Croatia Forum

[franeymoon]

This jewel of the Dalmatian coast has been called "a city made of stone and light," and as I stand atop the 14th century seawall, feel the brisk salty wind and take a look around, it's easy to see why.

This medieval stone city curves along the turquoise waters of the Adriatic, ringed with ancient white stone and flanked with crenellated turrets. "These are the colors you only read about in books," exclaims my friend. "Azure and aqua, it's like the Italy of the romantic poets, before everything changed."

And the old Italy, indeed Old Europe, is everywhere; the Venetians coveted the Dalmatian Coast for years before they conquered it in the 13th century, and even when power in the region shifted to the Ottomans and then the Habsburgs, Venice remained a strong trading partner. This dominant cultural influence can be seen in everything from the cuisine to the architecture. The city went on to become a feudal city-state named Ragusa Dubrovnik that vied with Venice, Genoa and Pisa for trade in the region. Its fortunes continued to grow until it fell to Napoleon in 1804 and, upon his demise, it became part of Croatia.

Dubrovnik was a tourism powerhouse before the 1991 Serbian siege left its economy and its infrastructure in shreds. The 10-month siege destroyed more than lives and buildings; it destroyed the entire tourism industry for years.

"People were saying, 'Wasn't there a war going on there?'" says Andrew Villone of Roads Less Traveled, a travel consultancy that specializes in the former Yugoslavia. But all of that has changed as tourists hungry for authenticity and a different type of experience have rediscovered this side of the Adriatic Sea. Last year, it was named Lonely Planet's top destination of the year; this year, it's National Geographic Traveler that's proclaiming "Tourism returns to Dubrovnik."

"Croatia is back, and it's booming again," says Villone. And it certainly seems to be true on this balmy June Saturday, with bumper-to-bumper traffic on the main thoroughfare. But once you've parked and entered the Old Town, traffic is a thing of the past. As I cross a moat on a chain-suspended drawbridge into the Old Town, with its Romanesque carvings and columns, cathedrals and fountains, I half expect to see the door to a dungeon on my right.

A Spanish-style galleon and yachts large and small line the harbor where Stephen Spielberg and Barbra Streisand are frequent visitors. The city has resumed its place as a popular port of call on the cruise ship circuit, as well.

And deep within the heart of Old Town there's the Franciscan monastery, where shafts of sunlight filter into the leafy, column-lined courtyard. There's a sense of peace here among the medieval-era carvings and relics of the saints that imbues even the cordoned-off mortar shells in the corner — the same ones, presumably, that shattered the tiled roof 15 years ago.

Unlike Bosnia, where the scars of war are still very much on the surface, one has to search for those sorts of reminders here in Dubrovnik. They are subtle, like the terra cotta roof tiles that one sees from the city walls. If someone points it out, it's easy to tell the homes that were bombed, because those are the ones with the bright-red new roof tiles. The ones that withstood the siege wear a multihued patina that ranges from blue to green to white.

But it takes a practiced eye to note such things, and the salty sea breeze quickly sweeps away any sense of melancholy.

What enchants Villone the most about the place, as with all of the Balkan region, is that, for the moment, at least, it holds all the charm of the rest of Europe, without the high prices, without the petty crime and without the crowding.

"What you can take in on the Adriatic Coast as far as natural beauty is amazing," says Villone, "and it's new in the fact that it hasn't been overrun by tourists. You're treated so much differently there than in the rest of Europe. If you're treated badly in Italy, why would they care? There will be a million more the next day. In Bosnia and Croatia, people think more of your experience there; you aren't seen as a dollar sign."



taken from http://www.portalino.it/nuke/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=16827