|
|
Debra's
Diary ~ May , 2008
Dubrovnik is a jewel - it really is. When your airport
shuttle bus takes you around the corner on the coast road and you
get your first glimpse of it, it is breathtaking. It
disappears again with the bends in the roads, and then there
it is again, and now you are ready for it. I had seen
the photographs of those tightly-packed terracotta roofs
against that gorgeous sea, like most people, for years, but
somehow you can't quite believe that it really is as beautiful
as the photos - believe it. I was excited about the
coming shoot - Maja in the Tourist Office had done a great job
and we were all set with our interviews - the sun was shining,
the sea was perfect, what could go wrong? Well, the
worst possible thing really. Dave lost his
passport. On the first day, right there in the bus
turnaround, just outside the city walls. Must have been
there, as we didn't discover it until we had taken another bus
and arrived at our hotel in Lapad. Through the bus
windows we saw the new harbour - Gruz - and in it one of the
restored Argosy galleons in full sail - what a magnificent
sight it was - all you needed was the cannons blazing and you
could be right back in the Ragusan Empire days. Except
they didn't have diesel buses. They did have Police
Stations then, complete with dungeons, but we stayed on the
ground floor of the one we had to go to, to report the loss of
the passport. We could have made an entertaining short
documentary in the Police Station alone. We sat on
plastic chairs against the wall in the lobby, opposite the
glassed-in office, speaking not one word of Croatian, and
waited our turn. An altercation was taking place (in the
lobby) which seemed to have captured the attention of every
police officer in the place. A man and a woman, plus
another man in sports gear, were fiercely arguing, apparently
referee'd by a policeman who bore more than a passing
resemblance to the Hood in Thunderbirds, surrounded by no less
than five other policemen at any one time. Everyone
smoked, the Hood nodding sagely a lot of the time, and as the
spectating policemen ebbed and flowed, each in turn would add
their comments, watched in fascination by us and boredom by
the desk officer, behind the glassed-in counter.
Eventually the Hood threw down his cigarette dramatically,
ground it out with the heel of his shoe, and then spoke at
length and presumably eloquently, with attendant hand
gestures. No-one interrupted, and then the five
policemen wandered off, the man and the woman and the
sportsman trailed off, and the bored policeman at the desk put
his cigarette out, got up and came out of his office and
approached us to ask in perfect English what we wanted.
We
met Maja at the cafe on Luza Square - it has been a meeting
place in Dubrovnik for decades, and everyone knows it.
From the terrace you can watch the steady stream of people
strolling the shiny pavement of the Stradun. Maja was a
mature professional, and had that easy efficiency that only
decades in her profession and skin can achieve, so we planned
the interview with her boss the next morning, and she
commiserated with us over the loss of the passport, and
instantly organised an appointment with the Honorary British
Consul in Dubrovnik, Sara. The thing about Dubrovnik Old
Town is that it is an inhabited monument, so everyone knows
everyone else (like Venice, its main maritime rival).
Sara was a seasoned professional as well, and once she and Dave
discovered a mutual employment history at the BBC, we spent a
very enjoyable hour reminiscing about live TV and the
behind-the-scenes experiences. Both Sara and Maja were
convinced the passport would be handed in, so although Maja
arranged for Dave to have passport photos taken and he filled
in paperwork, Sara said she would not issue the temporary
passport until the end of the week, to give it time for it to
be handed in. Knowing this was unlikely we left the
Consulate and determined to put it behind us and concentrate
on the job in hand. We did a recce of the town.
Next
morning it was windy - fairly sunny but very windy. The
spot where we had chosen to do the interview was perfect to
show the harbour as a backdrop to our speaker, who only had an
hour. There was no time to move to somewhere else, so we
interviewed poor Jelke, the Director of Tourism in Dubrovnik,
in something just short of a howling gale. Then we were
free to let loose with the camera. If you do nothing
else in Dubrovnik, you should traverse the city walls.
They are totally intact, and the views are panoramic and
wonderful. The sea is so clear, so blue (almost
turquoise) and you can lean on a parapet and just sink into
the history of the place. Although no longer
called Ragusa, or an independent maritime Republic that
rivalled Venice, the sense of being in a unique place is
really there.
The
Restoration after the Homeland War in the early nineties is superb, flawless even, and it was meant to
be. Whereas Wawel Castle in Krakow decided to leave its
repairs visible, Dubrovnik has restored and replaced almost
completely without sign. The patina on the old roof
tiles cannot be immediately reproduced, of course, but the
masonry has been re-sculpted and replaced seamlessly. We
spent a fascinating several hours with the Director of the
Institute for Restoration - Mrs. Jemo - learning about how and
why the restoration was so exact. St. Blaize, the patron
saint of the city, was always painted with a model of the city
in his hands, which served as a perfect blue-print for the
city fathers when they re-constructed the city after the first
earthquake in 1667, 1979 and after the Homeland War in
1991.
The
Croatians' pride in their city is not just civic duty, it is
really heartfelt. They can become misty-eyed talking
about it and the longer you are exposed to it, the more you
feel protective of it too. The city is spotless; a lot
of people smoke but there are no cigarette butts squashed on
the shiny pavement, no litter. Children whizz about on
their bikes and play football where they can, and only seem to
appear at dusk, rather like Venice, when the cruise ship
tourists have left and they can take back their city for
themselves. There are a lot of cruise ships; if you get
four or five anchored in either harbour, that could mean
20,000 people throughout the day disgorging into a pocket-sized medieval city. There are plans afoot to try to limit the number
of ships arriving in a day to three, which should help the
congestion. But if it is busy in the city, there are
other places to go - we walked from Lapad, and although part
of the walk is beside the road, lots of it isn't and there are
few tourists on secluded beaches. Lapad is frequently
served by buses (we used numbers 4 and 6) and there are always
taxis, as well as Shank's pony. The beaches are nice,
and there are always boat trips to the islands. In fact,
taking one is a good way to get a perspective on the city
walls - from the sea, they look impregnable, and you can
imagine how important that image was to medieval mercenaries
who fancied their chances on a raid.
We
were wrong - Sara and Maja were right; the passport was handed
in (has to be the most honest city we've ever been to) and we
made another trip to the same Police Station to retrieve
it. On the way, I heard the first hint from Dave that
the losing of the passport might just conceivably be my fault
(as I was holding the offending jacket between buses), which I
hotly disputed, probably to anyone who spoke English's
amusement. The Police Station clearly is the setting for
spirited debate. On our last day (still speaking) we
took a boat trip to the island of Lokrum, and climbed the hill
to the ruin of the Napoleonic tower (it was Napoleon who
gained entrance to the city through trickery, and then
promptly abolished the Republic) to look back on the city from
the old harbour side. I know it's been said before, but
it really is the Pearl of the Adriatic.
Post
a
comment:
blog
your experience
in
Dubrovnik
E-mail
Debra at:
grindelwald_prods@lycos.com
|