Our first full day in Dubrovnik was a busy one. We are still a bit jet-lagged but it was a beautiful day- sunny and a high of 24C. There are lots of folks in shorts and summer clothes. There are two main gates to enter the Old City. We are near the eastern Gate-called the Ploče Gate. It is about a 15 walk from our Airbnb. We are on a higher street and take a stairway down the entrance to the Gate. Lots of beautiful flowers and greenery en route.
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| View of Old City from our street |
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| Allan walking down the stairs |
The meeting place for our Free Spirit Walking Tour was Orlando's Column, which was erected in 1417, soon after Dubrovnik shifted allegiances from the oppressive Venetians to the Hungarians. There is a thin line on the top step of the pedestal which is exactly as long as the statue's forearm. This mark was ancient Dubrovnik's standard measurement- not for a foot, but for an "elbow". Orlando, or Roland, a European ancient knight, was used as a symbol of a city under protection of the Hungarian-Croatian King. The statue is damaged largely due to the weather, but not much has been done in the past two years after the statue was encased.
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| Orlando's statue |
Our guide, Marin, was great. He was born in Dubrovnik and has a real love for the city. He had a great sense of humour and added a number of family anecdotes to the tour. He first gave us a brief history of Dubrovnik, which managed to remain independent for a very long time. It had declared itself a republic in the 12th century. Between the 14th and 19th century, Dubrovnik ruled itself as a free state. Throughout the Middle Ages, Dubrovnik bought its independence from whichever power was strongest- Byzantium, Venice, Hungary, the Ottomans, the Vatican. It flourished in the 15th and 16th centuries. Trade, salt and shipbuilding made Dubrovnik wealthy. Our guide said Dubrovnik survived by a combination of "trade, bribery, negotiation and espionage". The entire city was almost destroyed by a devastating earthquake in 1667.
The Republic of Dubrovnik lasted until 1808 when Napoleon invaded. After Napoleon's defeat, Croatia became part of the Habsburg Empire. In 1918, it joined the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes which was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929. During WWII, Croatia became a fascist puppet government under the Nazis. The regime acted brutally against Serbs and Jews as it sought to create a Catholic, all-Croat republic. After a bitter resistance campaign by Communist partisans under Tito, Croatia became one of the six constituent republics of the Yugoslav socialist federation. In 1980, Tito died and the slow disintegration of Yugoslavia began.
When Croatia separated from Yugoslavia in 1991, Dubrovnik became the only coastal city to be pulled into the fighting. The Yugoslav army started besieging Dubrovnik on October 1, 1991. On December 6, 1991, the army launched an all-out attack on Dubrovnik. More than 60% of the buildings in the Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site, were badly damaged Our guide said that during the war all the schools were closed. The city has been rebuilt but there are still scars on some of the buildings and of course, many people who lived through the Yugoslav Wars period from 1991-1995 are still alive.
Marin told us a story about the Flag of Dubrovnik. It contains the icon and initials of Saint Blaise, considered the patron saint of the city since the 10th century. The story is that St Blaise saved the people of Dubrovnik in 971 AD by warning a parish priest in a vision that the Venetians were going to attack. The parish priest had described St Blaise as an old grey-haired man with a long beard--- which is how the numerous statues on the city walls and towers depict him. St. Blaise, a physician and bishop in what is now Sivas, Turkey, actually was beheaded in 316 AD in his 30s.
The population of Dubrovnik is around 42,000 and only around 1500 live in the Old City now. There were more people in the Old City historically, but with the influx of tourists, many have left, or rent out their flats.
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| Stories about the flag of Dubrovnik |
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| One of the many statues of St Blaise |
We stopped at Onofrio's Big Fountain. In the Middle Ages, Dubrovnik had a complicated aqueduct system that brought water from the mountains, about 11 kilometres away. The water ended up at this location, the town's biggest fountain, before continuing through the city. Water quality in Dubrovnik is excellent and one can drink from the city's fountains.
We then returned to the stairs that we took last night to get to the restaurant where we had dinner. These are the famous "Stairs of Shame" from Game of Thrones. (As an aside, Allan and I haven't seen it, but we will have to now) Marin had a wonderful story about the making of the film (he was an extra in a boat scene). He said that the actress who was to walk naked down the stairs was pregnant at the time, so they were looking for a body double. They wanted to get someone local, but no one wanted to walk naked down the stairs in front of their neighbours. Eventually they went with someone from the UK. Marin also told us that the filming for this scene took place over three days and that all the restaurants in the area had to close. As well, the Director wanted all windows in nearby buildings closed. The restaurants were compensated and residents who were requested to close their windows got 100 euros for each window!! There was a huge boost to the economy from the film and now other productions are using Dubrovnik as a location.
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| "Stairway of Shame" from Game of Thrones |
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| Looking back from the stairs (the restaurants that were compensated) |
We then walked to the Old Port.
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| The Old Port |
Marin also had wonderful stories about his family. He told us that his grand-father had lived through five different government regimes, though he was born and died in the same house. He was born in 1917, during the Habsburg Empire; followed by the new Yugoslavia formed after WWI; the Nazi puppet Ustaše regime during WWII; Tito's Communist regime; and finally he lived under a democratic independent Croatia! Marin also said that one of his grandmothers thought Tito could do no wrong, while his other grandmother hated the Communist regime, which had confiscated some of her family's property. He also made the point that atrocities in the 1991-1995 Yugoslav Wars were committed by all sides, even though the war museums in each of the former Yugoslavia countries tells the story from their own perspective.
The last story of the tour was a fascinating one. Marin's great-grandfather had been a driver for Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Habsburg Empire. He was supposed to drive the Archduke to Sarajevo on June 14, 1914, where he was assassinated. Earlier in the day, the Archduke had been attacked by a member of Young Bosnia who had thrown a grenade at his car. However, the bomb detonated behind them, injuring the occupants in the following car. After a short rest at the Governor's residence, the royal couple wanted to see those who had been injured by the bomb at the local hospital. However, no one told the drivers that the itinerary had been changed. When the error was discovered, the drivers had to turn around and the line of cars stalled. Another member of Young Bosnia, Gavrilo Princip, sitting at a cafe across the way, walked across the street and shot the Royal Couple. Marin's grandfather had been sick and couldn't drive that day. He still had the invitation to drive the Archduke and attend a dinner, which the family kept. For years, he would tell people that had he not been sick, he would have driven and not made that turn that led to Ferdinand's assassination. A wonderful story!
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| Marin with picture of his great grandfather's car and invitation |
After the tour we took a few more photos and decided to go for lunch.
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| The Harbour |
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| Another statue of Saint Blaise |
We first dropped in again to the art gallery we had visited on Wednesday night. We talked to the gallery representative who told us that the gallery had opened just a year ago. It is housed in a chapel that dates back to at least 1248. It is owned by the adjoining Dominican Monastery which stipulated that only a gallery could open in the chapel space, which had been vacant for a time.
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| Picture of the gallery in the Chapel (taken later) |
The exhibit featured a number of paintings done by Mirsad Begić, (born 1953, Glamoč, Bosnia), who has lived most of his life in Ljubljana. He is primarily a sculptor, but this exhibit showcases his paintings which have not been widely exhibited to the public before. Many of them are from the 1970s. He has Parkinson's disease now and wanted to show his paintings to the public. The gallery (Novak Galerija) has a gallery in Ljubljana as well as Dubrovnik.
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The large piece at one end of the gallery
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There was an old painting on the ceiling of the gallery from when it was a chapel.
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| The gallery |
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We are very intrigued by this picture....
his work reminded us of Henry Moore drawings ( both primarily sculptors) |
The gallerist recommended a few places for a local lunch.
On the way to have lunch, we stopped and bought some cherries and strawberries in the same square where the restaurant was located. There is a small market in one part of the square, but most vendors had gone by the time we got there.
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| Couldn't resist cherries and strawberries |
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| Kamenice where we stopped for lunch |
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| Allan and a large plate of fried small fish and a seasonal salad which we shared |
We then went to find a coffee shop mentioned in our guidebook and by locals. We passed a guillotine in a small garden en route.
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| Strange grouping in a narrow street |
It turned out the coffee shop was closed (maybe reopening later in May), so we decided to have a gelato/sorbet at Gianni, highly recommended by a number of locals as well as Rick Steves' guidebook.
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| Busy, buzzy Gianni's |
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| Allan with his pistachio gelato (special pistachios from Sicily). I had a ginger lemon sorbet. |
We stopped in at the Dubrovnik Cathedral, a Roman-style Baroque structure which dates from the 18th century.
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| Entrance to the Cathedral |
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Inside the Cathedral
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| The Alter- painting from the school of Titian (Assumption of the Virgin) |
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| A series of more modern paintings |
We then went down Žudioska Street to the Jewish Synagogue and Museum. When the Jews were forced out of Spain in 1492, many passed through here en route to Turkey. Finding Dubrovnik to be a flourishing and relatively tolerant city, many stayed. Žudioska Ulica (Jewish Street) became the ghetto in 1546. It was walled at one end and had a gate, which would be locked at night, a the other end. Today, the street is home to the second-oldest continuously functioning synagogue in Europe (after Prague's) which contains Croatia's only Jewish museum. It is the oldest Sephardic synagogue in Europe. At the top of the stairway was the ticket taker, who was a history student who was telling stories about the synagogue and the Jewish community in Dubrovnik. The floor where the ticket taker was houses a small museum with Torahs and other items such as the written orders (naredba) from the Ustaše- the Nazi puppet government in Croatia, stating that Jews were to identify their shops and wear armbands. Of Croatia's 24,000 Jews, only 4000 survived the Holocaust. Today, there are just 2000 Jews in Croatia including about a dozen Jewish families who call Dubrovnik home.
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| Entrance to synagogue and museum |
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| The small, beautiful synagogue. |
The young historian told us that the synagogue survived WWII by being unrecognizable as a synagogue. The Jewish community hid 90 Torahs and other important items. The building had windows broken and other items taken when war broke out. The Nazis didn't realise it was a synagogue and it was left untouched during the war. It was restored after the war and is still used today. The historian told us that relations are good between the communities in the city. There is a Catholic Church, an Orthodox Church and a mosque in the neighbourhood.
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