Ive not really blogged about our holiday in Croatia last month. We spent a week on a two-master yacht pottering around the islands of southern Dalmatia. Yacht is a bit of a con — its a small, new cruiser with evidence of an unused single jack-sail, presumably kept as an emergency option if the diesel packs up. 36 passengers and six crew. However it was a thoroughly interesting, relaxing week. The Dalmatian Islands vary between the barely-developed (Mljet — two half-decent caffs and a charming walk through the woods to a magical lake and one of Titos many country retreats), and the cosmopolitan (Hvar — fabulous town, the Adriatics answer to St Tropez, with wall-to-wall millionaires boats). Travelling between islands generally took place between 6 and 11 am, which is a problem if you are sleeping in the cabin next to the engine (we were). On no day did we sleep beyond 6 am. However, after breakfast, things were a bit quiet for 3 - 4 hours, so we dozed in the glorious sun for hours. Shrivelled. Dubrovnik is fabulous, but (via the cable car to a hill-top museum), you are reminded of the awful Serbian siege of the city in 1991-2. The Serbs and Montenegrins pummelled the city for months, but the natives finally triumphed, having held on to the crucial Napoleonic fort on Mount Srđ (pronounced Surge). Tellingly, the city is now characterised by its mass of vivid orange pantile roofs. Before the siege, most of the citys roofs were of weathered yellow/brown tiles, almost all of which were destroyed in the 1991/2 bombardments. You can spot the lucky few buildings which were not shelled.
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 22:36:29 +0000
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