CROATIA 2008 -
the war zone of the Zadar hinterland, Šibenik, the Krka National
Park, Trogir, Split and the Island of Brač:
We were to witness over these 2
weeks the marked geographical and cultural contrast between Dalmatia's
fertile seaboard and the arid maquis of the stony interior: the
coastal towns and islands have long enjoyed a thriving Mediterranean
civilisation, while the unsettled and barren hinterland has
been prone to the political instabilities of the Balkan interior.
People on the coast have traditionally been able to sustain a living
from fishing, olive and vine cultivation, trade and more recently
tourism; life in the interior however - in Croatian, kamenjar
('stone fields') - has always been harsher. The Croatian Krajina
border regions were subject to massive population displacement
during the 16/17th centuries as refugees from the inland Balkans
fled the Ottoman Turkish advance. The resultant ethnic mix in these
inland regions of native Croats and peoples of Serbian and Bosnian
origins is reflected in religious distinctions between western
Catholic Croats and eastern Orthodox Serbs.
Click
on map for details
The break up of former
Yugoslavia in 1991, and Serbian President Milošević's fanatical ambition for a
greater Serbia incorporating any territory with ethnic Serb inhabitants,
prompted the Serbian controlled Yugoslav National Army (JNA) to back
an uprising by the 90% Serb population around the Croatian border
town of Knin. The Serbs pushed westwards towards the coast; ethnic
cleansing created masses of Croat refugees fleeing from Serb
occupation of the Croatian homeland. In 1995, Croat forces launched
Operation Oluja (Storm), recovering their territory from Serb
occupation, resulting in a further wave of counter-ethnic cleansing
as Serb civilians fled eastwards from the Croat Krajina region.
This week's travels begin with what
can only be described as the 'Alternative Croatia': the former war
zone of the Zadar hinterland, a region not usually visited by
tourists. The first
indications of war damage came as we re-crossed the rebuilt Maslenica
Bridge, destroyed by the Serbs as they advanced towards the coast in
1991: a concrete hut still
pock-marked by heavy machine gun fire
bore witness to the fighting in 1995 as the Croats displaced the
occupying Serbs. As we approached Novigrad, ominous signs warned of
the hazards of straying from the narrow road onto the uncultivated
Karst scrubland - uncleared mines left behind
by retreating Serbs.
We passed a shepherdess keeping her flock safely on the cleared
seaward side; here was a grimly frightening different form of occupational hazard to
her work. Looking down onto Novigrad, the little fishing harbour
looked a peaceful scene guarded over by its hill-top Venetian
fortress built
400 years ago ironically to keep out invading Turks (Photo 1 -
Novigrad). But descending to the waterfront revealed a different
scene with war damage still evident 13 years after the conflict:
semi-derelict evacuated homes still boarded up, their rendering
pock-marked with bullet marks (Photo 2 - war-damaged homes
in Novigrad). Restoration work was in progress, but it was a
sorrowful sight; we felt like voyeurs peering into the misery of
lives and homes still recovering from the horrors of war which had
engulfed the village. In 1991, Novigrad was overrun by the Serbs
until recovered by the Croat offensive of 1993, but the village
remained dangerously close to the front line so that locals could
not return to their homes until the final Serb withdrawal in 1995.
We headed eastwards across the
desolately stony and uncultivated scrubland, and immediately began
seeing the unexploded mines warning signs again. Approaching the
village of Smilčić, we paused to pay our respects at war graves,
commemorating the deaths of both Croat soldiers and civilians
killed in the 1991~95 fighting. So many Croat families lost husband
and sons in the fighting to recover their territory, leaving
contemporary Croatians fervently passionate about what they call the
Homeland War. They have a distinctive disabled badge for war-wounded showing a
wheelchair crossed by a rifle. We passed a
large poster showing a picture of General Ante Gotovina, proudly
proclaimed as the Hero of Zadar, having led the 1995 offensive which
saved the coastal cities from imminent Serb capture. Despite this
Croatian nationalistic image, the Hague International War Crimes Commission
has recently put Gotovina on trial for alleged
war crimes, a move which has appalled fellow Croatians. Visit the
BBC News web site for a report on Gotovina's arrest and indictment:
BBC News report on General Gotovina's indictment for war crimes
We had
earlier seen graffiti asserting 'Ante Svi Smo Za te' ('We are all
Ante (Gotovina'), reflecting Croatian public outrage at their hero's
indictment for alleged war crimes against Serb refugees in the
aftermath of the 1995 Oluja offensive. Whatever the truth of these
allegations, it seems certain that no Serbian officer will ever
face justice for crimes against humanity committed during their 4
year occupation of the Croat homeland.
You'll not find Benkovac in any of
the guide books, yet here was another forlorn little town still
recovering from the traumas of war. The Croat population
must have
fled to refugee camps on the coast as the town was occupied and
fought over 1991~95. The wall of the mesnica (butcher's shop) was
daubed with an alarming fresh graffiti - Oluja '95 - the Croat offensive
which drove out the Serb invaders, showing that anti-Serb hatred
still lingers on among a new generation. Closer to the coast, we
passed through the roofless, derelict remains of houses and farms
which were once the thriving community of Vrana. The village had
been occupied by Serbs from 1991~95 and totally devastated. One
photo seemed to epitomise today's horrific images of the war's
destructive impact and the subsequent reconstruction of homes and
lives: a modern school sign set against the background of houses
wrecked by artillery fire.
It was almost a relief to return to the coast and after a night's
camp by the rocky shore-line and blue waters of the Adriatic, to
travel south to Šibenik. Pre-1990s, this was the main town of
Central Dalmatia and a thriving industrial port. The war and
recession conspired to close down much of the industry and Šibenik
declined into economic depression.
The
town is however worth visiting to wander the alleyways of its old
town, and particularly to see its magnificent Gothic-Renaissance
cathedral. The cathedral's construction began in 1431 and took over
100 years to complete. Building was only up to lower storey level by
1473 when dissatisfaction with its Gothic design led to the
appointment of master stone-mason Juraj Dalmatinac (George the
Dalmatian) to introduce both Renaissance design concepts and
construction techniques. Work continued for another 30 years,
interrupted by perennial cash shortages, 2 plagues and catastrophic
fire. The most novel feature is Dalmatinac's barrel-vaulted roof,
constructed from pre-fabricated stone segments and fitted together
using carpentry joints. With its Florentine octagonal cupola
(damaged by Serb shelling during the 1991~5 war), the cathedral's
sturdily vaulted roof is best viewed from the Venetian fortress
which overtops the town (Photo 3 - Šibenik Cathedral).
Dalmatinac's masterpiece is the baptistery with its delicately
sculpted cherubims scampering playfully around the 4 ceiling niches.
His sense of humour is seen on the frieze of over 70 charactersome carved stone
heads decorating the exterior of the apse, said to portray those
citizens too stingy to contribute to the cathedral's cost.
Just
inland is the Krka National Park, where the River Krka flows through
winding canyons cut deep into the barren Karst limestone plateau;
never before have we seen so much un-cultivatable land as in
Croatia. A wild camp by the village of Skradin enabled us to catch
the early morning boat upriver to the truly amazing series of
waterfalls at Skradinski Buk. The swollen river pours for almost 1
km down a series of foaming cascades, spilling over natural
barriers of travertine, calcium carbonate sedimented with organic
matter from the river (Photo 4 - waterfalls in Krka National Park).
A network of wooden walkways threads among the waterfalls, the air
filled with the noise and spray of turbulent water cascading down
among the trees. Higher upriver, past a narrow gorge, the Krka
cascades from a higher section of river in further spectacular
waterfalls (Photo 5 - Roški Slap waterfalls).
That evening, we received a delightfully hospitable welcome at the
straightforward Krka Camping, judged to be one of the best campsites
of the trip.
Continuing south, the Magistrala road wove a serpentine way
around the coastline, and in bright sunshine, the clear Adriatic
shimmered a vivid turquoise blue. The old town of Trogir sits
astride a small island wedged between the modern suburbs on the
mainland and larger offshore island where we camped at Rožac
Camping. From here the local bus took us into Trogir for our visit
to the old town whose architecture betrays 4 centuries of Venetian
rule. The bijou town spreads handsomely out from its central piazza
which is dominated by the cathedral's elegantly lofty campanile. The
cathedral's pride is its astonishingly beautiful west portal carved
by the 13th century master mason Radovan. In an intricate mix of
orthodox iconography and scenes of everyday medieval life, figures
of saints, apostles, woodcutters and leather-workers jostle for
position in a chaos of sculpted decoration. Large figures of Adam
and Eve stand with anxious modesty on a pair of lions which guard
the doorway and the arches are supported on the backs of medieval
undesirables, Turks and Jews. (Photo 6 - west portal of Trogir
cathedral). Trogir is a delightful place to wander
the narrow alleys and admire its glorious Venetian architecture, and
unlike Šibenik, where you could starve unnoticed, in civilised Trogir
you are spoiled for choice with charming small restaurants all with
delightfully sunny terraces.
On a wretchedly wet day with the hills obscured by rain clouds
and a chill wind blowing off the sea, we reached Stobreč Camping
just south of Split; this was the sort of day only fit for catching
up on necessary functional jobs like laundry and food shopping.
Stobreč is a recently re-opened campsite, the original having been
requisitioned as a refugee camp for Croatian refugees from Bosnia
during the 1990s wars. Again the site gets the accolade as one of
the best of the trip so far: a superbly helpful and hospitable
welcome, good facilities, washing and drying machines, supermarket
just around the corner, and the #25 bus from just outside the
campsite to take you the 6 kms directly into Split city centre. And
all this for an excellent value 85 kuna a night. The only downside
is that the local youthful aspirants to the Hajđuk Split football
team kick about enthusiastically on the beach. But in the evenings,
the lights of townships down the coast reflect attractively across
the waters of the bay.
Croatia's second city, Split, has curious origins: the Roman city of
Salona had flourished 5 kms inland, and the Emperor Diocletian who
ruled from 284~305 AD chose this coast to build his retirement
palace. Diocletian had been an efficient emperor, bringing
order to a troubled empire by ruthlessly harsh government, most
remembered for his determined
persecution of the early Christian church which by then was growing
in significant numbers across the Roman world. Diocletian's palace
was a complex of official court, public buildings, palatial
apartments and garrison for the imperial guard. Central to this
complex was the octagonal mausoleum where Diocletian was buried at
his death in 312 AD. 300 years later, 7th century Slavic invasions
sacked the city of Salona and refugees fled to the coast,
improvising homes among the palace remains. The modern city of Split
with a population now of 220,000 has over the intervening centuries
grown outwards from Diocletian's original palace into sprawling
suburbs and high rise flats. Diocletian's body disappeared, but the
ultimate irony is that his mausoleum later was transformed into the
city's cathedral, named after one of his prominent Christian
persecution victims, the martyred St Domnius,
the
first bishop and patron saint of Split. The massively vaulted
chambers of the excavated undercroft gives an impression of the
scale of Diocletian's palace complex and how it would have looked 17
centuries ago. Its four gates still remain, but successive
generations have modified the original structure, turning it into a
warren of houses, shops, tenements and churches; wherever you look,
pieces of Roman stonework were incorporated into medieval and modern
buildings. Standing at the Peristyle, the central cross-roads, steps
led up into Diocletian's mausoleum, later transformed into Split's
cathedral of St Domnius The brooding gloom of the colonnaded domed
interior somehow reflected the nature of the ruthless emperor whose
burial place this had once been (Photo 7 - Split cathedral,
formerly Diocletian's mausoleum).
Weaving our way through the maze of alleyways, we reached the fish
market, where stall holders shouted the prices of their produce at
morning shoppers - fish of every description and heaps of shrimps,
langoustines, octopus and squid. It was to be another fishy supper
for us (Photo 8 - Split fish market). Back at the cathedral,
we climbed the flimsy stairway of the campanile for the panoramic
views over the city and its harbour (Photo 9 -
Rooftops of
Split viewed from the Cathedral campanile). The following
day, we caught the local bus out beyond the modern suburb of Solin
to see the excavated remains of its Roman predecessor city, Salona,
sacked by
the Slavs in the 7th century. There is little to see but the
ambience is evocative against the backdrop of the modern city beyond
the traffic laden bypass. That evening in pouring rain back at camp,
we had our fishy purchases from the market to clean ready for
supper; the trip has been gastronomically educative with so far
three different recipes for squid.
For our onward journey south, we crossed to the island of Brač (Photo
10 - departing Split by ferry for Brač), the 3rd largest of
Croatia's Adriatic islands. Unlike Rab and Pag, Brač seemed almost
lush, with pine trees, olive groves and vines around the coast, and
everywhere in the scrub-covered high Karst interior mammoth mounds
of stones showed centuries of hard labour clearing land for
cultivation. Huge quarries are still worked, producing Brač's
characteristic creamy-white stone used to face buildings world-wide
(eg the White House in Washington). Around the island, tiny fishing
harbours peacefully graced with cycads are set at sea inlets, with
curious names like Supertar, Sutivan, Povlja and Milna (Photo 11 - Milna harbour
on Island of Brač). On the western coast of Brač,
the road descends in endless sweeping bends from the high central
plateau to the small harbour of Bol. Here we found the remarkable
coastal feature of Zlatni Rat (Golden Horn), a 1 km peninsula of
shingle projecting into the crystal clear waters of the Adriatic
forming Croatia's most renowned beach. In summer, it would be a
seething mass of holiday-making obesity; in mid-April, it was
delightfully deserted (Photo 12 - Zlatni Rat beach at Bol on Brač).
Our base on Brač was at Camp Kito, a small family-run campsite set
in an orchard ablaze with bright flowers, with the mountain of
Vidova Gora towering overhead, another qualifier for 'best campsite
of the trip' award.
Our onward journey would
take us back by ferry to the mainland at Makarska to continue south
on the Magistrala Adriatic Highway. More on that in a couple of
weeks, so join us again then. In the meantime, Doviđenja.