Eastern Europe. It's not the like anywhere else on Earth. And Croatia, having been ruled by the Italians, the Slavs and others, in turn, over the centuries is a special place within Eastern Europe. Somehow, though, the Croats, despite what they have been through in just the past three decades, are a mighty friendly bunch, ready to help at every juncture. And nearly all are fluent in English, albeit with their own unique brand of accent.
We went on six hikes during this holiday, roughly one every other day. Each successive one was increasingly challenging. The highlight was the fifth, the six-hour climb up Croatia's second highest peak, Sveti Jure, at nearly 1,800 metres above sea level. Many peaks here begin with the word 'sveti' so I had naturally assumed that it was the Croatian word for 'peak' or 'mount.' Only after a week did I notice that nearly all churches were also named Sveti something. Turns out that both churches and mountains are normally named after a saint and Saint Yuri won the title for our hike selection. There are several routes to the top of Sveti Jure and we chose what turned out to be the most difficult. Starting at sea level, in the town of Makarska where we had spent the evening and night before, we walked uphill through the town's suburbs to its outskirts and the trailhead. From the trailhead and for the next two hours we climbed the steepest slope of my hiking experience. Much of the slope was covered with rockslides and being too steep to hike up safely, it was criss-crossed with switchbacks, themselves so steep that we needed a break from the burning sun baking us from above and grilling us from below, and from our sweaty effort, every 45 minutes. A lone tree casting its shade across the route was all it took for us to call for a pause to eat and drink and rest. At other sections later on we had to leap from boulder to boulder to make progress. These sections are always fun and remind me of a childhood adventure that I might have enjoyed, but for which I am today grateful. For a welcome break, we also had to traverse flowering alpine meadows, lush with tall grasses bent over in the blowing breeze and peppered with pockets of whites, yellows and purples. And suddenly, it seemed, we were passing through a dense forested valley replete with birds flitting through the canopy above and a soft leafy bed beneath our feet. No difficult climb would be complete without some scrambling. Both arms and upper body strength were requisite in these sections of the route where it is necessary to hoist ourselves and backpacks, too, several feet straight up using rocks, crevices or tree roots as handholds The burning sun was relentless but fortunately the increasing elevation resulted in the air becoming cooler as we ascended... from 30C at the sea to 14C at the peak, the cool, thin air at the summit was indeed both refreshing and welcome. Even more refreshing is that because this mountain has a large television tower at the summit which requires regular maintenance, there is a service road from its base to the top, and, so we have an air conditioned taxi van waiting for us at the summit to whisk us back to town far below, all arranged two months beforehand!
The port town of Hvar on the island of Hvar has earned itself a reputation of being party-central for all of Croatia. Appropriately, hotels, restaurants, cafes and all services cost nearly double compared to the rest of Croatia. In return we see the young, jet-set eastern Europeans at play. Thanks to a fortuitous twist of fate we are spending two nights at a $400-a-night hotel and get to partake, too, while in luxurious surroundings, enjoying scrumptious buffet breakfasts, cascading swimming pools with swim-up bars, a private beach and more. The town harbour is surrounded on three sides by numerous cafes and lounges that quiet down only at dawn. From what I can discern, most of the young revelers are drunk by 1am but stay out much, much later, likely requiring a review of selfies and friends' pics the day after to know how much they had enjoyed themselves the night before. Not judging, just saying. The hike that I had charted for this island took us through fields of wild lavender up to the higher reaches of the area. Unexpectedly, en route, we fell upon perhaps the world's only lavender festival, an annual event lasting two days in the tiny village of Velo Grablje. This town boasts a lavender mill where the plants are processed to produce their oils and essences. The next day we rented scooters and visited the other large town on the north side of Hvar, Stari Grad. Always to be remembered as the location where I enjoyed the best ice cream in Croatia, it will also be an overnight stop on my next visit to this country; besides the rich, cold, tasty ice cream, it is nearly void of foreign tourists, yet one can still rent a bicycle or charter a sailboat as well as choose from one of a couple of dozen quaint restaurants for al fresco dining along the picturesque harbour. One quickly becomes accustomed to, and thus forgets to explain, that every home, restaurant and shop in these ancient harbour villages was built centuries ago, by hand, from stone and mortar, with electricity and plumbing incorporated years later. The windows cut into the walls are ornate with carved perimeters, the cement railings along stairways and terraces are adorned with small statues, all the roofs are covered with the ubiquitous, Mediterannean, curved, red clay tiles. The streets in all the old towns are made from the same stone, worn smooth by centuries of pedestrian traffic. There are never cars in the old towns as even the widest streets are too narrow, but even so, motorbikes and scooters are forbidden. There are few street names and barely an assigned address in the old towns. Directions to a guest apartment or shop are given today exactly as they must have been two millennia ago, with a series of hand gestures and a reference to a clock tower or church.
We went sailing on our first day in Croatia, around the Elafiti islands which spread north from Dubrovnik in the Adriatic Sea. Of Croatia's 1,240 Dalmatian Coast islands, 14 of them are Elafiti. One advantage of traveling in a group of ten is that we get to charter our own sailboat and so chart our own course! We set sail for a nearby, uninhabited island, one which has an underground cave, that is to say, the cave is accessible by swimming under a natural arch made from the rock cliff above and entering thus. What I found uniquely exhilarating is that the daylight enters the inside of the cave by the underwater entrance as there is no other source of light. As a result our bodies are illuminated by an eerie blue light, but only from below. We all look like aliens to each other with a blue glow reflecting off our bodies, but only on the parts of our bodies that are underwater. The top of our cave is about ten metres above us and the floor is about the same depth below. The seawater is warm and buoyant making it delightful to swim and difficult to leave the sea and climb back into our sailboat. Did I forget to mention that here and everywhere else that we traveled, the water is unusually crystal clear? We can easily see down ten to fifteen metres and discern details on the sea floor! A little later, after sailing further north, we have docked at the smallest island fishing village, Sudurad on the island of Silovo Selo. It has only one cafe, where we all ate at a long table set up outdoors on their terrasse, shaded by a living roof made of a variety of flowering vines. This was to be the first of many, many meals shared by friends, at a long table with ample glasses of beer and wine, fish soups and salads, grilled seafood delicacies, banter and laughter, much like we often see in the movies wishing we could partake in the experience, too. Perhaps of all my memories of traveling through Croatia (and Montenegro, too), the ones of lunches and dinners will be the most savoured. We were without exception the only group to be living life 110%, from our midnight drinks on the top of a castles's turret in Korcula to our post cycling lunch at the Konavle winery south of Dubrovnik. How do I know? Because sadly, the majority of other diners spend a great deal of their mealtimes ignoring each other and their surroundings while silently texting somebody else somewhere else.
On that note, here's wishing you are living life, too, in whatever place you may find yourself today!!
Barry, now part Croatian, part Canadian
