Of Pearls and Endless Stairs (A Croatian Birthday)

Kayla wanted to go to somewhere warm for her birthday, so we entered into the Jo Dee Messina territory of flipping a coin to decide on our route. Croatia won.

Croatia, sprawled along the Adriatic Sea near the eastern edge of Europe, has had a long and, at times, tumultuous history, dating way back into the nether region of antiquity. It was just over twenty years ago that the country was on the front pages of international news, as part of its fight for independence from the former Yugoslavia. The United Nations had to set up an ad hoc tribunal in the nearby Hague to deal with war criminals during the Yugoslav Wars, of which the Croatian War (the so-called Homeland War) was a part, and in which 20,000 people were killed. A brutal page from Croatian history, but one where Croatian independence was gained in 1995.

The country now enjoys a peaceful existence along the Mediterranean, with the city of Dubrovnik earning its reputation as the Pearl of the Adriatic, at the very narrow southern tip and less than five kilometres from the border of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We flew in for the weekend with a grim prospect, however: rain, rain, and more rain in the forecast.

Kayla told me that I had too much Newfoundlander in my DNA, because I maintained optimism all week that the forecast would change. Maybe it’s got less to do with optimism, and more to taking any weather forecast with a healthy grain of salt. As we touched down on the rocky coastline on Thursday afternoon, though, there were more than a few breaks in the clouds.

The shuttle bus from Dubrovnik Airport, a smallish airfield, took about half an hour, going alongside the semi-perilous coast and plunging right through the main part of Dubrovnik en route to the hotel. We caught a glimpse of the Old City of Dubrovnik here—a fortified city with its massive wall and stone buildings preserved from its ancient past, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979 and an absolute splendor in the early autumn sunshine.

The Old City of Dubrovnik lies within the enclosure of the city walls, but the city itself spans along the coast, sandwiched between the sea and the mountains. Hotel Adria, our spot for the next three nights, was a healthy distance from the Old City, overlooking an inlet that sees more than its fair share of Mediterranean cruise ships. Even at this time of the year, where a fall chill is still in the low twenties, the streets were crowded with tourists.

I said Hotel Adria overlooked the inlet. When we got dropped off at the bus station, we were level with the water, which meant that we somehow had to climb to the foothills of Srđ, the mountain that rises above the entirety of Dubrovnik.

Since we arrived in Europe, we’ve been using the smartphone app CityMaps2Go, a free app that I can’t say enough good things about. Since I left Toronto in August, I’ve had my phone on Airplane Mode, but I can still access the built-in GPS—CityMaps2Go lets you download maps of major and semi-major cities around the world, with landmarks already programmed in. You get to a new city, and you’ve got a detailed map in your pocket, with a little blue dot telling you where you are the whole time. Gone are the days of being that guy with a fanny pack and a camera around your neck, looking like an idiot at a map the size of a tablecloth.

But since we’ve been using CityMaps2Go, I never saw this symbol on any map before. It was a series of red parallel lines.

Dubrovnik’s nickname might be the Pearl of the Adriatic, but I would also dub it the City of Stairs. We reached the alleyway where we had to start going up, and looked at dismay at the stone staircase ascending between uphill streets and enclosed gardens. By the time we reached the roadway at the top, we counted 490 steps making up the Stairs of Doom.

Remember in Mario 64, when you get caught on the Endless Stairs? Were it not for the glimpses we got of our hotel occasionally, I would have thought we were in the same predicament.

Foolishly, we vowed we’d never climb those stairs again. Except that the office where we could get our Dubrovnik Cards—a three-day entrance to the city walls, museums, and a bus pass—was closed, since Thursday happened to be Independence Day in Croatia. So, after we’d checked into our room and decided to go pick up a few things at the grocery store, we had no choice but to trudge right back up after enjoying some of the views at the lower elevations.

The room we got at Hotel Adria included dinner and breakfast, which we figured would be a bit of a Godsend, even if the food wasn’t great. Enough to sustain up for the main meals of the day and we’d be best kind—and more than a few reviews didn’t have great things to say about the meals, so that was all we were really expecting. We were ushered into the dinning room on Thursday evening, and treated to a buffet of salad, soup, pork, pasta, chicken, potatoes, and other nibbles, more than enough to satiate us.

As the sun set behind the cloudy horizon, we got an early night, not knowing if we’d need shorts or rubber boots come the morning.

Friday, October 9

The only clouds in the sky were the wispy, lazy summer kind. After a buffet breakfast, we set off for the Old City in the early morning, taking a city bus with actual wooden seats that felt like it was bound for somewhere exotic.

Ragusium, the original name of the settlement in this area, likely dates back to the sixth century. A centre for maritime trade, it grew into the city-state of the Dubrovnik Republic, building up the fortifications around its borders and making considerable advances for such a small state, including its own legislation, one of the world’s first orphanages, and a pharmacy in the monastery that remains the oldest active pharmacy in Europe—medicine has come a ways in 700 years, but they’ll still fill your prescriptions within the city walls. A Rector was the symbol of authority in those days, elected for a one-month term, with a Rector’s Palace in between the imposing façades of cathedrals.

A stroll through the Old City is like a picturesque walk back in time, with the slightly annoying addition of tourists every step of the way. Granted, I guess that’s all we were too. It’s a funny thing, that with our buffet meals and focus on Dubrovnik’s top attractions, we never got any insight into the real Croatian experience. In a city like this, that is so entirely dependent on tourism to sustain itself, it’s a job to say what is the authentic Croatian experience anymore.

A stroll through the Old City is also a lot like a walk through King’s Landing, the capital of Westeros in Game of Thrones. That’s because Dubrovnik was the backdrop for the HBO series—we stopped at a few actual locations during our trip, but the city vibe itself, with the stone edifices and row upon row of orange rooftops, offered the overall impression of the place, even if you ended up in an anonymous alleyway that no camera actually captured.

Our first view of the Old City came from slightly above, and the vantage point of the city walls. On a gorgeous day, this was a sensory experience, just gazing into the organized chaos of Dubrovnik. Everything in the Old City branches out from the wide avenue of Stradun, a whitewashed stone passageway lined with ancient building hosting contemporary souvenir stalls. 

Those branches are twisty passageways crammed with buildings and stairways in unlikely spots, and from the city walls you got a sense of how much is happening inside such a contained space.

The walk along the walls is about two kilometres, passing by 16 towers, 6 bastions, 3 forts, and more than a few long steep plunges into the crystal clear water below. 

I swear that the view of the city got better as the walk wore on, as though the best angles were saved for the end of the trip. I don’t know how the original architects could have possibly foreseen that, but I’m glad they did.

Near to the end, we passed by Minčeta, the largest round tower at one corner of the wall. When Daenerys is looking for her stole dragons in season two and circles the House of the Undying, this tower served as that really weird place.

Now, you can walk around the whole thing, and rather than get stuck in a loop, you can enter the fortress and climb out, getting yet another jaw-dropping view of the protected interior of the city. After a long trek through Europe, it was also here that Kayla finished her rendition of one of her favourite silly Newfoundland songs.

Thanks for the birthday wishes, my darling friends and family! Here's the end of the song (finally!)-- from the historic Old City of Dubrovnik, Croatia. We walked along the 2km walls and saw the most incredible views. A lovely way to spend a birthday. Sending this one out to my wonderful momma, Wanda... if I was home today, I dare say this song would be playing on "This One's For You" and I'd be dancing around the kitchen while she cooked dinner. Love you, Mom!
Posted by Kayla Carroll on Sunday, October 11, 2015

As we descended back into the Old City, we decided that we hadn’t had enough impressive views of Dubrovnik, and opted to take a cable car to the top of Mount Srđ.

It isn’t just an impressive view and restaurant at the top—there also stands Fort Imperial, dating back to Napolean’s occupation here in 1810. This spot also happened to be a stronghold during the Homeland War, and a stone cross on top of the mountain is actually a post-war restoration and memorial, after the original cross was destroyed in that war.

We got to have a nice look, on the panoramic deck, at the beautiful sea and city beneath us, and in all other directions the rocky tail of Croatia.

Before we headed down, we lounged in the sun at the Panorama Restaurant and Bar, for a burger and a beer. A word to the wise: the only time you’ll ever pay this much for a burger is if, in the drive through at McDonald’s, you’re too eager for your Big Mac and end up dinging the car in front of you. Whatever, it’s not everyday you get a view like this, as refreshed by the Adriatic Sea breeze as the glistening local beer.

After an inordinate amount of time waiting in a line to take the cable car back down the mountain, we wandered through the Old City itself, stopping to take in a few of the key landmarks: the Church of St. Blaise, with the eponymous patron saint looking down on you from his high perch atop the building; Orlando’s Column, a 1418 sculpture of Charlemagne’s nephew symbolizing the freedom and independence of the city; the pillared archway of the Rector’s Palace; and the Dubrovnik Cathedral, hosting one of the most uniquely stylized versions of the Stations of the Cross that I’ve ever seen in any church.

Seriously though, the entire city was just a delight—a true place to get lost for an afternoon and be perfectly contented doing so. In between the staircases and the stray cats, there’s a lot of beauty to be found in the simple streets that have seen so much life and human movement throughout the centuries, a survivor of the Homeland War and a massive earthquake in 1667 that has hung onto the forgotten histories with a resilience you don’t see in many places.

By the late afternoon, we figured it was time to amble back to our hotel—Kayla took a less-than-delicate tumble on one of those aforementioned stairways earlier that day (there are few things you want to hear from a stranger in a crowded space less than “She’s lucky she didn’t break her leg!”), and after a full day on our feet, it was time to put them up and rest. The hotel had a Jacuzzi, which was a nice addition, except for the fact that the water was tepid, not hot. Still, we felt sufficiently relaxed as we sat down for supper, and called it another early evening in Dubrovnik.

Saturday, October 10

Today was closer to the weather we were expecting—overcast and rain, not too vicious in the morning, but not quite the dreamy day we had the day before. We started the day at the Rector’s Palace, now a museum in the Old City with relics from the various stages of Dubrovnik’s long history, housed in a building that was a museum in and of itself, making up the judicial chambers and the jail cells all in one.

One of the cool displays in the Rector’s Palace were the original Green Men from the bell tower at the end of the Stradun—two bronze statues of soldiers, Maro and Baro, who loyally struck the bell every hour for hundreds of years, before a well-earned retirement in the Rector’s Palace.

The crowds thinned out considerably when the rain started in earnest. I feel bad for anyone who had only a day in Dubrovnik and it ended up being like that one—the only solace, I guess, is that they wouldn’t realize what they’re missing.

Kayla ended up heading back to the hotel in the early afternoon for a birthday pampering at the hotel spa (it’s a rough life), and I ended up wandering to Fort Lovrijenac, an impossing stone outcrop separated from the Old City walls by a small inlet of water. This high-walled fortress, with its sheer edges plunging into the Adriatic, was key in the fortification of Dubrovnik, the so-called Dubrovnik Gibraltar. It was also nearly impossible to find the entrance to, and is only accessible by a narrow stairway rising up from the side of the lapping water.

At the base also sits a small quay, and this was the spot where Sansa, Shae, and Peter Baelish shared a scene. Most of these things are incredibly un-incredible, and actually require looking at them at just the right angle to see how post-production turned them into the polished world of Game of Thrones, but there you have it.

I also ducked into the Dubrovnik Natural History Museum. The three-floors of displays were mostly simple collections, with a particular emphasis on sea-life around Dubrovnik, although there were some big highlights. Like this photography display of Hungarian photographer Nikola Rahmé, of insects from real close.

There were also some mesmerizing hanging spheres of shells from all sorts of strange mollusks, and a chance to get up close and personal to a gigantic turtle. Not an awful spot to spend a rainy afternoon.

Once I struck the right ratio of corners left unturned to soaking feet, I made my way back to the hotel, settled away—and realized that, since the weather had effectively put a damper on our original plan of going out to a Dubrovnik club to celebrate Kayla’s birthday, we would need more chips and beer.

Back down the Stairs of Doom . . . and back again.

The lightning started sometime after we were settled away for the night—maybe not the wildest Croatian night there ever was, but not a bad one, just the same.

Sunday, October 11

Happy birthday! Four years ago, I was on the other side of Europe, decorating Kayla’s Harlow dorm door with birthday messages and cone-shaped hats. Look at how far we’ve come.

Sunday was a transitory day, moving from the hotel to the bus station to the airport, through the slowest passport line at Schiphol Airport, and back to Amstelveen ragged, tired, grumpy, and more than a little bit surprised at how crisp the air was here in the Netherlands. I absolutely loved Dubrovnik—in terms of pure aesthetics, it might be my favourite city. Like, ever. But still, I was ready to get back to reality. It doesn’t matter how long you go for, there’s almost a pent-up anticipation about being back in familiar settings that causes you to almost collapse when you get home. Thankfully, it doesn’t have the kind of pull that causes you to be completely complacent.

We shared a cupcake before bed, ending a fabulous birthday weekend at the edge of an unknown world, and starting another year in a strange state of flux. I don’t think either one of us would have had it any other way though, relishing the virtues of a life on the move, and returning from the Pearl of the Adriatic with polished memories to keep shining as we continue on whatever weird and wonderful path we’re on. That, and sore calves.

Cheers,
rb