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| Page Views: 492 | 2002-06 Croatia: Slano & Dubrovnik Summary by edwis - last update: Aug 1, 2009 |
Slano ( combined summaries of several years)
“J” and “C”’s place is in a little town in a secluded bay area called Slano, about 35 miles from Dubrovnik, Croatia’s popular tourist and main historic city. Slano is a sleepy little town of about 200 people and it is like going back in time. Croatia (and Slano) is still the country where the little old ladies come to the market each morning with their woven baskets for their daily staples. This was fun to watch as I sipped my morning cappuccino in ‘downtown’ Slano. Some days we had the ever popular meat/cheese in a warm freshly baked flaky crust ‘burek’, for a late morning snack. They usually come in a brown wrapping paper and you find somewhere to sit and eat it. This is always a creative and messy proposition no matter how you try to eat one.
Their house in Slano, which is always in a state of restoration, started out from a war damaged bombed out shell with its block and stone walls. Of course now has turned into be quite the place. It is only about 4000 sq ft! - Complete with marble floors and terraces overlooking the water. The harbor never has a wave because it is in a sheltered bay, so it is like a giant lake. The water there is the clearest and most colorful we have ever seen. A local guy was telling us about the stonework used on “J’s” house. It came from some famous island / area near there (briach?) and it is the same stone that was used building the American White House. Their kitchen which was finished on the year two visit is a work of art. One of “C”’s cousins is a wood worker, and he hand made cherry wood cabinets which includes a spectacular floor to ceiling wine rack. We learned one side was to be used for the whites and the other for reds. They got a great European washing machine, nicknamed the ‘boiler’, for it takes about 2 ½ hours of time and it just boils out those white clothes, and never a stain remains.
We heard some interesting tales about purchasing property in Croatia. Not quite the same as it is in the States. Much of the bureaucracy process and then the financial transactions require a bit of trust, patience and having a hopeful spirit. We were told that buying a property in Croatia may involve a house deal where the land may not be included in the sale. Then it could be that the entire house may not be included in the sale or that the government must give approval for any expansion, which they all require. Of course more common is that there may not be a clear title to the property. And as “J” and “C” found out with their house purchase, there may not be open access to the property. What they thought was a free driveway up to there house, was actually owned by neighbors. It took months of gaining trust, smooching, and gift giving before a free and open access into their property was realized.
Our first time there, the kitchen was not quite ready yet, so all food cooking took place in the rear yard on a beautiful stone fireplace. The running water was also in the back, so cleanup and dishes were handled in an outdoor sink. They acquired a rack device which holds a whole prosciutto leg they get for each summer, and one just shaves off slices as needed. Of course the proscuitto was a purchased at a local farmstead.
“J” and “C”, who obviously love food and preparing meals, always outdo themselves. Using the outdoor grill with some special olive wood burning, having a whole fresh fish that “J” caught that morning, or fresh fish we picked up at the fishermen’s’ market, is always such a treat. Once “J” caught an octopus in his netting/box traps so we had a fresh octopus salad that night. This was served with fresh beans, bream, and crepes for dessert. Oh the good simple life in Croatia keeps calling me! Every item is always so fresh and the people pride themselves of their local products. You go to the market each day, go to the bakery each day, and picked up what you need for only that night’s meal. Such a nice lifestyle and who wouldn’t like it? |
The routine at “J”s is always great – so relaxing We’d wake each day and walk about 3 blocks along the beach/water into “downtown” Slano (which is about 6 shops together); have a morning cappuccino, then go buy bread, cheese, meats, for the mid day snack. Then walk over to the big resort and do beach stuff. Later we’d do some boat activity trip to an island, the city, etc. “J” has fishing cages out in the bay and checks those each day. He also does a lot of spear gun fishing about 20 feet underwater. He wears a weighted belt and hopefully brings home fresh squid and fishes. Sometimes he goes our alone in the boat for one of his fishing events and even I find that a little worrisome.
Quiet time around their house is so pleasant and to be cherished. There is a sea view from all the rooms and just to spend some time reading or sitting outdoors is quite peaceful. Most meals are on the outdoor second floor terrace overlooking the few sailboats in the bay. We were taught that when toasting a round of drinks (salute), you always look at each and every person directly in the eyes as you toast. As “C” would say often, “it’s an old Croatian custom”. She liked to tell me something goofy and then tell me it’s an old Croatian custom.
Each year there seem to be more cars and more tourists than before. The Italians are everywhere on holiday during the summer months. With resort being about 1 mile down the shoreline, the summer months in Slano are quite busy by their standards. “J” & “C”’s homestead comes develops a little better with each year’s new projects; some new landscaping happening on our last visit including some new fragrant lavender plantings taking hold. We enjoy the quiet and peaceful living that Slano presents each day.
Slano opened a new little building called the tourist office recently. After a morning cappuccino in the next door café one day, I stopped in and a young lady was staffing the place. There was a very artsy multi-colored poster in the window that caught my eye. She didn’t speak any English but somehow I convinced her to give me the poster, which she did. We I got back to “J” and “C”’s place and showed them the great memento I acquired, “J” immediately took a walk into ‘downtown’ Slano and went to the tourist office. He asked the girl for a poster speaking Croatian, and she replied that “oh no, we don’t give those out to anyone”. Now there was a business man standing around in front and we figured that he must have been the office supervisor and she was not going to get into any trouble. Jay couldn’t believe I secured a poster and he struck out!
Everything in Croatia is always so fresh.
They take pride in not using preservatives and the resulting taste of peaches, plums, and other items is just wonderful. Imagine tomatoes that taste full of flavor just like when we were young kids. The olive oils are locally grown and produced. When they bring them to the processor, they are given an official ‘certification’ and number ranking of quality, by the state. They always refer to what we call the state as ‘the ministry’. It took me quite a while to catch the meaning of this term ‘ministry’.
“J” would grilled the fish whole, using olive wood, mixed with special charcoal dug out from the hills in nearby Bosnia. I think we had grilled whole fish, with heads and tails, almost every day in Croatia and while around the Adriatic coast. Joan finally learned the proper filleting method along the way. Out of our 12 days in Europe that summer, we ate indoors only once during the entire trip. I think we adjusted quite well to the coastal life. |
The new Masseuse in Slano - The last year over to Slano, there was a new little girl in town named Ivana, who is a trained masseuse who has opened a little shop in Slano, actually one room in her house. “J” had checked her out regularly and when I got there, I had a nice visit with her. Ivana likes to wear very short shorts and small cropped tops all the time. Her massages are pretty good too. “J” had sent me an email prior to the trip over saying he discovered this new masseuse in Slano, but her music selections were just awful for massage therapy. So when I arrived a few weeks later, I brought her some highly rated massage music CDs that I picked up on Amazon. I think “J” got some free massages in exchange for the CDs but he never told me.
She also had some bottles of olive oil for sale at her place. We discovered that they received the highest certification ranking from the ministry this last year. Outside of her little massage business, she had a beautiful garden of giant, juicy red tomatoes, all ready to be eaten.
We walked around the Slano village hills one day and found grape vines, lavender, pomegranates, olive trees for homemade olive oil, and a variety of berries. We also passed several goats walking on the roadway. Little boy Luca liked to walk down by the goats and feed them his cheerios. One summer a new bakery opened in Slano and by the time I got there in the morning, there were about 8 people standing in a line outside to get in. This was a common sight every morning after the Catholic Church service let out. But doing this for a taste of the warm poppy seed apple tort was well worth it. In the true Dalmatian style, we usually began each day in a café with our morning cappuccino.
At home, my morning daily exercise walks are a perfectly timed 35 minute routine which seems all I can handle. But when I am in Slano, walking along the seashore from their house to the old church and back was a 55 minute trip, and probably the shortest walks I did on the trips. The walkway goes along the curved bay, in the shape of a “U”. The little sandy area by the old church has the warmest water area due to some under ground springs action, so this was a favorite place for taking a little dip. |
Dubrovnik is the centerpiece of the area known as the Dubrovnik Riviera. This area shares the cypresses and soft light of neighboring Italy, but not the swarms of tourists. The climate is Mediterranean, and the long, warm days of sunshine result in lush vegetation. Dubrovnik is the most southern city in Croatia, and the most practical way to reach the city is to do so by air. The city of Dubrovnik was laid out in 1292 and the city has become famous for its beautiful walls and streets which remains virtually unchanged to the present day. In the 15th to 17th century the city was a center for intellectuals, writers and thinkers. Tall ramparts surround it and there are only two entrances to the old town which lead to the Stradun, the city's promenade. One of the greatest pleasures for many visitors is to have a drink in one of the nearby cafes and watch the world go by, whilst they themselves are being watched by the city patron, St. Blaise, or Sveti Vlaho as the locals call him. In 1991-1992, the Serbs shelled the city causing considerable damage, but thanks to a massive rebuilding effort has all but erased the visible scars of the war and the old town has been restored to its former beauty.
You can get to Dubrovnik from “J”s either by car 45 min, or 20 min by boat. The whole time there one year, we never even got into “J’s” old Russian car. We went everywhere by boat. The trips into the Dubrovnik for the daily fresh outdoor market were mostly always done via boat. They even took us to town with our luggage and then we took a taxi to the airport from there. The early morning cab ride out to the airport was certainly interesting; the guy pulls up in a Mercedes and opens his trunk, and pulls out a taxi sign and secures it on the roof. On the way to the airport, he pulls off onto a scenic overlook (I thought for sure we were going to get mugged), but he wanted to show us the beautiful views of his city. He talked all about the war damage, and how this building and that one went ‘kaput’. Everything was kaput. You could just sense that he was so very proud of his area.
There certainly still a lot of reminders of the war about ten years ago that Croatia went through. Many of the buildings in Slano have shrapnel holes and several are still just a fired out shell only. The sentiment in the local people will keep these memories alive for many years to come. |
Dubrovnik as a trading city was especially flourishing from the 15th to the 18th century, and was the chief rival to Venice. They say that Dubrovnik had a fleet of 300 ships as late as the 18th century. Many of the achievements and monuments reflect a pretty developed city back into the 1200s.
Dubrovnik has the famous ‘old town’ section
which is a city completely enclosed by a circular wall, no autos allowed. The main streets in old town Dubrovnik have marble tiles; they look like polished floors in an old church. The streets are full of locals and tourists amongst the shops, restaurants, markets, and street musicians. It’s a big tour bus and cruise ship stop. Within the walls of old town there is an old monastery that houses the oldest continuously operating pharmacy in Europe which has been operating since 1317. It is run by the church nuns whose convent is just about that old too. We liked the place for they don’t seem to worry about having a doctor’s prescription all that much. Since the old town is a contained within old stone walls, they have made it possible to walk around the whole circumference up on the top of the walls. Not a walking adventure for the timid, but for a few coins, one can have very nice views of the sea on one side, and the old city’s roof tops on the other.
The last time there, they had “guards” standing at the gates entering the old town. These were little 16-17 year old guys all dressed up in the old time costumes. You knew they were there really just to check out the pretty babes coming and going. I messed around with one and got him smiling pretty good, which I think was against the rules of his position.
One Croat saw “C” with her backpack on the way to our next walking adventure and asked her in Croatian if she ‘was going parachuting today?’ We walked the tops of the walls which circle the old town. It was very hot and I overdid that adventure. It took some recovery time and refreshing water from the fountain.
We saw some bars / stores
where they had giant 12 foot high silver tanks, with a spigot where you bring your own bottles and fill them with wine for 90 cents a liter. We didn’t try it this time. In all three countries, we drank wine as part of the normal daily routine. Usually there was a ½ pitcher for lunch and a full liter for the evening meal. Seemed like the normal routine to follow.
Meals and drink stops in old town were good
I ordered a fish soup Croatian style from the menu. The bowl of broth arrived with a giant prawn with its far reaching antlers reaching out of the bowl which also contained some mussels. WOW!
We sat in one of the sidewalk cafes and had wine spritzers and watched all the stylish and fashionable Italians walking the old town streets. They were always easy to identify. The people walking the streets of Dubrovnik range from the tourists to the highly fashionable younger crowd. A lot of pretty young women all dressed up hang out there, for this is where the social life is good. At evening time, it is not unusual for a couple hundred people to be milling about and walking the marbles streets of old town.
LAPAD PARK |
LAPAD BEACH Down by the beach area in Dubrovnik is a nice little rehabbed neighborhood called Lapad, where we found a park that had about a dozen computers setup outdoors on various tables and it was an outdoor internet park. One day "J" and "C" went to hit some tennis balls in the afternoon and I took little Luca to the park there. They had air inflated jumping houses, a giant inflated slide (his favorite) and lots of climbing things for the kids. By the beach area, they recently installed little changing huts. These are pretty neat for they look like advertising shields, but are shaped as such to allow beach goers to slip between them and change out of their suits. Voila! I was wondering if so many of them are topless anyways, what’s there to hide?
One evening we took the boat for an outing to a jazz club in old town Dubrovnik. It was so pleasant, sitting outdoors with about 200 people at tables, surrounded by old historic and war damaged buildings, listening to live jazz music and just enjoying the simple life. Later we are walking around old town and see a couple of those motorized Segways high tech machines scooting around the marbled streets.
In the city of Dubrovnik, we rode the old city buses to an open market where all the local farmer ladies yell at you as you pass by, to “try this”, “try this”. The bus had pressed wood seats, much unlike the leather seats in Rome. We read in the paper the week after we left that Tom Cruise, actor, came for a surprise visit to Dubrovnik while he was at the Venice Film Festival promoting some film.
Croats have some strong opinions
on others. I figure it must be some kind of identity complex going on. When a fisherman comes in without any catch, he blames the ‘damn Italians’ for coming over and robbing all the fish out of their waters; the Czechs and Hungarians are the worst tourists – they are poor and dopey peasants, for they bring all their own food, and meat, and then park in front of restaurants eating out of their trunks of the cars. But they all do seem to get along with the many German tourists quite well.
Once while walking the old town walls, a lady bumps into “C” knocking a package out from her arm. The lady says something to “C” and “C” responds by calling her a ‘Pollack’. I found that quite amusing. According the Croatians, the French only use one bar of soap, per person, per year (that one may be true). If you mention the Bosnians, you spit as you say it. And then if anything goes wrong; you can always say, “It’s the Italians fault”.
One night there was big soccer match between the two rival sections of the country, all day long everyone was talking about the big game that night. The 30,000 seat stadium was completely sold out. Everyone there is so trusting, house doors being unlocked and in the phone book, “J” said that there is even a listing for babysitters.
Along the way we learned a few basic words to help us get by: adio (bye); molim (please), Hvala (thank you), “Dobardan” (good day), “Dobra tek” (to your health) at meal times, “Pivo” (beer) and then there is “bog” = a Hi / Goodbye greeting to neighbors /family which is actually the same word for ‘god’ - some sort of good feeling greeting / blessings that you wish on your close people.
People would say ‘ya, ya, ya’, in all their conversations and then we started to say it all the time after becoming aware of it. It was always hard to leave such a wonderful, simple lifestyle as we come to love in Croatia; ya, ya, ya. |
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 Comments for edwis about World | | | | |
KiKitC Fri Sep 11, 2009 10:46 UTC
Happy birthday from New Jersey! | johngayton Fri Sep 11, 2009 01:28 UTC
Hi there Ed and a very Happy Birthday to you. Chilean this year! Cheers, John. | goodfish Wed Sep 9, 2009 20:32 UTC
A happy, happy birthday to you, Ed! Had to send early wishes as I'll be traveling on your Natal Day. Will catch up on your fabulous Italy trip when I'm back... Ciao! | Beausoleil Sat Sep 6, 2008 02:02 UTC
Hope you have a terrific birthday this month. You are one year better! Happy Birthday. |
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