession with geometry produced uninspiring buildings.
In general, hotels in formerly Communist countries, needed by foreigners, are expensive, while food, also needed by locals, is cheap. In Ljubljana I had therefore reserved a room in a hostel created in a former prison. The breakfast buffet was excellent, the Internet access was free and neither the steel outer door and barred inner door nor the mattress virtually on the floor bothered me, but the windows did. Cells are not designed with big windows. Those in my room let in way too much light and way too little air. After one night I moved to the totally uninteresting Park, in a sterile Communist-era block, where I enjoyed a bigger room, with a much bigger window plus sink and toilet for only 3 euros as night more - Slovenia is still using its own currency, the tolar, but hotel rates are often quoted in euros. (It occurs to me that the "Communist-era apartment blocks" are little different from the high-rise council housing of the 1950s and 60s in the west - Western Europe, at least. Bauhaus ruled.)
I was working my way through a bad seafood risotto outdoors at the Abecedarian Cafe (oldest building in Ljubljana, better cafe than restaurant) when rain started - my first serious rain in weeks. After retreating as far as my own umbrella allowed, I wound up sharing a table with a local woman and her sister, visiting from their home country of Montenegro. A beautiful place, they assured me. I really should visit. The rain cooled things way down, to my great relief, and lasted well into the next day. Fortunately, I had planned a trip to the Postojna caves - perfect timing as I was using a tour guide who picked me up in his car. I shared the tour with a Belgian couple - the husband was on his third business trip to Ljubljana (road analysis for the E.U.) and told me that they had arrived on a direct flight from Brussels. Slovenia seems to be integrating fast and well with Western Europe, and its roads seemed to me to be in good shape, especially the wide avenues in the capital, largely empty except during rush hour.
The caves, as my guidebooks warned, were overrun with tourists, definitely being loved too well for their own good. Still the other karst caves are harder to reach, and these are home to the so-called "human fish", Proteus Postojna, a small pink amphibian with tiny hands and feet. I enjoyed the wonderfully defensible 16th century castle, Predjama, nearby, as much as the caves - it was actually built into a cave, and would be a nightmare to attack.
The next day my itinerary said Lake Bled, and, rain over, I had a perfect sunny day for the trip: a bus ride with a view of distant mountains, and a boat ride to a little island with its almost too photogenic church. The castle there, perched very high up (I climbed the switch-back path) on a cliff, was picture-perfect too. Add in a great meal of cevapcici (minced meat grilled on skewers) and assorted grilled meats with crisp fries and my already favourable opinion of Slovenia went still higher.
So, Slovenia is developing fast, and feels almost western. The forested, mountainous countryside is attractive, and Ljubljana offers plenty of hotels (if you can afford them) and excellent food. Escaping from Yugoslavia after only 10 days of minor conflict must have helped. I boarded the train to Croatia's capital, Zagreb, interested to see how it was recovering from a much more extensive war.
My most enduring memory of Zagreb, unfortunately, is of graffiti, and not even of artistic graffiti at that. I expect a certain amount of graffiti, especially around railway stations (unless I'm in Singapore, of course), but in Zagreb it was on all the buildings in the center of town. Aside from this impromptu decoration, I found Zagreb rather sterile, with wide avenues, big buildings and an enormous main plaza. Three green squares cum parks are lined up heading north from the train station, and a well-kept Botanical Garden hides to the west, but they failed to provide the charm I found in Ljubljana.
I stayed in an excellent single with bath and AC in a recently renovated hotel across from the station, drank admirable cappuccino in some of the many cafes and bought the best peaches I've eaten in decades from the market, but Zagreb still did not come close to making my must-revisit list.
Croatia has few functioning train tracks, so, faced with an eleven-hour bus ride from Zagreb to Dubrovnik, I decided to fly. The crowded flight lasted 50 minutes, during which we were offered a choice of still or sparkling water, but my window seat gave me a great view of the Dalmatian coast and of Dubrovnik itself, a town on a peninsula whose ancient walls withstood a siege by Croatian forces during the most recent war. Aside from a lot of new, bright orange roofs, there are few signs of the conflict in Dubrovnik, which is fast becoming a tourist enclave - only 2,000 people actually live there now, down from 5,000 a few years back. The main street is lined with ATMs and expensive shops, and was packed with visitors. All Dubrovnik's streets are made from marble, as are those in many Croatian towns, but while this sounds romantic in theory, in practice marble has two major drawbacks. First, the buildings meet the pavement with no greenery, and both reflect the sun right back at the pedestrians. Second, marble is slippery, especially when you're trying to walk down a slope. The kids loved it, but I proceeded with more than usual care.
Flying broke my normal travel routine, and I carried my lightweight jacket instead of stuffing it into the pouch on my backpack (apparently designed to hold my day pack, which would both unbalance the pack and constitute a security hazard). It was so hot on the bus that I totally forgot the jacket, and was pleasantly surprised when a round of phone calls allowed me to retrieve it the next day.
I was less pleasantly surprised by my hotel, which would indeed be as quaint and charming as the guidebooks said in cool weather, but which lacked both AC and ceiling fans - ceiling fans seem almost unknown in Europe. Even with a corner room with big windows and a balcony (a rare luxury for a single) I had trouble sleeping because of the heat. When I realized I had misread the ferry schedule and had to spend an extra day in Dubrovnik I moved to a boring but airconditioned hotel right opposite the ferry dock, and spent the entire afternoon indoors, cooling off.
Outdoors, I bought a sarong (at least a length of cloth) so I could swim (clear, blue water but the rocks were hard on my feet) and a spaghetti-strap top (not designed for my age bracket, but comfort had become more important than appearance). While I did not succumb to Dubrovnik's expensive tourist shops, I did drink a lot of maraschino, the local liqueur, and I ate three nights running at a cheap fish restaurant recommended by my hotel - wonderful garlic shrimp, quite good mussels.
Since the travel agent who sold me the plane ticket for Dubrovnik also recommended Montenegro, I decided to sign up for a day trip. While the coast was beautiful enough, I will remember Montenegro as hot (high nineties), barren, and lethargic. As best I could tell, it's mostly one big mountain, quite steep, and growing little. We spent a lot of time on the coach, fortunately with AC, winding up one side of the mountain and down the other. We visited a couple of walled coastal towns, simmering in the heat. And we toured the former royal palace, halfway through the afternoon. The standard tour - at least ten coaches a day do it in season, and they all use the same parking lot for the royal palace, where there was one, lone, half-hearted souvenir vendor.
A captive audience of 500 people a day, and no-one was exploiting the situation. India, China, Vietnam, even next-door in Croatia, we would have walked a gauntlet of vendors. In Montenegro, I couldn't even buy water. I consider I'm pretty short on entrepreneurial spirit, but this seemed a great opportunity to me. I was sitting next to the young man, Montenegran but born and raised in Canada, who had boarded the coach at the border to represent the Montenegro Tourist Board, and proceeded to do absolutely nothing all day. (I thought he was maybe there to make sure our Croatian guide said nothing politically incorrect.) Not only did he do nothing, he was singularly uninterested in my moneymaking idea. The average income in Montenegro is very low. I see little prospect of it increasing.
The average income of the tourists in Hvar, Croatia, my next stop, in contrast, looked quite high. I rode the Jadrolinija ferry for eight hours from Dubrovnik to Hvar island, and then a packed and airless bus to Hvar town. The ferry ride was another of those ideas which would have worked better in May. I boarded early enough to grab space in the small airconditioned cabin, sharing a table with a couple of young jugglers and their baby. They had been among the participants in a Medieval Fair in Dubrovnik, in costumes that almost guaranteed heat stroke. As the day wore on, more and more people sought refuge in the cabin.
I always forget that I get bored on boats - the scenery changes too slowly, but is too distant to be seen clearly - and eight hours of even tourist-poster coastline was a trial. Nor was Hvar worth it. The French Riviera, I am informed by the International Herald Tribune, is in decline. The beautiful people have departed. For Croatia. All those skimpy fashions that looked wrong on the tourists in Barcelona were designed for the many young, slim girls strolling the marble promenade at Hvar. And the boats... I don't watch "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous", so I was unprepared for floating penthouses. I mean, is a boat with two stories of tinted glass, automatic doors and recessed floodlights really a yacht? Observing this conspicuous consumption I found myself considering what else that kind of money could buy. What would I do if some improbable quirk of fate handed me a few million dollars?
Although I swam at Hvar - more clear blue water - it is really boat territory. With no beaches, just rocks, it would be much more comfortable to swim off a boat in some secluded cove. In Split, my next stop, I didn't swim at all, but I did have one of those "this is why I travel" experiences. Split is built in and around the walls of the huge retirement palace of the Emperor Diocletian (284-305 C.E.), and the outer walls still stand. Diocletian and his family lived on the south side, with the sea view (although the sea has receded a good distance in the centuries since) and hidden away on the second (first) 'floor' I found a small cafe. Three arches were used as windows, with imperial views, and the food was hot and cheap (chosen from a handwritten menu that took up less than a page). In Rome I experienced no real thrill at treading the same stones as the Caesars, perhaps because so many others have walked the floor of the Forum since, but in this cafe I was very aware that I was eating where a Roman emperor had walked. I also watched the locals playing cards with a deck like none I had seen before. From Trieste, one man said when I expressed interest - perhaps the forerunner of the Tarot deck. Finally, another local produced a guitar and started playing. When I returned the next night, I was greeted like a regular. Who needs a yacht?
My last night in Split I ate at a wine bar I had discovered in the unfashionable part of town. The food was good, but I was more interested in the wine - two good reds and an excellent dessert wine. Croatian wine could be the next "find" - it's not yet imported into the U.S.
In Split, as in Hvar, I economized on lodging by staying in a "sobe" - a room in a private house. (I chose to sleep cheap so I could eat well.) Both sobes demonstrated that thick walls (the walls in Hvar would not have disgraced a castle) and shade can make a huge difference to indoor temperatures - although not quite enough for real comfort when the outside temperature is in the nineties.
From Split I rode a slow bus north and then east to Plitvice National Park, which was everything I had hoped. Cooler temperatures and a comfortable hotel room were welcome, but it was the 16 turquoise lakes, the waterfalls and trees that really thrilled me. From a distance the lakes glowed like jewels among the trees, the extraordinary color apparently the result of minerals in the water, which also build up the edges of the lakes, creating the multiple waterfalls. Buses and boats provide some access, but for the most part I hiked the boardwalks round the lakes, and above, below and even through the waterfalls. I spent two nights there, and could easily have stayed longer. (See http://www.np-plitvicka-jezera.hr/ for more info.)
From Plitvice I took another bus back to Zagreb. Sounds simple, but I spent nearly an hour at the small bus stop on the main road, before a Zagreb-bound bus decided it had room for me and stopped. The Croatian countryside showed more scars from the recent conflict than I had seen in the towns. Many fields and terraces seemed to have been abandoned, and pine trees were moving in. More startling were the many empty, burned-out houses, and more shocking the fact that often a smart, newly-painted house stood right next to a ruin. I can't imagine living with such a reminder.
While I loved Plitvice, and hope to return, I was otherwise pleased to be leaving Croatia, where the coast is being taken over by upmarket tourists, and the interior is still a chilling reminder of war. So I headed back to the Zagreb train station, looking forward to the ride to Budapest. Until I saw the train...
Sent from Warsaw, Poland, 23 Aug 2004.
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