Dubrovnik #3

Everywhere you look in Dubrovnik there is limestone. Most buildings are made of it and all of the sidewalks are laid with it. Most of it has been polished smooth by foot traffic, and can be bright and shiny in the sun or slick and shiny in the rain. Over the course of several days we regularly passed a fish market and then a flower market, and later in the day when the vendors were cleaning up the hoses would be dragged out to spray the markets clean. After a day of shoppers grinding scraps under their feet, it didn't seem to take much at all for the markets to sparkle again in the pale, warm colors of the limestone.

    

    

Dubrovnik #2

Dubrovnik is saturated with heavy, damp air filled with smells. Wind whipping in off the Adriatic carries salty mist and that scent of sea which doesn't quite go as far as fishiness. The wind rushing down off the high ridge behind the city brings pine, lavender, rosemary and sage. The planters along the sidewalks and between traffic lanes are filled with the silvery herbs. Occasionally a septic problem or exhaust would punch through the perfume. The wind, however, had a way of constantly scrubbing the odors if never clearing the humidity. 

  

  

Dubrovnik #1

Funneling down the ferry ramp to the dock in Dubrovnik, we could see the same crowd we'd encountered in train stations elsewhere in Eastern Europe gathered around waving their laminated signs and hawking the rooms on offer. All of their signs had an image of the room they would like to rent to us or a map showing how close to town their place is. 

This time of year, when the ferry arrival only happens twice a week, the event must take on more urgency for these people. The ones that hadn't snared a departing passenger by the time we were squeezing through would say "Do you need a room? I've got one very cheap!" And when we'd gotten through this gauntlet and made it across the street, a couple of them spotted us taking out our map and came after us with the same questions, and wanting to compete with the place we supposedly already reserved. 

    

    

Coastal ferry daydreaming

Some time during the night I realized the ship began groaning more forcefully and frequently lurching. Early in the dawn we were woken up by our wine bottle being knocked off the tiny desk and onto the floor by one sudden jarring of the metal ship hull. After we'd gotten up I could see that we were passing alternately between long islands and out to sea. While we were on the seaward side of the islands the waves were much bigger, naturally, and the ship's movements weren't coinciding with my insides'. A half of a dramamine calmed things down, but so did the ship's accelerating speed. It soon became apparent that the captain was ramming our boat through the rougher waters, and when I looked at where we'd been sailing overnight, I realized that our noisy, rattling sleep was certainly preferable to the nauseous one it could have been. 

A free breakfast came with our cabin tickets, and we made it to the on-board restaurant just in time to dish up our plates from the buffet, and then watch the crew take it down while we ate. Jen had a bowl of cereal with milk that had long ago come to room temperature. I was jealous. The water was separating from my scrambled egg curds and the jelly was balling up as I tried to spread it on my toast. I really can't blame the ship, however, since there couldn't have been more than a few cabins occupied on the ship that night.

  

  

The rest of the day was spent alternately getting lost in thought, reading with cappuccinos, and being so overwhelmed by the scenery we'd stand out in the blustery wind until it wore down our skin. As the hours passed, we drifted in and out of the straights between the islands. The mountainous ridges rising straight out of the sea were mostly wild and forested, and the lines exposing the layers of bedrock arched steeply down into the earth's crust. Over time, small stone villages with uniformly red roofs would drift momentarily into view, clinging to the edge of the land. Occasionally we'd spot a small church high up a mountainside, a clue that roads must snake along them somehow.

At one point in the afternoon the ship was backing into a port, and we went out onto the deck in time to see a tall and compact village easing toward us. Korcula is surrounded by a partial wall from the middle ages that is so high I felt like I could help someone aboard from it. I later read in the Rough Guide to Croatia that if you don't go to the island of Korcula, and you see it from the ferry as it makes a stop there, you'll immediately regret it. I suppose I should've read ahead, but the trip wouldn't have been long enough, and anyway Dubrovnik was only three hours away.

 

 

 

Adriatic at night

There were very few people aboard the Marco Polo the night we departed. After dropping our stuff off in our cabin (a budget version, with two bunks and a bench), we went to the top deck to watch Rijeka recede away after the ship's horns sounded. On deck there was a small family in flapping windbreakers and a guy talking on his cellphone to someone on shore. -I could tell because when we were too far to see people anymore he stood up on the railing and waved his scarf. 

After a while we set about exploring the ship. Over the cavernous vehicle bay were two or three floors of narrow halls lined with cabins. On top of this was a floor with a duty free shop holding liquor, a large brightly lit room with tables and chairs with a few people spread out reading or snacking, and a large dark lounge with a bar, comfortable banquettes, chairs and a couple TVs. 

A few more people were spread out here, chatting quietly, reading or playing cards. I sat there with a Campari and the Rough Guide to Croatia and after a while noticed that a number of people had staked out large quiet corners of the place to spread out their sleeping bags. 

I somewhat regretted spending the extra money for the cabin, as we had slept fine in the lounge several years ago on an overnight ferry in Newfoundland. I guess I'd been influenced by what I'd previously read regarding the large numbers of people traveling along this coast, but hadn't realized how much it drops off this time of year. 

Oh, well. The cabin did allow us a shower, and more privacy to snack on the bread, chocolate and wine we'd bought at the grocery store. 

The glaring lights of the outdoor deck made the sea look empty and black. However, the waves outside our small cabin window, gently lit by the glow off the side of the ship, were even more haunting. Here we could actually see how black the mystery is beyond the foamy green turmoil on the surface.

Time enough for the korso

It became obvious that Rijeka is a port city as soon as we got off the train. The station was surrounded by a large series of silos, presumably storing grain from inland fields before it's loaded onto mediterranean ships. The city, surrounded on three sides by steep hills sparkling with lights, sits at the upper end of Kvarner Gulf along the eastern Adriatic Sea. The warm humid air filled our lungs thickly, a formal announcement that we had entered a new climate.

It seems that in all mediterranean countries, the evening korso, or promenade, is ritualized to the point that at least a few main pedestrian streets in the heart of any town fill with socializing strollers of all ages on any given evening. We had a few hours to kill before our ferry would be heading down the coast, 

so we joined them here for a while before grabbing a pizza and stopping for groceries for the 20-hour trip ahead of us. 

The Ljubljana-Rijeka Line

It was a short two and a half hours by train through Slovenia down to the Croatian port city of Rijeka. The two cars pulled by the engine were barely full and it seemed like most of the passengers were people who'd spent the day in Ljubljana and were going home to small villages in the countryside. 

The scenery lives up to what I'd read about Slovenia being one of the most forested countries in Europe. The leaves were well on their way to their fall peak as large areas of bright yellow mixed in with dark hills covered in pines. Tidy terra cotta-roofed villages took on an alpine look as we wound our way through the hilly Karst region, crossing into Croatia at dusk and descending to the Adriatic coast in the dark.

   

Hybrid Slovenia

  
 

The morning we woke up in Ljubljana was chilly and drizzly. Once we realized we hadn't yet withdrawn any Euros to check out of our hostel we set out along the Ljubljanica River through the center of the small city to find a bank. The dragons of Zmajski Most (Dragon Bridge) looked a little less threatening in the cool grey light of the morning. 

  

The architecture throughout the Old Town appeared to me as a graceful mixture of Baroque and Art Nouveau (which here I will assume reflects the Austrian influence brought by centuries of Habsburg rule) along with the Mediterranean red terra cotta roofs and high frequency of Pietas (which I think I can assume reflect Slovenia's position next to Italy at the southern edge of Europe). The stretch of town on our way out to the train station was sprinkled with taller modern glass and concrete buildings, and from the vantage point of the Ljubljana Castle, situated on a high bluff in the center of the city, we could see the  concrete apartment blocks typical of formerly communist countries repeating themselves out in the suburbs.

  

A large number of nuns on the streets was immediately noticeable (I had already counted eight by the time we reached an ATM). A second obvious element of city life here is the number of bicycles flying in all directions. I do see a lot more of those on the streets and sidewalks of Budapest compared with New York, but their ubiquity here jumped out at me (and almost over me a few alarming times).

  

The large market at Vodnikov Trg was filled with everything from bananas and beeswax candles to enormous amounts of flowers. The side streets of the Old Town are filled with expensive, stylish boutiques and outdoor cafes with hip waiters balancing trays of cappuccinos. The grey wet weather, however, seemed to maintain a strict mitteleuropean catholic rule over the city that lasted all day.

   

    

Ljubljana, 2:12 AM

The few train passengers who disembark with us in Ljubljana quickly disappear into the night. We walk past the few taxis waiting at the station and find ourselves in a seemingly deserted, quiet city. In planning our trip and seeing the 2AM arrival time, we'd been tempted to camp out behind a monument somewhere for the four hours until dawn, but we erred on the side of caution and reserved a room in a hostel. It was surely a relief now that we were here since it was 1-degree Celsius/34-degrees Fahrenheit outside! 

After ten minutes walking the dim streets to the Ljubljanica River, we were greeted by the dragons of the Zmajski Bridge. The Ljubljana Castle glowed purple in the distance, floating over the city in the darkness.

Train to Ljubljana

The scene on the Venezia line: blankets, socks, water bottles, jackets, a guidebook sitting on an empty seat, sandwiches wrapped in paper, bottle of beer, limp duffel bag, crammed suitcases, woman gets up and walks into the next car, returns to grab a small bag and leaves again, train eases into a nameless station with one dim lamp glowing, then accelerates on into the night. Train stops for a while, engine shuts down, border guards work their way down the aisle, pistol strapped to belt, checking passports, asking questions, stamping passports and moving on while another is checking behind each of the ceiling panels, moving his stepladder a few feet at a time until he's done with our car and on to the next. Eventually, the train moves on into Croatia. In Zagreb: many people grabbing handfuls of duffels and dispersing out into the orange glow of the station dock. Those of us left on board spread out into the empty seats... lights go out, scarves and jackets pulled over faces, train moves on into the night. Another stop, a new set of border guards in a new shade of blue uniform, new set of questions, another stamp. The train eases forward another three hours to Ljubljana...