Jun 18 2008
Like something straight from the 1930s Depression Deep South, the touring stunt drivers arrived in Split this week and unpacked their caravans. With plenty of tire squealing action, all that was missing was the ‘Stars and Bars’! It was so cheesy but great and a bit of fun for the kids. Balkan OH&S (Occupational Health and Safety) Regulations were in effect - the wearing of safety equipment, such as helmets, was optional!
Jun 17 2008
Pictured above is one tired but ice-cream fueled soccer fan.
Croatia have done an excellent job to finish top of their pool at the European Football Championships. They started slowly against Austria and were lucky to get away with a 1-0 victory.
Locals were then fearing the worst against the Germans - one of the favorites for the title. But Croatia performed well above expectations and comfortably won 2-1.
Finally, last night the Croats strolled past Poland 1-0 in a flat game. But wins are wins and the Splicani celebrated into the early morning with flags, flares, fireworks and car-horns!
Jun 17 2008
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!
Jun 01 2008
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.
May 24 2008
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.
Evening Walking Tour of Diocletian’s Palace
Salona and Klis Fortress Walking Tour
Afternoon Sail on Historical Wooden Boats (available after the end of July)
Aurora & Hacienda Nightclubs Transfer Bus
May 22 2008
An old friend from New York City, the Gregster, dropped in to visit us this weekend. We hadn’t seen him in 7 years - it was great to catchup and talk about the days in NYC - the bars, restaurants and clubs, and playing for the NY Magpies. It was also an excellent opportunity to eat at some of our favorite restaurants and take some embarrassing pictures of Greg.
The first day we had lunch at Konoba Šperun, next to the laundrette. We often grab a quick meal here - usually during the summer on their curb-side tables and just the cold appetizers. They have excellent marinated anchovies, a cheese and tomato plate, calamari, bread and olives - really simple but tasty things.
The next day was a gluttonous road-trip to Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is one of the most beautiful towns in the world. Now is the perfect time to visit before the summer cruise-liners arrive and swamp the cobbled streets.
On the way we stopped at Kapetanova Kuća in Mali Ston- one of Croatia’s Top Ten Restaurants - which has been mentioned previously on our blog. After denying ourselves breakfast we were ready for a huge lunch.
We started with oysters of course - as Mali Ston is famous for them. I had always thought that all oysters were the same - but after visiting the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station in NY many years ago, where you can order them from all over the world, I learned that every region produces different size and shape shells and, more importantly, different flavours.
After the oysters we shared a plate of mixed mussels and clams - cooked buzara style. Buzara is a Dalmatian white wine and garlic sauce in which they cook their shellfish. The sauce is so good that after eating the shellfish you then mop it up with plenty of bread.
The main meal was black cuttlefish risotto (made with the ink from squids) and grilled squid. People always jump when they see the colour of the risotto - but, if the initial fear of eating black food can be overcome, black risotto is delicious. The squid was simply grilled and then drizzled with olive oil and garlic.
All this was washed down with a bottle of Marco Polo Pošip. Pošip is the white wine variety from Korčula Island.
And if all this wasn’t enough, Greg need a slice of rožata - Dalmatian creme caramel - to top it all off. I was thinking to offer him a glass of desert wine - prošek - but that would have been excessive!
Once we arrived in Dubrovnik we needed to rest. So we found a hole-in-the-wall cafe clinging to the town’s famous walls and watched the big ships sail passed.
In Dubrovnik there is only one place to eat - Lokanda Peskarija. All the other restaurants are tourist traps. The Peskarija has a limited menu - maybe 10 dishes - and they are all served in small black pots. Its such a simple, elegant idea. Its location is stunning as well - right on the edge of the water in the old port, under big umbrellas. After such a big lunch we just needed something small - just calamari, grilled prawns and a big mixed salad - and a little more wine and coffee.
The next morning, nursing the first twinges of gout, we decided some brisk sea air and a little walk would do us good. So Greg, Jules, the kids and I piled into the Fiat and caught the ferry to Hvar Island. We drove across the island to look at its southern slopes which are famous for producing excellent plavac -Dalmatian red wine.
The plan was to hike amongst the vines but the weather gods were against us so we retired to Konoba Vrisnik for lunch. The owner, Andro Grgičević, welcomed us in but said that they were not yet officially open for the season. However a group from Zagreb had organized a meal and he said we could join them.
The meal started with a broth made with goat meat stock and buck-wheat - very tasty. Then Andro brought us a plate of boiled goat meat, mashed potato and tomato sauce. He explained that this was typical Saturday meal for the villagers of Hvar. After the first course of goat another bowl of goat meat cooked with peas appeared. The sweetness of the peas was excellent with the young goat meat. Just as we were settling down completely satisfied, we saw Andro serving the other guests with yet more plates of grilled lamb and salad. Thinking that heart-attacks were imminent if we continued with the last course, we went for quick a walk.
After returning to Split, for the evening meal we decided to try Restoran Perlica. The restaurant had been recommended as the best place near Split to get lamb-on-the-spit. And we were not disappointed! The friendly staff (often a rarity in Croatia) provided us with a plate piled high with roasted lamb, green salad and a side-order of young spring onions. Once again really simple food but so good. The reason we wanted to try Perlica was we wish to include it in a half-day tour from Split to the archaeological sites of the Roman city of Salona and the hill-top fort of Klis. We will definitely bring guests to it!
Finally, Greg fell in love with a Croatian beer - Karlovačko - which always seems to be the favorite of foreigners visiting here.
After such a debauched weekend I was happy to see the back of Greg - but hopefully it won’t be another 7 years before we meet again.
May 22 2008
For those visiting Split and needing a little mid-holiday exercise, the local expatriates play football (or soccer for us Australians) every Monday and Thursday nights. If you are interested drop by the laundrette for more information.
May 22 2008
Tonight our friends Jane Cody and John Nash had the official Croatian launch of their book, Croatia Cruising Companion. Jane also did some writing for the new Timeout Croatia magazine, and she presented it as well to the audience of marina representatives and tourism agencies.
The Cruising Companion took Jane and John several years to research - they visited every bay of significance from Zadar to the south. For each they produced anchorage charts as well as wrote lengthy descriptions on available facilities - such as our laundrette in Split.
The book is perfect for those coming here to rent a yacht and visit the Dalmatian Islands. It is currently ranked #3 for both books on Croatia and those on sailing on Amazon.com.
Timeout Croatia has a thicker guide magazine again this year. More stories and more information are crammed inside. One of our kayaking pictures, taken on a tour around Vis and Hvar Islands, appears in the adventure section.
May 02 2008
Spring is here - so there is a rush to finish the winter boat building projects. The picture above is of a model of the research vessel One Eagle. It was completed in the German Neue Jadewerft Shipyard in 1969. When it left, after final fit-out, the Arista Nautica yard here in Split last week it looked a little different (see the pictures below) - and is now known as the Amadeus. Reymond Langton Design delivered a sleek-looking renovation for owner Bernard Arnault of Louis Vuitton.
Last summer Tony Blair and Bono were enjoying sunning themselves on her decks.
The Amadeus is 70m long, with a 11.5m beam and a 4.5m draft. She is pushed along by nearly 3 000hp-worth of Caterpillar diesels. The previous superstructure was removed and replaced with aluminium, plus a new bow was added. She now has luxury rooms for 12 guests and 18 crew have their own berths downstairs.
Murray and Cathrine, whose Zephyrus Apartments are the best in town, have been fixing a 11.2m Classic. She is an Argentinian boat, built in 1967 at the German Frers yard to a Dorado B design and was sailed for 6 months to reach Split from Buenos Aires. Murray has replaced the rigging, stripped and re-varnished the teak decks, repainted the hull and re-wired her.
Progress on the leut continues. The planking and caulking have been completed. Next work will begin on the interior.
Apr 14 2008
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!
Apr 14 2008
The Croatia Boat Show was on again this week. Its Split’s chance to see the latest bling - and not just that which floats. Here’s Aklie learning what’s important in life!
The Lamborghini was not for sale - it was a sweetener if you bought one of the super-yachts.
Most of the boats were of no particular interest - just a lot of plastic, stainless steel and LED lights.
The boat of the show for me is built by a Slovenian company, Shipman Carbon Yachts. They were showing their 24m version, the Shipman 80, designed and produced in their factory next to Lake Bled. Its almost a Wally Boat - but not quite. The particular boat at the show was recently purchased by a Croatian. The Shipman 50 won European Boat of the Year in 2004.
Leopoldo from Bolici Yachts showed us the Carbon Cube 36 - a racing yacht made completely from carbon-fiber. Its like a Ferrari 430 Scuderia - a stripped-down red racing machine - but with what Bolici saved in weight during the construction of the hull they added some cruising comforts - such as a kitchen and a head and made these out of carbon-fiber as well.
For those that already have a Porsche Carrera in the garage, Fearless Yachts have teamed with the Porsche Design Studio and are making a 8.5m speedboat with 600hp and a top speed of almost 75 knots inspired by the car, for the boat shed.
After the sun went down, the parties began.
Azimut Yachts was kind enough to be offering music and free Moet. Tim seemed to also appreciate the girls which were serving it.
Apr 03 2008
The European Cities Marketing Association has released figures which shows Split is #1 on a list of European holiday destinations for growth in visitors between 2001 and 2006.
“Split saw an annual growth of around 17% in tourists, to top their survey of 93 locations across Europe.
In 2006, some 200 000 holiday makers crowded into city of some 250 000 inhabitants, a 400% rise in the number of holiday makers from 1999. Their average stay was 2.2 days.
The trend continued in 2007, but according to Split-based daily, Slobodna Dalmacija, tourist numbers decreased slightly by 5 000 due to a lack of accommodation as old hotels underwent renovation. (It may have been something to do with the terrible job that was done on renovating the waterfront or the fact Split suffers from a lack of a coherent tourism plan!)
The 2001-2006 survey shows that U.S. visitors and tourists topped the list and were followed by French and Spanish visitors.
A transit point for a number of Croatian islands, Split and its famous old town dominated by the Roman Emperor’s Diocletian Palace dating from the end of the 3rd Century, has become a key tourist attraction in Croatia, challenging the status of the legendary town of Dubrovnik, some 200kms to the southeast.
The tourism boom has seen real estate prices skyrocketing with properties in the old towns going for as much as 6 000 € /square metre. (This is just nonsense made-up by the local real-estate agents!)”
Some of what is written above is true - we have seen a constant growth in our laundrette business - but I wouldn’t trust the figures supplied by the local tourism board here in Split. Personally I think Dubrovnik tourism would have had far more (and better quality) growth. The opportunity is here in Split - it will just take hard work by everyone.
As a follow up to the last post about Croatia’s bid to join NATO -
“NATO leaders have agreed to invite Croatia and Albania to join the alliance.
The agreement was reached at an informal dinner of the NATO heads of state and government on Wednesday night.
For the third aspirant country, Macedonia, the leaders hoped that it can be invited as soon as possible given the fact that Greece, a NATO ally, has made clear that it will veto the invitation unless Macedonia changes its official name.
The Greek delegation made very clear on Tuesday night that Macedonia’s accession to NATO would be impossible before the settlement of the name dispute.
Greece fears that the former Yugoslav republic’s constitutional name — Republic of Macedonia — implies territorial ambition for the neighboring northern Greek province of Macedonia. But Skopje has refused to exchange its official name for NATO membership.
On Ukraine and Georgia’s application for NATO’s Membership Action Plan (MAP), chances are small for them to be given this status at the summit.
The leaders reaffirmed NATO’s “open door” policy and were of the view that MAP for the two countries is a matter not of whether, but of when.
The leaders also reiterated that there is no veto by third parties, apparently in reference to opposition by Russia.
Russia has warned that NATO membership for the two former Soviet republics would bring instability in the region.”
It always bodes well when ‘instability’ and ‘Balkans’ are used in the same sentence!
Apr 01 2008
Today’s picture comes from the set of Bella Biondina. The movie, based a true story of a young Split girl who falls in love with an Italian Fascist soldier at the end of the Second World War, is being shot on the streets of Split at the moment. It is being directed Danijela Marušić, who also made the locally famous mini-series Malo Misto. It was interesting to see the reactions of the locals to actors in Partisan uniforms. Many were indifferent, but some reacted with strong negative feelings.
Whilst I was in Trogir the other day I saw the replica of the 16th Century galleon Tirena, a typical trading vessel of the period from Ragusa (i.e. the Dubrovnik Republic), which is used for excursions outside the walls of Dubrovnik in the summer. Its 30m long and 7.7m wide. The drawings for the replica, completed according to old plans from the Dubrovnik Maritime museum, were done by Velimir Salamon, the man responsible for the falkuša.
The ship was constructed in Omiš, at a cost of about 1 000 000€.
Speaking of old boats, work continues on the leut. Mate, the Dalmatian carpenter, is replacing a certain number of planks. Roger, the English mechanic, will start work soon on renovating the motor. The crew will be an Aussie and a Frenchman - its becoming a true UN project.
Looking across the leut’s shed, for the last week the USS Mount Whitney has been tied up. The Whitney is the flagship of the United States Navy’s 6th Fleet (the Mediterranean Fleet) - it flies the pennant of Vice Admiral James A. Winnefeld.
It is considered to be the most sophisticated Command, Control, Communications, Computer, and Intelligence ship ever commissioned. It can receive and transmit large amounts of secure data from any point on earth through the multitude of HF, UHF, VHF, SHF and EHF antennae on its decks.
The Sixth Fleet has both US and NATO responsibilities, and is based in Naples.
So why is it in Split?
President Bush is on his way to Eastern Europe. He will stop in Ukraine before going to Bucharest, Romania, for the opening of NATO’s largest summit ever on Wednesday.
NATO leaders will meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon as well as officials from the European Union and World Bank. They will also vote on expanding the alliance to include Albania, Croatia, and Macedonia, as well as vote on accepting applications from Georgia and Ukraine to join the alliance, a move that is opposed by Russia. On Friday Bush will then come to visit us in Croatia.
President Bush will wrap up his trip in the Black Sea resort of Sochi for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, discussing the U.S. missile defense system.
Joining the EU (hopefully by 2011) and NATO are the biggest issues in Croatia at the moment. Some people are against the moves - a new organisation has been formed in Croatia called the Anti-Imperialist Coalition, which has announced protests against President Bush at Franjo Tudjman Square in Zagreb on Friday at 5pm.
Though we are not happy with Americans at the moment - one competitor, American-owned Adriatic Kayak Tours, has been stealing our photographs to use on their website (we are fighting to have them taken down) as well as copying our Vis Tour- we see definite benefits in Croatia being an EU and NATO member. For instance we could take AKT to the European Court and not have to wait for the slow Croatian courts to deal with their infringement of our copyright.
So, things are heating up here and in the rest of Eastern Europe, with the West moving East. On top of all these meetings there have been the problems in Kosovo for the last month. That’s why the most important American ship in the Mediterranean is docked in Split.
Today was an example of that though Dubrovnik is definitely a beautiful town, it is quite superficial - Split has a tougher, yet richer, life.
