Our ship was on a south-easterly course in the Adriatic Sea,
out of sight of the coastline of Croatia, also called the Dalmatian coast. Steaming along at about 25 nautical miles per
hour, we needed a full day at sea to reach Dubrovnik from Venice. The day gave us a chance to catch up on
sleep, reading, and do a few loads of laundry.
The apartment in Florence had a clothes washer, but no dryer, and we had
to take turns hanging our wash out on the drying rack on the terrace. So by this time we all had need of the ship’s
laundry rooms. I was surprised to see so
many other passengers also using the laundry rooms, assuming they had just
arrived in Venice for the start of the cruise.
However, quite a few folks had been on the road for a while, as we had
been, and had also accumulated laundry.
That evening was the first of two scheduled formal evenings,
with the dress code a dinner jacket or dark business suit for the men and
evening gown or cocktail dress for the women.
All passengers, including the four of us, appeared in the dining rooms
and the sparkling central atrium dressed to the nines for the special Champagne
Waterfall Reception hosted by our commodore to celebrate embarking on the
journey. Actually, I was looking forward to this
evening; the ladies in their sequined evening gowns and the men in tuxedos was a
scene right out of a 1930’s Hollywood movie (think Dodsworth, or One Way Passage, or Across the Pacific). It was
a bit of a thrill, and dinner was great too.
Early the next morning the ship altered the course to the
north-east, approaching the Croatian coastline.
At the harbor north of Dubrovnik the commodore stopped the ship near a modern
bridge that spanned one of the harbor inlets, then swung the huge ship around
and BACKED INTO our designated berth! Whoa!
I’ll never again complain of the difficulty of parallel parking. The weather was perfect, sunny blue skies, 78
deg F so we slathered on lots of sunscreen and assembled for the day’s
excursion into the ancient walled city of Dubrovnik.
Centuries ago Dubrovnik was called Ragusa, located on the
southern coast of the ancient territory called Illyria by Greek and Roman geographers. It has been suggested that the original
Venetians were from Illyria. When the
Romans extended their control over Illyria starting around 200 BC it became
known as Provincia Dalmatia and
lasted until the 6th century AD.
Dalmatia was the birthplace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, and the
Croatian city of Split today holds the ruins of Diocletian’s Palace. With the transition of the Western Roman
Empire to the Ostrogothic Kingdom in 476 AD, Dalmatia (with Ragusa) was ruled
by the Goths until 535 AD when Justinian I added Illyria to the Byzantine
Empire. In the 7th century
Ragusa was founded (on a rocky island according to legend) by merchants wishing
to escape barbarian pirates, a story reminiscent of the founding of Venice.
Control by the Byzantine Greeks lasted until the time of the
Fourth Crusade, when Byzantium was sacked by Crusaders led by Venice, and
gradually Venice extended its power in the Adriatic. From 1420 to 1797 the Republic of Venice
controlled most of Dalmatia, but the southern city of Ragusa became an
independent republic in 1358 as a result of a treaty between Venice and the
Kingdom of Hungary. As a maritime trader
Ragusa was a strong competitor to Venice, sending its merchant fleet over the
Mediterranean and Black Sea ports, but still managed to maintain a diplomatic
balance between the business interests of the powerful Venetian Republic and
the Ottoman Empire. When Venice at last
succumbed to Napoleon in 1797, Ragusa also lost its independence and became, in
succession, part of Napoleon’s Kingdom of Italy, Illyrian Provinces, and a
kingdom of the Holy Roman Empire. After
WWI the new state of Yugoslavia was formed of the old Ottoman Balkan
territories, which became satellite states of the Soviet Union after WWII. When Yugoslavia broke apart in 1991, the
violent civil wars of the Balkan states caught Dubrovnik in the cross-fire in
spite of the UNESCO World Heritage designation.
After disembarking from the ship, we piled onto the waiting
bus with our tour guide and were soon on a road skirting the sea driving south towards
Dubrovnik. I’m always amazed at the
skill of the bus drivers with these massive tour buses on narrow European
roads. We passed next to the ruins of a stone
wall, which the guide told us was the southern border of Venetian control in
Dalmatia, and marked the northern extent of the Republic of Dubrovnik. The bus pulled up a hill with a wonderful
view below of the walled city next to the sparkling sea, and stopped to let us
off for photos. Then we descended to a car park and followed the guide through
the 15th century Pile Gate (see photo), telling us the completed walls are a
mile and half in circumference and date from the 13th century. On entering within the walls, we saw the large
Onofrio’s Fountain, the terminal of the aqueduct that provided freshwater to
the city. The fountain and aqueduct were
completed by 1440, bringing water from a source 12 km away, and still provides
fresh, potable water.
We walked along the main market street, called the Placa,
toward Luza Square with St Blaize’s church, the Rector’s Place and Bell Tower,
and the sculpture of Roland (or Orlando in Italian) chiseled into a stone
column (see photo). Dating from 1419, this symbol of
freedom for the people of Dubrovnik also is used as a standard of measure. Roland’s right forearm is the length of a
Croatian “cubit” and that length is also inscribed on the column base. The story of Roland may not be well-known
today, but the 11th century epic poem Chanson de Roland describing Roland’s heroism (one of Charlemagne’s
knights) during the battle and defeat at Roncesvalles in 778 AD was a medieval
must-read.
After a look inside the 17th century church of St
Blaize, we toured the 14th century Franciscan monastery, walking
through the cloisters with Romanesque style columns mixed in with Gothic, and
looked into the Pharmacy. Also part of
the Franciscan monastery, this one of the oldest working pharmacies in Europe,
and contains a variety of apothecary jars, medical books, healing recipes,
medieval surgical tools, and gold embroidered cloths. We then walked to the Dominican monastery to
see its fine collection of Renaissance frescoes, and toured inside the Cathedral
and Treasury, with gold and silver antiquities, including relics of St Blaize,
the city’s patron saint.
At the conclusion of the tours, we went to an auditorium
near the city hall for a singing and dancing performance by the Lindo Folklore
Ensemble of Dubrovnik. These artists in
authentic national costumes performed traditional Croatian songs and dances on
authentic instruments, giving us a short description of each. It was very cool!
This talented group of young Croatian
performers can be reached at:
Lindo Folklorni Ansambl
Tel: +385 20 324
03 mobile: +385 91 571 7963
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