Zalman on the Go!: Croatia. 3.5 million population at home

So Croatia wasn’t on our bucket list, but it certainly should have been. We spent today in Dubrovnik - just within the walls of the old city and that was more than I could absorb in one day.

Croatia has a population of 3.8 million living in the country but with some 5 million Croatians living abroad. The city of Dubrovnik has 30k with about 49k in the area. Tourism has become big with more than 2 million visitors last year. New measures to control crowds and over tourism have had to be implemented. I guess if I had ever watched Game of Thrones I might have known. The show had a huge impact on the economy.

Kids start English in 1st grade so communication was not an issue. And we are here during the off season so there were no crowds although that also meant very few store and cafes were open in the old city. There is a population of about 1000 that live within the walls. We were not going to complain about the lack of crowds! It was nice to see a real community - including seeing the laundry hanging from the windows.

“Dubrovnik is a medieval city with a medieval infrastructure, street network and – most important – the medieval city walls. On the other hand, most of its public spaces and public buildings are examples of the Baroque. The reason is that most of the buildings that we see today in Dubrovnik were built after the great earthquake of 1667. The earthquake destroyed almost everything, only the walls remaining almost untouched, being of such massive and solid construction. After the great earthquake almost the entire town was rebuilt and Dubrovnik is not one of those cities with a particular unified style. style. In some Italian cities you will find more perfect examples of Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture, but not the whole package. In Dubrovnik, the whole package is more important than its parts”

from: https://www.godubrovnik.com/bloggers/majestic-architecture-of-dubrovnik-when-old-

To expand on Melanie’s musings with the help of wickapedia:

The city probably dates to the 7th century, when the town known as Ragusa was founded by refugees from Epidaurum (Ragusa Vecchia). It was under protectorate of the Byzantine Empire and later the sovereignty of the Republic of Venice. Between the 14th and 19th centuries, Dubrovnik ruled itself as a free state. Its prosperity was historically based on maritime trade; as the capital of the maritime Republic of Ragusa, it achieved a high level of development, particularly during the 15th and 16th centuries, as it became notable for its wealth and skilled diplomacy.

The city was almost destroyed in a devastating earthquake in 1667. During the Napoleonic Wars, Dubrovnik was occupied by the French Empire forces, and then the Republic of Ragusa was abolished and incorporated into the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy and later into the Illyrian Provinces of France. In the early 19th to early 20th century, Dubrovnik was part of the Kingdom of Dalmatia within the Austrian Empire. Dubrovnik became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia immediately upon its creation, and it was incorporated into its Zeta Banovina in 1929, before becoming part of the Banovina of Croatia upon its creation in 1939. During World War II, it was part of the Axis puppet state Independent State of Croatia, before being reincorporated into Socialist Republic of Croatia in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Confused yet?

Enough with the history lesson. We arrive at the gates:

The old city had two gates. East and West with a monastery at each. Each night and morning with great pomp the doors were locked and the key was given to the governor for safe keeping overnight. Oh, and the governor served for only one month, could not leave the palace other than to receive the keys. The thinking was that didn’t give anyone opportunities to be bribed.

To the west were the Franciscans who provided medical care and there we visited Europes oldest continuously open pharmacy from the 1300’s.

Scenes from the monastery. The ancient well provided water for the community during droughts. The little depressions in the right top quarter are courtesy of the Nepoleonic soldiers who made them to water their horses while they used part of the monastery for a stable. The setting made us feel like we walked onto Dylan’s campus at Scripps.

This was clearly a walled city and David paid extra for the honor of walking the 2 kilometers and 1300 steep steps to circumnavigate it.They began to build the walls around these walls around the year 1200. By the 15th century the walls were 6 meters (~20 ft) thick. They did survive that earthquake.

But as I said there were only two gates. That changed when Napoleon’s French arrived. Besides alterations to stable their horses they cut a gate to the north at the end of this street.

This is the street to the North gate. You can see how narrow the side streets are. Also look at the roof line. There was a strict building code on these streets - no matter what your wealth. The ground floor was considered commercial space, the next two floors up were where you lived and the top floor (because of fire risk) was for the kitchen. They built this gate so the mucky mucks could go out to play tennis

(yes seriously)

If we were in hi season you’d only see bodies of tourists:

On the west were the Dominicans whose building actual became the western part of the wall for the western gate.

Dominican church above survived earthquake and is currently being restored.

There are number of bell towers. This Venetian style bell tower was by the Dominican Monastery. You can see two bells, and the hand only shows the hour. Below that is a black and white globe that shows the phase of the moon. The two black squares below that a a 32st century addition.

So the bells would ring in the hour. But they had to ring them again 5 minutes later to get people to actually move. (finish their conversation, put down their coffee etc.. This is still done . Melanie likes this system.

We found the Jewish street and the second oldest Sephardic synagogue in Europe (after Prague) The Jews came from Spain and Portugal during the inquisition. There was a Jewish Street- a defacto ghetto but the tradespeople interacted with the town.

Unfortunately the synagogue museum was closed ( although the gift shop was open)

Enough already with the history. Here are some pictures from up on the wall.

Check out this railing and the details on the little columns above. Most important detail is the height above the floor where the column starts. The needed that ‘barrier” to hide the ankles of woman walking down the stairs