Postcard from Dalmatia
August 20th, 2009 by Zofia
Kako sti? Ja sam dobro hvala!
It is very hard to describe just what an incredibly amazing place Hrvatska (Croatia) is. There is really nothing that compares to it!
It was so strange, but as I was travelling along the coast on the bus from Split towards Makarska I felt so at peace, it felt good to finally be here! We were coming around a bend in the road and I caught a glimpse of the next town we would be approaching and it was like a sixth sense or something but I just knew that the town I had just seen was Makarska and that I was here, I was finally home! It is strange because I have never actually visited before but sure enough, a few minutes later the Welcome to Makarska sign confirmed my suspicions!
Makarska
Every day I go for a walk in the morning around Makarska somewhere, either through the old town, along the marina, up Sveti Petar, or around Osejava. I am constantly blown away by just how beautiful everything seems to be. I have my camera permanently in my hands hoping to capture the essence of this place but ultimately I know that no photo will ever do justice to actually experiencing it.
Most days I have a big lunch cooked by Teta Meri – soup, freshly caught fish, stuffed paprika, pasta, and so on – and it is always delicious! Lunch is the main meal for the day and we usually eat together at about 12.30pm. After lunch I usually sit and talk with the family or watch Croatian TV with them under the refreshing air conditioning unit, it is too hot at this time of day to be outside. By about 4.30/5pm I venture outside again, this time to go swimming at the beach for a few hours and even at this time it is still at least 30˚C outside!
I have been swimming on the main tourist beach in Makarska a few times but it is always so full of people that I prefer to swim off the rocks on Osejava where there are less people and those that are there are the locals. My cousin Pero took me one afternoon to the absolute end of the beach in Makarska where there is a beach bar called Buba which plays host to a giant beach party every day till after 8pm. There is a DJ playing club music and everyone is dancing away in their swimwear. If you get hot you just jump into the sea and then come back out and dance till you are dry again! It was a lot of fun. I also learned a popular card game (they called it Italian Cards) and I sat with Pero and his friends one afternoon in a cafe-bar playing cards – for a beginner I wasn’t too bad, I won the game a few times actually! 
I am really glad I decided to do this trip on my own but I must admit that I wish I had some company when I was at the beach because swimming in the sea is more fun when you have people to splash about and talk with.
The water here is amazing. I love how clear it is, I have never seen such clear water in my life! It is so refreshing, and compared to the cold waters of Wellington beaches I can’t get over how warm the water is as well, what a treat! I also love how you only have to take a few steps into the water for it to be waist-deep.
The Biokovo Mountain dominates the landscape if you look away from the water and towards the town, it is so imposing and yet oddly comforting.
Dubrovnik
My day trip to Dubrovnik was fantastic. I took over 270 photos on that day! The bus trip down there was interesting as I got to see the rest of the Dalmatian coastline and more! We also had to cross into Bosnia & Herzegovina who own a 20km stretch of the coast and cuts right across Croatia! As we were on a tourist bus we didn’t get our passports checked or stamped at the border control but we did do a refreshments pit stop in the country so I can now also say I have spent a grand total of 1 hour in Bosnia & Herzegovina!
We had a guide on the bus who gave us a history of Croatia and specifically the history of the towns we passed through.
Once in Dubrovnik we were met by yet another tour guide who spent an hour and a half taking us around the Old Town. We saw inside the Rectors Palace, which is now a museum, as well as the Franciscan Monastery. After that we had two and a half hours free time to have lunch and explore the Old Town further. I grabbed a pizza for lunch and then set to explore the many small lanes and passages of the town.
There are water fountains all over the Old Town which still use ancient Roman aqueducts and where the water is still clean enough to drink straight from the fountain so refilling your water bottle was an easy task as you could just stick it under the nearest fountain for fresh cold water!
I didn’t have enough time to walk the entire wall of the Old Town so I found out which half was more interesting and I walked that half of the ancient wall and looked out over the splendid orange-tiled rooftops and out to the crisp blue sea, beautiful!
After such a full day out in the hot sun it was a nice restful trip back to Makarska in the air-conditioned bus.
Cruising around the local islands
Croatia has over 1000 islands dotted along the coast in the Adriatic Sea. I would love to have visited as many as possible but I had to settle for 2 of the big ones instead…
A cousin, Milan, works for one of the tour boat companies and arranged for me to go out on the boat one day. So I was at the Marina at 8am with everyone else who was getting onto one of the many boats of various shape and size (there are a few options all going to different islands etc). My boat, the Germania, turned up and on I hopped. Our captain only spoke Croatian, and most of the passengers seemed to speak anything but Croatian or English so there were some interesting “lost in translation” moments when the captain tried to ask questions about food for lunch or to tell everyone what time to be back on the boat at one of our stops!
Our first stop was Vrboska on the island of Hvar. We stayed only 45 minutes which was more than enough time, as it was a very small town. It was very pretty with some cool buildings but not overly interesting for any great length of time. After seeing the sights, picking up some refreshments for later, and enjoying an ice cream, it was back onto the boat and off for the next stop. Along the way we were served up lunch, a large tuna steak, salad and bread, very nice!
I sat up the front of the boat and hung my feet over the edge, enjoying just staring into the beautiful blue water and looking out to the idyllic landscapes in the distance.
Eventually we got to our next stop; this was the town of Bol on the island of Brac where we had 3 hours of free time. I walked the 2km walk from the marina to Zlatni Rat the famous beach in the area which changes shape depending on the wind direction! I found a spot and went swimming then stretched out and relaxed in the sun. The water here was seriously cold compared to back in Makarska but it is much more exposed here so that is not surprising. The area is also very popular for wind surfing and kite surfing – when we were leaving the island I looked behind me and it looked like a flock of giant birds in the distance and then I realised that it was actually a massive group of kite surfers!
Coming back into Makarska I was again struck by just how awesome this place is!
Tucepi
Barba Leo and Teta Meri took me up to the old part of Tucepi one afternoon to see where my family actually comes from. The first stop was a lookout point up the Biokovo where we looked out on to the newer part of Tucepi where most people live today, right down on the beach. But looking across and up the hillside you could see all the small villages that people from my grandparent’s generation were born and raised.
The village of Sevelji is where my Dide Mate Sevelj was born. His house is still there and is still owned by the family. Dide Mate was the 2nd (and eldest son) of 7 children born and raised in the house in Sevelji. The house itself was built by my great great grandfather Mate Sevelj after whom my grandfather is named! In a nearby village was an even older house which was where my grandfather’s mother was born and raised, it still has the balcony built by her father! Amazing! It was then down a narrow winding road/path to the village of Podstup where my grandmother Baba Danica Viscovic and her sister and two brothers were born and raised. It felt so surreal to walk the same path my Baba would have walked as a young girl with her goat in tow! Baba and Dide now live in NZ and haven’t been back here for almost 20 years! I haven’t seen them in over 2 years and I missed them so much more as I spent time in their birthplace, I was sad that it wasn’t them showing me around but it was great to have Dide’s little brother give me the tour instead. I really loved the fact that Baba and Dide were from neighbouring villages and from Dide’s village you can see Baba’s village and from both you look out over spectacular views across the Adriatic!
While Dide’s siblings are now in Makarska, the next town over, Baba’s family moved down from the mountain village onto a beautiful spot right on the beach, Baba still has her own piece of land there! As I had spent most of my time with the Makarska family I moved over to Tucepi for a few days with that part of the family.
I stayed with Baba’s beautiful sister and spent time with her son and his family as well as with the family of one of Baba’s brothers. Some of my younger cousins on this side of the family were also visiting from Australia, where they live, so I spent a lot of time with them here on the beach, which was great fun!
Tucepi also has amazing beaches and a great atmosphere about it. The Marina is idyllic and full of fancy yachts in port protected by a stone jetty. Sunset in this area is also beautiful and I never got tired of watching it.
My mum once told me a story about when she was here at the age of 18 with her parents and her sisters and how she spent a whole day on the steps of the family home looking out to the beach crying because she just couldn’t understand why her parents had left this paradise and why they had to leave again now. I thought about that story as I spent my last day on the beach in Tucepi and knew exactly how mum felt. I really felt at home here, it is a part of me and always will be! By the time my three weeks came to an end my family did say that I was looking more like a local every day! And I definitely felt like a local!
Leaving was the worst part, it was so hard to say goodbye to the wonderful family I have here and to this beautiful place. My amazing family even made the effort to come to the bus station and wave me off! I was the only person at the station with a crowd of people waving me off. I think I cried for most of the bus journey back to Split!
Split
I had a few hours to spare between arriving in Split and going to the airport to head back to London so I checked my bags into the station baggage hold and went to explore the impressive Diocletian’s Palace, something I had studied in my Art History classes at University! This was another wonderful experience and a nice way to finish off an amazing holiday. I did a walking tour so I could find out more about the Palace area and then I got some lunch and sat in a sunny spot and relaxed in the beautiful surroundings.
This holiday would have to be the best trip I have done since leaving NZ and I cannot wait to go back again!
Hrvatska is AWESOME!