Yesterday Frank, Ceila, Bill and Cary enjoyed a day with us on Brač Island.
After the 45-minute ferry ride from Split, we drove to the trailhead above Pustinja Blaca.
Blaca was a monastery found in 1551 by Glagoltic monks from Poljica Republic. This small Republic, behind Omiš, was wedged between the Venetian and Ottoman Empires. The monks, fearing Turkish raids, fled to Brač in the 15th Century and later received permission to build their monastery in its current, well-hidden location. Setting to work in the harsh landscape (blaca means desert), they created a vibrant community - the richest on the island. They were self-sufficient in food, and exported honey, olive oil, wine and cheese to Venice and Vienna. They owned 3 trading boats, large estates in other villages and had up to 120 workers laboring for them.
The last monk, Don Nikola Milicevič, was a true Renaissance man. His favorite hobby was astronomy and we saw what was once the largest telescope in south-east Europe. He reported his findings to the world authorities and his work led to the naming of 2 asteroids as well as a comet.
All this work took place in the middle of nowhere. We got just a taste of its isolation - after a long drive down a dirt track, we still had a 2km hike into the canyon in which the monastery is tucked away. Yesterday, as the temperature soared, the sun beat down and reflected onto us from the white limestone - not an environment conducive to refined pursuits.
To recover we headed to Murvica, just outside of Bol. The terrace of the restaurant at which we ate lunch looked out across the water to Hvar Island. After an excellent seafood meal, the water was too inviting so we had to have a swim. The beaches along the south coast of Brač are some of my favorites in Dalmatia.
The highlight of the return ferry ride was sailing through an afternoon electrical storm.
Since 1998 over the last weekend in September, off the town of Murter on Murter Island, a regatta has been held each year for boats with traditional lanteen rigs (such as those in the pictures). The regatta is the Latinsko Idro (the Latin Sail) and is organized by Zeljko Jerat. Its website can be found here (though it needs to be updated for this year). Zeljko also can teach those interested how to use one of these old fishing boats - he has a house on the Kornati Islands which is used as a base for 5 days of sail training. (Contact us for further details.)
There is a renaissance currently in the building and sailing of Dalmatian wooden fishing boats.
Our plan is to take 2 boats - the gajeta and the leut - to this years regatta.
One of our favorite cafes to relax in during the summer is the Luxor. They have setup cushions and small tables on the steps of the Peristil, where you can sit and have a drink while you listen to the live music (usually jazz) or watch the couples dancing salsa. There are not too many places in the world can you sit on 1700-year-old steps on a warm evening with a cocktail in your hand listening to good sounds!
Aklie wanted to see where SpongeBob SquarePants is from, so we went for a drive up the coast to Krapanj - apparently the smallest and lowest inhabited island in Croatia. Krapanj, located in the Šibenik archipelago, lies 300m from the mainland town of Brodarice and is best known for sponge diving and the unusual occupation of its women - fishing.
Antun, a monk from Crete, introduced Krapanj’s inhabitants to sea sponge gathering and processing over 300 years ago (beginning of the 18th Century). Diving for sponges became the major source of income for Krapanj families, earning them the title of Spužvari (Sponge Experts). And while the men were diving, their wives did everthing else - working the fields, rowing the transport boats and fishing (eventhough they did not know how to swim).
Every year the local divers gather over 4 tonnes of natural sea sponge from the surrounding waters - of mainly the Euspongia Officinalis Adriatica - Fine Dalmata variety.
Natural sponges have been used for bathing for millenia - as they are firm and durable yet soft. The Romans even used them for lining the inside of their armor. Compared to man-made sponges, natural sponges are much more absorbent and static electricity free.
Sponges are sensitive and require warm, clean seawater to grow. The unpolluted, relatively shallow waters (5m - 50m) around Krapanj provide perfect conditions for them to thrive.
If cut properly a sponge will regrow in the same place. As it takes a sponge 2 years to grow to 15cm, traditionally sponge diving was forbidden every third year in order to allow them to regenerate.
The Krapanj monastery museum permanently exhibits a show on sea sponge diving. Next door is the Hotel Spongiola - where you can take classes in the traditional way of collecting sponges - ‘free diving’.
Thanks to Tim Jarman for the picture of Krapanj - more of his pictures can be seen here.
Tim and I went to Šibenik today to sit the small boat skipper license (voditelj brodice) examination at the Harbour Master’s (Lučka Kapetanija) office.
If you do not have a licence from home or if you have a licence that does not contain a VHF-licence, you need to sit a short oral test to get a B Category License of Competency - similar to the Recreational Skipper’s Ticket in Western Australia. Apparently as no such national licensing regime exists in the U.S., Americans wishing to charter a Croatian-flagged vessel may be required to sit the test.
The license is valid for boats up to 30 registered gross tonnes and for less than 12 people. It allows you to travel 3nm from the coast or islands - given that the islands are so close along the Croatian coast, this means you can cruise to nearly all of them.
Locations of the Harbour Masters’ Offices can be found here.
You need to bring:
a. 815 kuna.
b. 40 kuna in tax stamps (from the closest newspaper stand).
c. your passport.
d. 2 passport photographs.
Some subjects of the examination are:
a. Navigation.
b. Navigational lights.
c. Right of way.
d. VHF radio procedure.
Amazingly there is no practical examination. They print a handy study guide and the test can be taken in Croatian, English, German, and Italian.
The staff of the Šibenik office were very friendly and helpful - unlike some of the characters found in the Split office, with whom we have had problems before.
While waiting for the test, Tim showed me some of his old haunts in Šibenik - I had never spent time there though its only 30 minutes from Split. The old town was quiet but in many ways nicer than Split.
The centrepiece of Šibenik is the Cathedral of St. James (Katedrala sv. Jakova).
The idea of building a cathedral originated in 1298 when Šibenik was given its own diocese. The actual decision to build it was finalised in 1402, though construction did not begin until 1431 and with minor disruptions lasted until 1536. Not much has changed in Croatia - this is a typical construction schedule even today!
It was built on the city’s south-side, where a Romanesque church had stood. The cathedral’s construction began in Venetian Gothic style, and was completed in Tuscan Renaissance style, due to the change over the years of the main architect.
In 1441 Juraj Dalmatinac (George of Dalmatia) was elected architect. At the time he was living and studying art in Venice. He had done some work there on Saint Mark’s Cathedral. Juraj, a devotee of the Late (Venetian) Gothic style, decided to enlarged the original plans for the cathedral, adding a side nave and apses. By the time of his death in 1475 he had also put up the basic constructive elements for the building of the dome and enriched the cathedral with numerous sculptures.
After the his death, Nikola Firentinac (Nicholas of Florence) took over the cathedral’s construction. Sticking to Juraj’s basic plan he however continued the building in Renaissance style, completing the top parts of the cathedral: the dome, the sculpture of Saints Michael, James and Mark, the roof complex and the upper part of the facade. Following Firentinac’s death in 1505, construction continued under Venetian constructors and local craftsmen.
The roof and the dome of St James’ are unique in the world. Like all the other parts of the church, they were made exclusively from stone (i.e. no wooden beams or clay tiles), using the same dry wall techniques Juraj Dalmatinac used while building the apses and the sacristy. The stone slab roof of the central and lateral naves form a semicircular vault visible from the inside as well as from the outside.
The dome of the church was heavily damaged during the shelling of Šibenik in September 1991. Today it has been fully restored with no visible damage.
The cathedral was consecrated in 1555 and in 2000 was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
Andjelka, our cousin, got married the other day. Every good Croatian wedding needs several things.
1. Cars with horns blaring. Saturday is wedding day in Croatia, and weddings are not quiet events. The racket starts when the towns are filled with lines of cars, all with horns blasting, traveling from the grooms’ houses to the brides’ houses - where the grooms have to buy the brides from their families - before they all move on to the church.
Andjelka skipped this bit as the service took place in Trogir, a small medieval town with pedestrian-friendly narrow streets. Trogir is situated on a small island between the Croatian mainland and the island of Čiovo, about 27kms west of Split, and since 1997 it has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
2. Flag. The lead car always has a large Croatian flag flying from it. (No one seems to know where the tradition of having a flag at the front of the procession comes from.)
3. Band.Whenever there is a wedding (or any type of festival) in Dalmatia the folk band is dusted off and sings in front of the church, before and after the service.
The video above shows Tomislav Ivčić singing a Dalmatian party favourite “Večeras je Naša Fešta”at the 1986 Split Summer Festival. From the looks of it, he could do a mean Borat impersonation as well.
4. Pregnant bride. At about 80% of Dalmatian weddings the bride’s father is seen prodding the groom down the aisle with a shotgun. Thanks to the Catholic Church’s excellent safe-sex program many young kids are married in their late-teens or early-twenties - all so the Church will accept the expected baby. We saw three weddings one Saturday in Korčula - all teenage brides were 8 months gone. Andjelka, happily, was not in the family-way!
5. Flares. In front of the church, after the service, you could be mistaken that you stumbled upon a local soccer match. Croatians love to light a good flare, and the more the better.
6. Lots of food. Food is at the centre of every Croatian get-together. At the reception you are still being served food at 5am - pršut, cheese, black risotto or roast lamb.
Andjelka had her wedding at one of Croatia’s most interesting churches - the Cathedral of St. Lawrence (Sv. Lovre). The building of the cathedral started around 1200 and was finally finished in 1589, when the last storey of the bell tower was completed. (The bell-tower took so long to build that spanned four architectural styles - Romanesque, early and late Gothic, Renaissance and Mannerist.
The west portal of Trogir cathedral is known as Radovan’s Portal after the master sculptor who carved his name on it in 1240. It is covered with sculptures of some one hundred figures. A series of reliefs with scenes from Jesus’s life, from the Annunciation to the Resurrection, occupy the concentric arches above the door. Adam and Eve, the Original Sinners, were placed on lions that flank the entrance.
The portal was completed during a period when Bogomilism was prevalent in Dalmatia, after it crossed over from Bosnia and Bulgaria at the end of the 12th Century. The Bogomils opposed the existence of a church as a fixed organization; they were also against the church possessing property and leveling compulsory tithes. The original Bogomil teaching preached disobedience to rulers and masters.
Bogomils explained the corporeal life as a creation of Satan, an angel that was sent to the Earth. Due to this duality, their doctrine rejects everything that is socially created and that does not come from the soul, the only divine possession of the human. Therefore, the established Church, the state, and the hierarchy is totally undermined by Bogomilism. That is why its followers refused to pay taxes, to work, or to fight for their state. The whole social system was to be overthrown.
They denied the divine birth of Jesus; refused all veneration to Mary; the miracles performed by Jesus were interpreted in a spiritual sense, not as real material occurrences; they had no special priests; prayers were to be said in private houses, not in separate buildings such as churches; they declared Jesus to be the Son of God only through grace like other prophets; they believed that the bread and wine of the eucharist were not transformed into flesh and blood, and icons and the cross were idols and the veneration of saints and relics idolatry.
The Bogomils were the revolutionaries that laid the foundations of Protestanism - so the Church tried to squash them!
The portal is influenced by them - it is orientated towards the more humane side of the Church - the Nativity instead of the Last Judgement.
So why is this interesting. Well, the name of the movement was bulgarus in Latin (meaning “Bulgarian”). It became bougre in Old French meaning “heretic, traitor”. It entered German as Buger meaning “peasant, blockhead” (and went on to English as bugger) and the French term also entered Old Italian as buggero and Spanish as bujarrón, both meaning “sodomite”, since it was supposed that heretics would approach sex (just like everything else) in an “inverse” way. The word in Venetian Italian became buzerar, meaning “to do sodomy”. So next time you say “Oh, bugger” you know where the it came from.
Split is expecting an increase in cruise-ship arrivals this year. For these guests and others who wish to explore the coast, rivers, hills and islands around Split we have teamed-up with our Danish friends at Solitum to provide interesting half-day and full-day tours.
Warm spring day; the crack of leather on willow followed by polite applause from the crowd; men dressed-up like modern day white knights in helmets and padded armor; picnic blankets and coolers filled with wine, brie and crackers - yesterday anyone would think we were enjoying watching cricket in the English countryside.
Amazingly the game was being played right here in Split between the local Split Sir Oliver Cricket Club and the Further Friars Cricket Club, a traveling team from England consisting of gents in the wine industry.
Cricket is a game you must grow up with - or the rules will never make sense. We attempted to explain them to the French expats - they just got bored and went home. But there is an historical connection between the French and cricket in this area.
Cricket is not so alien to Dalmatia as could be expected. On Vis Island there is the Sir William Hoste Cricket Club. It is run by Nik Roki and his son Oliver (Oliver was born in Perth before they moved back to the island in the 70’s).
The club’s namesake was an English naval officer stationed on Vis Island for several years at the start of the 19th Century - the English had just kicked the Napoleonic French garrison off the island. (The English called Vis Island the ‘Gibraltar of the Adriatic’ because of its excellent strategic location.)
William decided that the wild Dalmatian island on which he found himself needed a touch of civility - so he started a cricket club. A couple of years back Nik and Oliver re-established it. Oliver usually cooks us an awesome baked lamb ispod peke on their winery whenever we visit Vis with our tour’s guests.
Unfortunately for the visitors yesterday they ended their innings 3 runs shy of the local team. Their next match is to be on Vis this week.
For another perspective on the day’s proceedings visit Jane Cody’s Croatia Online. Jane’s the lovely lady in the picture above, making sure the batsman’s box was properly adjusted!
On Sunday we went to Skradin, a small town on the Krka River, just behind Šibenik, to visit Vina Bibich, run by Alen, a local wine producer and chef about whom we had heard great things. We wanted to try the local red wine, debit. Unfortunately everything is still closed this early in the year.
Skradin has a long history; originally it was a Roman trading town. Today it’s the best place to catch a boat to the Krka National Park, and the Krka Waterfalls, up river.
After a quick coffee in Skradin’s sunny square, we drove into the Park.
The Park’s authorities have, over recent years, renovated the old mill buildings surrounding the falls into an ethno-village. In the summer guests can see the flour being made, chat with the donkeys or have a trout lunch. The rivers around Split provide several places for very fresh trout. Other favorites of ours are in the town of Trilj and at another renovated mill; Radmanove Mlinice.
To walk amongst the falls wooden duck boards and bridges are provided, similar to Plitvice Lakes but on a smaller scale. Its possible to swim below the final waterfall.
The Croatian contradiction became evident when we came upon some further old buildings with a plaque. The text said before us was the ruins of the world’s second hydro-electric generator - the first opened in Buffalo, up-state New York a few days before; both were completed in 1895. Even more amazingly, the Croatian dam was the first in the world to provide electricity - it powered Šibenik’s streetlights about a year before those in Buffalo. Nikola Tesla was responsible for the design of the plant. Born an ethnic Serb in what is now the Lika Region of Croatia, he is claimed by both Croatia and Serbia.
At the at end of the 19th Century this remote part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was on the cutting edge of technology - beating Germany, France and England to hydro-electricity - yet my grandmother’s village nearby has never received electricity or had modern plumbing. And driving to the Park you see the still-ruined houses of the barbaric ethnic conflict from 15 years ago. Primitivism and Modernism side by side.
Its a laugh when Aussies or Yanks start talking about heritage. The moment we step out the door of our apartment we are breathing the same air Roman Emperor Diocletian (236 - 316) did 1 700 years ago.
To try an give Aklie some perspective we took him, with our friends, the Smalbys, to the Split Archaeological Museum and Salona, site of the 1st Century Roman city.
The Archaeological Museum, a 10-minute walk from Diocletian’s Palace, contains many artifacts found in the Palace; in Salona, which also happens to be Diocletian’s birthplace; and in the Dalmatian Greek colonies, including Starigrad on Hvar Island. The display is small and intimate. In the courtyard there are many large stone pieces, which quickly become boring. But inside are useful day-to-day objects of typical Roman families - perfume bottles, other beauty tools, jewelery, toys, trinkets and coins. It definitely beats the London’s British Museum and New York’s Metropolitan, as you can see the relics then in the same day visit where they were dug up.
Salona is 10kms from Split. Julius Caesar gave the town status of a Roman colony in 48 B.C. and it was finally destroyed by the Avars in 639. Don Frane Bulić oversaw most of the excavations at the end of the 19th Century. We had a picnic in front of the Basilica of Manastirine and then wandered through the ruins - the town’s churches, bath’s, protective walls, main gate and bridge over the Jadran River.
The ruins of Salona represent another missed opportunity for Split tourism. Very little excavation has been done since that completed by Bulić. A Roman city of 60 000 people, about 3 times the population of Pompei, still lies under derelict houses and vineyards. The ruins host no events or festivals and its very difficult for tourists to directly travel between Split and Salona on local buses.
The above picture is Roklan sitting on a carved, stone sarcophagus for a Roman child from the 1st or 2nd Centuries AD.
It seems every new Chinese restaurant in the former Yugoslavia is called Peking (see our previous post about New Year’s Eve in Slovenia). We’d heard about a restaurant that had just opened near Trogir and that’s where we ended up for dinner.
For those visiting Split, much more information about Diocletian’s Palace and Salona is given on our Evening Walking Tours.
