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Destination: Croatia

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Tito Said ‘No’ to Stalin…and We Look Suspicious with No Beards

We’ve been filming new TV shows in Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, and Bosnia for nearly three weeks.

 

Tito may have been the father of his country, but he’s dead and the only image I saw of him in the 20 days I spent in the former Yugoslavia was on this T-shirt.
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Talking with locals about their memories of growing up in Yugoslavia (which broke apart in the 1990s), people have generally good memories of the times. Marshal Tito (its strong-arm dictator) is remembered in a single phrase: “He said ‘No’ to Stalin.” People remember the stability. And time and time again people said, “It was a good time…we could travel.”

Yugoslavians were free to travel when other Communist Europeans could not because they were happy to return. Locals here remember when their “Red Passport” was worth more on the black market than an American passport. That’s because Yugoslavia was on good terms with — and its citizens could travel in — both the First World and the Second (Communist) World.

People in these countries speak what used to be called Serbo-Croatian (or Croato-Serbian depending on your ethnicity). Today the languages are all still essentially the same but, as required by each new country’s constitution, they are called Bosnian, Montenegrin, Serbian, and Croatian.

Europeans differ in how their national pride compares with their pragmatic need to connect with the rest of the world. You can read it in the letters they choose to indicate their country on car license plates and road signs. Croatia is proud: “Hr” for Hrvatska. Hellas is pragmatic: “Gr” for “Greece.” Germany is proud: “D” for Deutschland. Östereich is pragmatic: “A” for “Austria.” Magyarország needs to be pragmatic: “H” for “Hungary.” France doesn’t need to show its cards since Franceis French for “France.”

It’s interesting to see how the images lodged in my mind from past trips ripen in my head over the years — or simply change with the country. I write a script calling for a great view, painting, café, or experience — we go there and my cameraman wonders “what were you thinking?” Years ago in Croatia, there were lots of goats roasting on spits. People’s tastes have changed, the cost is up, and a goat slowly spinning over a grill is no longer an icon of the region. (Actually, in three weeks traveling here, we’ve seen less than 100 head of any kind of cattle, sheep, or goats.) It’s like my image of Greece with old guys drinking retsina wine. The Greeks are into better wine now, retsina is considered rotgut, and it has faded away from the tavern scene.

I’ve noticed every region of the Mediterranean is pushing its wine industry. Occasionally, regional pride blinds them to quality. Each region of the former Yugoslavia seems proud of the wine they produce — and none of it is any good compared to what I drank in Spain, France, and Italy. I find wine here on par with Greece. The difference: Here waiters actually admit it’s overpriced. We paid $40 to try a bottle of the best wine in Croatia. In Greece, I asked a wine merchant what local wine he’d buy for $30. He said, “With $30, I’d get three $10 bottles.”

We’ve had some great people moments, especially in remote Montenegro. Dropping in on a mountaintop, Serbian-Orthodox monastery, the monks (their long black beards matching their long black robes) told me, “You look suspicious with no beards.” In prepping them for my interview, I said part of our mission was to help Americans understand rather than fear people who were different. They joked, “We’ll have to prove to them they have reason to fear.”

Later, in the middle of a Montenegrin nowhere, we met an American family traveling with their 91-year-old mother. We shared stories of beautiful times we’ve enjoyed and lessons we’ve learned getting to know the people in this region.

Later, the grandma gave me the most encouraging compliment I’ve heard on this trip. I had to call my film crew over so she could repeat it. “Your TV show inspires me to keep going when I should be staying home.”

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Risk Having the Door Slammed in Your Face — To Risk Being Invited In

We just finished filming a new show on Slovenia and it occurred to me that a tiny, typically overlooked nation of two million people is diverse and fascinating enough to pack a fine, 30-minute program. Discussing this with my camera crew, I dreamed up a new measure for shows: locals per script.

I wondered out loud if this ratio was the lowest population per episode of the hundred and some shows we’ve done so far: one show for two million people. Then we remembered Ireland — four shows for four million people. Poland — one show for 40 million — is about our worst by that measure. Thirteen shows on Italy is a lot but still some five million Italians per episode.

Relating back to our recent discussion of noisy American travelers: Travelers needing to avoid the noise can go to smoking sections — where they still exist. I was once settling into the scenic “Norway in a Nutshell” train ride from Oslo to Bergen. My car was a noisy commotion of American tourists. You know I love Americans — even noisy ones (a group to which, on occasion, I belong). But I was in a quiet mood…just wanted to be me, the rhythm of the rails, and Norway’s best mountain scenery. I simply moved to the smoking car — not a tourist in sight, just quiet Norwegians.

The same trick works in restaurants. If you don’t like the tourist noise…move to the smoking section (or dine after nine when the tables are filled with discrete Europeans rather than Americans who dine earlier).

Here are some thought-provoking comments I’ve heard in the last few days: Rome is no Legoland. I’m very much against gastronomic fundamentalism (go ahead, drink red wine with fish). The last games with the Olympic spirit were Sapporo in 1972 (then came Munich). Slovenian women have the strongest handshakes in Europe. Croats seem self-assured in their ineptitude. Seeing the decrepit and massive old factories here makes me nostalgic for my stamp collection.

Walking across an almost desolate square in the almost desolate Istrian Peninsula hilltown of Motovun a couple nights ago, I was marveling at how dead the town was. Then I heard a men’s a cappella group practicing. I snooped around to find out where they were. Around the corner, I went up a short flight of stairs and stared at a closed door separating me from their heavenly singing. I gently pushed the door open just a crack to see the group. It was a dozen men sitting in a half-circle with their backs to me, led by a woman director with springy hair who looked like a mad, young, female Beethoven standing before them and her electric keyboard. She saw me, abandoned her group, and literally ran to the door I opened. She opened the door further and invited me in with enthusiasm in keeping with her directing style. I pulled out a chair and savored the chorus — a traditional klapagroup typical of the Dalmatian Coast.

Bringing in my film crew, producer Simon agreed it was a magic moment…and we captured it, kicking off our Croatia episode with a wonderful bit of what we call “positive serendipity.” The lesson (which I intend to work into the script): when out wandering, poke around and risk having a door slammed on you — in order to risk being invited in.

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Cliché Croatia

I’ve learned a lot from concerned feedback from Croatians and from Cameron Hewitt, the co-author of our Croatia & Slovenia and Eastern Europe guidebooks (and a driving force behind us getting that part of Europe up to speed with our coverage of the West). I’m fascinated by the Cold War and their struggles for freedom, and with the wars of the mid-1990s in the former Yugoslavia, but this is becoming old news. Here is an example of feedback to a recent article I wrote, and the response by Cameron (which I agree with a hundred percent):

Dear Mr. Steves,

It was painful to read your latest article on Dubrovnik and Croatia. I would have thought it was a reprint from 10 years ago. First of all the real story is that Dubrovnik has become a victim of its reputation. It is a laggard in post war tourism restructuring compared to other Croatian destinations. Much as energy wealth has kept Russia from reforming, Dubrovnik’s traditional reputation and hordes of Cruise Ship day trippers have lead to a town that is expensive, and offers second class amenities and value.

The real story of Croatian tourism and its successful rapid growth can be found in other areas, such as the Istrian peninsula, which offers high commercial standards of tourism, or the town of Zadar which is more than twice as old as Dubrovnik, and rapidly transformed itself to offer a far higher level of urban sophistication. National parks like Kornati, Plitvice, Krka, and Pakelnica, each offering unique splendor and are located less than two hours drive from each other. The town of Novalje on the island of Pag has become one of the top draws for the international party crowd with Ibixa-like 24 hour partying in one of the many mega clubs at the Zrce beach. The yacht charter industry is one of the largest and most competitive in the world, offering fantastic value, offering the most fantastic holiday experience. These are the real stories of the Croatian experience.

Milan Šangulin

Rick,

I actually agree with this reader. The point he’s making is that you should be cautious not to fixate on one (ugly) aspect of a destination — such as a war — when there’s so much more to the place. I think a similar case could be made about focusing too much on the communist chapter in former Soviet places, like Prague or Hungary or Poland.

Avoiding talk of old wars and communist times just to appease these critics is unreasonable. However, I would encourage you to think beyond these concepts. For example, I find Mostar at least as engaging for its mosques and Turkish houses and diving-off-the-Old Bridge traditions, as for its war damage and improvised cemeteries.

The more I travel in Croatia and Bosnia, the less I think about the war. The more I travel in Eastern Europe, the less I think about communism. There is so much richness of history and culture to learn about in these places, beyond those unfortunate blips on their history. It’s easy to still think of Eastern Europe as “behind the Iron Curtain,” or as the former Yugoslavia as war-torn—but that’s old news, man. As I say in the guidebooks and in my slideshows, people in Croatia think about the war only when a tourist brings it up. You’re doing readers (and the people who live in these places) a disservice to emphasize the negative/provocative factors too much. A solution might be to occasionally complement these weighty articles with a lighter, more tourist-friendly look at the same places (which you have certainly done before, in places like Dubrovnik). You could write a compelling article about Mostar, Dubrovnik, or the Serb parts of Herzegovina without ever mentioning the war.

Hope this helps.

Cameron

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Rovinj Saves Istria

 

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Rovinj — just a two-hour speed-boat ride from Venice — is the best coastal stop between Venice and Dubrovnik. I absolutely love the place. I’m not sure why. Let me just dig through its charms and maybe you’ll understand.

It’s small — like a little hunk of Venice draped over a hill, surrounded by the Adriatic on three sides. Peering through my camera viewfinder I keep thinking, simply, “romantic.”

Rovinj is a collage of vivid travel memories: shiny stones, boats — laden with kitschy shells for sale — rocking giddily in the harbor, and a bell tower with a rickety staircase that requires a powerful faith in the power of wood. From the top a patron-saint-weathervane boldly faces each menacing cloud front that blows in from sea.

Walking through the market puts me in a good mood. I feel like Marilyn Monroe singing to a bunch of sex-starved GIs. Women push grappa and homemade fruit brandies on me. Their sample walnuts are curiously flavorful. I’ll buy a bag on my way out of town…make someone happy.

The old communist monster hotel stands bold and garish on the horizon. Retro Tito-style cafés vie for your business. The woman who runs the Valentino cocktail bar hands out pillows as you arrive — an invitation to find your own nook in the rocks overlooking the bay.

Ducking away from the affluent Croatian chic on the main drag, I walk a few steps up a back street and step into a smoky time-warp bar that took “untouristy” to scary extremes. In fact, it was too untouristy to recommend in the “untouristy bars” section of our book. The town fishermen and alcoholics (generally, it seemed, one and the same) were smoking, bantering loudly, and getting too drunk on cheap homemade beer to notice the nude pinups plastering the walls. I no longer feel like Marilyn Monroe singing to sex-starved GIs. I feel like a rabbit at the nocturnal house at the zoo.

The guy who runs my hotel is Igor. His sales manager is Natasha. Interviewing them for our guidebook, I feel like I’m talking to cartoon characters. For all they know, I’m Boris. No one here knows me yet….it’s strange not to be taken seriously.

Romantic Rovinj is also humble: the fountain on the main square celebrates the water system arriving in 1959. The main monument on the seafront is a Social Realist block of concrete honoring the victims of “fascism” (read: Hitler and Mussolini).

The town’s tiny Batana Boat Museum celebrates the culture around the town’s beloved batana boat — an underwhelming flat-bottomed wooden craft little bigger than a dinghy. A video shows a time-lapse construction of a boat; another exhibit lets you move a wine glass from stain to stain on an old tablecloth, activating recordings of people speaking the local dialect (which apparently is more Venetian these days than Venetian itself); and a TV with a pair of headphones lets you listen to the local betinada music — a small choral group in which one man sings lead while the others imitate instruments.

On the prettiest corner in town, we spot a charming blond woman meeting two travelers to set them up in her rental apartment. My co-author Cameron and I wait until she’s finished, then ambush her with a request to show us the rental, hoping to add it to our guidebook listings. She says, “But I’m just a single woman with four rooms to rent and no agency.” That’s exactly who we want to partner with as we look for budget accommodations in Rovinj. We take a tour and the rooms are great. She can’t believe she’ll be in a book and pay no fee for the promotion.

Cameron and I high-five happily as Rovinj gets even better: We have a new listing for half the price of the town’s cheapest hotel (Miranda Fabris, at Chiurca 5, Db-€40 or €50 in July-Aug, lots of steep stairs, mobile 091-881-8881, miranda_fabris@yahoo.com).

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Ivana’s Istrian Fingers

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I woke up in the dark. I pushed open my lumbering shutters. The heavy rain storm had cleaned the air, and an early-morning light invigorated the colors. Glistening red-tile roofs led to a rustic stone rampart. On the rampart was my co-author, Cameron, pointing his camera at a lush landscape of rolling hills and simple farms. This was Istria.

Feeling overworked, I scheduled a massage for 8:30. When I booked, for some reason I decided I’d enjoy it more if it wasn’t a male Croat working me over. I requested a woman. The receptionist assured me it was a woman…“a young woman.”

So I traded breakfast for a “sport massage” and climbed up to the hotel’s spa room, where Ivana met me. The experience seemed Yugoslavian (even though that country is long gone): No chat…no soft music…no candles…just the radio and hanging neon lights. Still, Ivana’s hands were strong. She did her work dutifully. It was an hour and $40 well spent.

With me in tow, Cameron valiantly tried to unearth some gems in Croatia’s Istrian interior. But either our luck was bad, or (more likely) there are few true gems to be found.

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Compared with the rest of the former Yugoslavia, Istria is charming enough. But a history of poverty leaves it with a disappointingly weak veneer of culture — an ersatz Tuscany. While nice roads lace together a lush green countryside, it’s cinderblocks rather than bricks, broken concrete rather than marble, rust rather than rustic. Istria’s much-flouted truffles may be tasty…but not tasty enough to shape an itinerary. The hill towns are hill towns…but so poor that they inherited nearly no distinctive architecture.

My advice for Istria in a nutshell: Motovun (where we slept…and Ivana works) is a fine hill town, uniquely Croatian with a fun splash of Italy (Mario Andretti was born here). The smaller hill town of note, Groznjan, was too sleepy for my taste on our visit in the shoulder season. The big city of Pula is great for its Roman amphitheater and a walk through work-a-day Croatia. But the saving grace of Istria…and one of my new favorites anywhere in Europe…? I’ll tell you later.