Croatia. 3.5 million population at home - 5 million living abroad.

 

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. 

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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  

Began to feel like was walking an Escher painting  

Notice the channel on the left of the picture. Part of ancient aqueduct system bringing water into the town. 

Ok, enough already.  David is worn out 🥱

Thanksgiving day on the Green Lady (Corfu)

Thanksgiving day arrived on Corfu cold and rainy so our touring was limited although we ended the day on  high note. (By the way, we shouldn’t complain about the weather. It’s been absolutely beautiful up until today) The island played critical roles in the defense of what became Europe.  It started around 700bce by the Eritreans and subsequently by the Phoenicians, and as commerce grew they apparently pissed off the folks at Corinth and thus one of the first recorded sea battles occurred. Here’s a link for a condensed history https://www.greeka.com/ionian/corfu/history/ but let it be said they were involved with Athens,  Rome, Byzantium, Venice, France and the British before they were unified with Greece in 1864.  It shows up in the art, the architecture, the food …..

Yes, we prepared our Thanksgiving meal with three others cruise clients supervised by two chefs ( and maybe a couple mimosas. 

And we ended up with:

 

seafood chowder, followed by a fillet mignon with leek soufflé and finished up with a Bailey’s chocolate mousse.   

Oh yes, we had worked up an appetite 

And then an example of East meets West in this Basillica. 

Check out this ceiling. Very unusual for a Greek Orthodox Basilica 

Off to Croatia. 

 

Soda Bay ( Crete )

Today we visited Crete. The island was settled during the Bronze Age bce 3000-1000.  Some call it point zero of western Civilization. In fact Europe was named for the Cretian woman   featured in Zeus’s Abduction of Europa. Oh, Zeus was hidden from his father here as well because Zeus’s father killed the 3 previous babies of his mom.  Oh and Zeus’s nurse maid was a long horned mountain goat called Cornucop.  And when the horn got broken  the horn continued to feed the baby. Thus the cornucopia and your Thanksgiving  tie in.   

https://share.google/images/z6OTAcGWsgsGT71Yj

 You are welcome. 

So leaving the ship we see an amazing port. Lot of people settled here - Minoans, Phoenicians. Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, Venetians ( not necessarily in that order). The harbor where we docked was constructed by the Venetians - the lighthouse is on a Venetian base with an Ottoman addition of a Minarette style tower. 

The port and its buildings were subsequently redone by each subsequent society. 

Before the port there was a wall. Here is part of the wall from the Minoan period which separated the town from the shire. The current city actually had to buy some properties from residents so they could expose more of this 3000 year old wall.

Door from the Venetian period.  We saw how the art morphed depending on who was in power. 

The well dressed Cretian was always armed. 

Materials from old Greek temples were used in building walls- note the cylinders : parts of Greek columns.

And in the center of the old city was the fountain. Fed by a dug aqueduct which ran under the street bringing fresh water from the hills. 

This would have been the home of a well healed shopkeeper with the store on the street and the residence upstairs. Now repurposed for tourists. 

Going back to the Bronze Age (3300-1200 BCE0 of the Minoans they had devised a system of banking - banking goods rather than currency.  Below are some Bronze Age remains of the “banks’.  To validate ownership they used seals: could be rings, amulets etc to verify identity by pressing the seal into wax document. 

 

Below is believed to be the building (remains of) depicted in the seal above.  The man pictured was the ‘owner’ of the identity.  This one is quite integrate.  They could also be just a design. 

And to prevent the entire area from having no modern commercial purpose structures are often built over the sites. 

The Ventians had huge buildings on the water to do ship repair:

“The need for the Venetian fleet to maintain a constant presence on Crete led Venice to build new shipsheds arsenall), where ships could be repaired and their equipment maintained. In their initial for the shipsheds opened onto the sea which washed intd them so that ships could be hauled up. Most of them had vaulted roofs and were interlinked via arched openings in their side walls. The 17-shed complex was built from 1526 to 1599 and had two main entrances. Under Ottoman rule they were converted into military warehouses. Over time, nine of the seventeen shipsheds in the complex were demolished Today, one group of seven contiguous vaults are preserved, plus one more to the west: the Grand Arsenal, which houses the Centre for Mediterranean Architecture.”

These arches were originally open air so they could drag the ships in. When the Ottomans arrived, they converted them to warehouses.

And then we found the synagogue which is still active. 

A small local community of 30 Jews maintain the shul and volunteer as guides. There is evidence of Jewish presence from 2300 years ago. This building appears to be from the 1600s . A British rabbi comes in for the holidays but otherwise they self manage. They have what I think was said to be the only active Mikva  in Greece.  Recently they celebrated a Bar Mitzvah and last week a wedding. There are a total of about 130 Jews on the island.

This is the Mikva (ritual bath). There has been no rain as of late so water is low and it slated for cleaning when the rain comes.  

The shul also had its own ETROG TREE. 

And then, of course, we always like to check out the local stores. In contrast to Swedens wall of tonic waters, the grocery store here has quite a display of local honeys.

And of course there is always fish:

Oh, and ….

And so we sailed off into west. 

11/26 update at Kalamata

After a rough night at sea we arrived in Kalamata. We were to visit the palace of Nestor, a well preserved ruin. We chose to skip it, sleep late, have a nice breakfast, walk around town and then relax. Good choices.

Now we are leaving for  Corfu the Northern most of the Greek Isles.