Dubrovnik Essay
July 21 - 24, 2000
I must not have been thinking clearly when I opted to take a short vacation in the Balkans. After having spent nearly five months of my life in southeastern Europe over the last three year as a journalist, to return to the former Yugoslavia could not have been a brilliant idea.
But as it was my girlfriend's 30th birthday, I was trying to find something a bit off the beaten path for her that was (a) close enough for a long weekend (b) not overrun by tourists (c) not too hot (d) had some redeeming cultural/scenic value (e) not overpriced. And Heather and I had gotten used to spending our time in places that weren't quite Western-style market-driven democracies - Egypt, Jordan, "Palestine" and (arguably) Israel. [to clarify, countries like these usually possess some or all of these qualities: one-party rule, institutionalized discrimination and paranoia, tapped phones without a court order, cab drivers who don't use their meters, sticker prices that are at least three times a product's actual cost but still excellent value for the intrepid tourist, war zones, and hospitable natives.]
So Dubrovnik, Croatia it was - a gorgeous medieval city encircled by 700-year-old walls and nearly destroyed by the Serbs a few years ago. I had gotten a package deal from my travel agent which afforded us the luxury of a direct flight from Tel Aviv to the tiny airport in Dubrovnik in less than three hours.
We braved the landing with a planeload full of sophisticated Israelis who were looking for the same thing as we were (okay, we weren't that interested in the casinos). To our left, imposing mountains that appeared to be almost level with our aircraft, to our right, the turquoise blue waters of the Adriatic Sea. As we hit a bit of turbulence during our final approach, I suddenly remembered that Ron Brown, former (and late) U.S. Commerce Secretary had not survived this particular landing during the height of the Balkan Wars. Touchdown was a blessed event.
Five minutes after leaving the gleaming and empty Dubrovnik airport, we arrived at the Hotel Croatia in the small town of Cavtat. It's a five-star monstrosity of a Communist-era concrete bunker (I had no choice, it was a package deal), with friendly reception staff who were impressed by the fact that I remembered how to say hello in Serbo-Croat ("dobrodan").
But despite the architectural horror, upon stepping into our sea-view room, we realized we were in paradise. It was so quiet, so peaceful. The air clear and not too hot, the sky a stunning blue, nearly matching the water as they touched at the horizon - the dust and turmoil of the Middle East now a world away.
Despite having barely slept the night before, we immediately decided to get a taxi and make the 20 kilometer trip into Dubrovnik (200 kuna - about $25, no great bargain). As we took the single-lane winding roads, the awe-inspiring views of the lush landscape and small towns along with way once again confirmed our belief that we had indeed chosen well.
Dubrovnik itself is a magnificent walled city, preserved as a museum and existing now solely to serve tourists (it's UNESCO world heritage site which barely dissuaded Slobodan Milosevic from bombarding it and destroying its previously vibrant tourism industry). Proudly perched on a peninsula jutting out into the Adriatic, the limestone-walled enclosed city is a head-turner when you first spot it from roadside vantage point. This place sparkles in its sunny sea-side location. Every building has a red-tiled roof (almost 70% of the roofs had been destroyed in the 1991-92 siege, so these tiles are new - many of them coming from as far away as France) which merely add to the harmonious canvas of blue, green, Grey and white.
Tired and hungry, we decided that we would enjoy the city's charms more if we ate first. So based on some recommendation we had read somewhere (but later could not recall the guilty source), we found the Ragusa 2 restaurant with the help of a eager, spectacled menu hawker. As he lead us up the steep stone staircase to the Priejko (essentially an impeccable street full of tourist-trap outdoor dining establishments) we already knew that we had made a mistake. But like two participants in a car crash helplessly watching as the inevitable happened, we found ourselves sucked into a disastrous dining experience. The other diners ate unhappily and without a word, our two blonde waitresses bordered on spinsterhood and bickered with each other like sisters who had been forced to work there by their tyrannical father, and the food was atrocious and expensive. The bread was stale, the seafood greasy and unimpressive by Middle East standards - it was to be the most expensive and worst meal we would have for the duration of our time in Croatia. We vowed to be more careful in the future, and would be rewarded for our efforts.
We returned to Cavtat and to a glorious sunset that bathed the entire town in golden light. I had decided that renting a car would be cheaper than taking a taxi everywhere, so I settled on a 1.0 liter Opel Corsa with stick shift and manual steering that did nothing to help heal my wrists that I had sprained a few days earlier in a Tel Aviv bicycle accident. Still, one benefit to our decision to rent: the Hertz woman highly recommended the Taverna Galijia at the end of town as a suitable restaurant for dinner.
We sat under a lattice of grape vines and were warmly served by Petra (we got to know her name as we would continually return to the Galijia over the next two days). Vegetable soup, fresh bread, good local white wine, chicken breast wrapped in Dalmatian ham (a bit greasy, my Balkan experience has taught me that an exceptional dining experience is out of the question, and it's best to stick to Italian-style food), homemade grappa as a digestif - all for $35. Ragusa 2 was now a vaguely recalled nightmare.
Heather and I tend to plan our lives around meals, so I must mention the fact that we had another good dining experience the following day at the nearby Restaurant Kolona. The kind and witty owner is a local fisherman, and although he couldn't tempt us with his seafood dishes, we did very well by him. Spaghetti marinara, sirloin steak, minestrone soup, creme brûlé (free of charge, he liked us), crepes with sugar and jam, stuffed eggplants, super-sweet tomato salads, Croatian wine - and we couldn't spend over $20 for what we ate there.
And oh yes, during our long weekend, we walked Dubrovnik's ramparts, drove down a lonely road towards the Montenegrin border so Heather could see the Yugoslavian flag, took a ferry across to the island of Korcula where legend says Marco Polo was born, stumbled across the second-longest wall in the world in the even more medieval town of Ston that isn't mentioned in any guidebook that I've seen but is well worth the visit, and generally had a vacation that I would recommend to anyone who's interested in trying something new. As the Lonely Planet Guide to Croatia exclaims on its front cover: "GET THERE BEFORE THE CROWDS RETURN!"
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