Check It Off the List - Oh, Yeah!

It's not the heat, it's the humidity that gets you.

Like many people, Anne and Mark have a list of things that they would like to accomplish.  On this list are things like living abroad, traveling, and generally enjoying our time on this planet... that sort of thing.

Separately, Mark has a list of personal goals - things he would like to accomplish in his lifetime.  (Anne is on board for some of these, but finds others to be... unworthy of effort.)  Some people (like Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson) would call this a 'bucket list,' but that seems a bit morose.  Mark is not certain what, exactly, to call his list.  (In fact, one of the first things on the list is to come up with the proper name for the list itself.)  Anne, on the other hand is fairly comfortable referring to it as "that weird list you keep in the drawer."

The photo at the top of this post is the result of an attempt to achieve a goal that Mark had set and put on the list.  On a relatively cold day in March of 2010, Anne, Mark and a guy with an oddly oversized hat jumped into a hole that had been cut in the frozen surface of Lake Harriet in Minneapolis.  Thankfully, all three survived the harrowing plunge into 36 inches of water and minutes of coldness that followed, prior to the trio reaching the safety of the hot tubs located on the shore (sadly, the oversized hat was not so fortunate and was never seen again).  After taking the plunge, item number 58 was crossed off the list.

The items on the list have few similarities.  They range from the simple to the complex, the easy to the nearly impossible.  For example, item #57 - the same job for 5 years?  Do people even do that anymore?

There are some other entries on the list that seem nearly as daunting a challenge as uniform employment for a half-decade.  Consider this section of the list of goals:

Goal #110, which now seems a bit violent, was added to the list after Mark was the victim of several unjust and malicious parking citations inflicted on him by the "City" of Milwaukee.  While writing the check to cover the fines, Mark vowed his fiery revenge, and added goal #110 to the list.  But, given the alcohol content and resultant flammability of Milwaukee, and Wisconsin as a whole quite frankly, goal #110 seems like it would be relatively easy to achieve.  Not that Mark is ever going to actually do it......

Now consider goal #112.  Drink a Duff brand beer?  Is that even possible?  Fans of the Simpsons television show will recognize Duff as the libation of choice of the residents of Springfield, and will probably also recognize the Duff brand's corporate shill, Duff Man.  Oh, yeah!

Duff Man speaks about Duff Man in the third person.  Oh, yeah!!!

Seeing Duff Man always made Mark believe that he would have so much fun if only he could taste a Duff beer.  So Mark added this to his list.  But alas, the exact location of Springfield is never revealed on the show, and Duff beer has remained elusive....

Until now.  At the end of their trip to Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Anne and Mark had a layover in Munich, Germany.  The layover was scheduled to be 4 hours long.  This is enough time to do SOMETHING, but since the airport is located out in the boonies, this is not really enough time to travel to the city and see the sights.  So Anne and Mark exited security and went to a shopping mall located just outside the airport.  In the shopping mall, they found a grocery store.  Wandering the aisles of the grocery, Mark hit paydirt.

Are you kidding me?  Duff beer 6-packs?  And not only the fact that they exist, but how awesome is it to find them while in Germany?  Not only was it legal to walk around with an open beer at 2 in the afternoon, it was kind of expected.

There have been opportunities in life that Mark has allowed to pass him by: Apple stock at $15 per share, that job offer at that other law firm, healthy dietary options available on a daily basis, etc.  Mark allowed all of these things to pass by without seizing them.  But the chance to drink a Duff beer was one opportunity that he was NOT going to let slip away.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you goal #112 - ACHIEVED!!!

The sweet taste of achievement - Oh, Yeah!!!

Victory.  Achievement.  Pride.  The emotions flowed fast and furious.  Normally, this would be quite a lot for one day.  Some of the goals on the list are achieved over years of meticulous planning and hard work.  (ok, not many, but it's possible)  To achieve a goal this quickly was almost too much to process..... But even so, the day was STILL not over yet.

At the other end of the shopping area was a McDonald's.  Anne and Mark, in a fit of 'stomach patriotism,' wandered into the restaurant looking to buy some good, old-fashioned American food.  They were surprised to encounter this:

 The McDonald's "Easy Order."  Using this machine, customers could enter their orders without interacting with the wait staff at all (someone in the back received the order and prepared it and the customer picked it up at the counter, but at no point was employee-customer interaction necessary).  Was the "Easy Order" actually easier than the conventional method of ordering food at a restaurant?  No, apparently this phrase is German for "Slow Process" as it took 2 or 3 times as long as it would have taken to fly to Chicago to pick up a Big Mac and fly back, but that delay is just a small price to pay for this sort of progress.

And more importantly, a small price to pay for Mark to achieve of one of his most recently-established life goals.

Just cross 172 right off the list.  Head's up on 170.  You know who you are.

The Old Bridge

Before returning to Bulgaria, Anne and Mark made one final day trip.  This trip was to the city of Mostar, which is located in the nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Like Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina was also a part of the nation of Yugoslavia prior to its break up in the 1990s.  Unfortunately, Bosnia and Herzegovina was the location of a severe civil war after the break-up of Yugoslavia.  In many places, the remnants of the destruction caused by this war are still readily visible.

As with their trip to Split, Anne and Mark had to make multiple border crossings in each directions for their visit to Mostar.  They headed northwest from Dubrovnik along the coast.  Then they crossed into Bosnia and Herzegovina for a short stretch, and then crossed back into Croatia again.  Then, they turned north/ northeast on E73 toward Mostar and had to cross the border into Bosnia.  Why take this route?  Why enter Bosnia, leave it, and then enter it again?  According to the guide, the reason to take this route is that there is no highway leading to Mostar from that small stretch of Bosnia.  Even the people who live there have to cross into Croatia and then back into Bosnia if they want to reach Mostar.

Eagle-eyed map readers with a Catholic upbringing may recognize a city on this map called Medugorje.  Medugorje is a small town in Bosnia and Herzegovina that was put on the theological map in the early 1980s (back then, this was all still Yugoslavia) when a handful of Catholics living there claimed to have witnessed the Virgin Mary appear to them.  The Catholic Church has never officially recognized Medugorje as a miracle, a legitimate sighting or even as a holy site of any kind, but the pope did find it at least intriguing enough to set up a commission to investigate it in 2010.  Anne and Mark's tour did not stop in Medjugorje so they did not see it, but they did encounter many people on pilgrimages to the site at every place they did stop.

Artist colonies often have aesthetically pleasing flora.

Speaking of places they did stop, the first place Anne and Mark stopped in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an old fort that has been re-made into an artist's colony.  Apparently turning swords into plowshares wasn't quite right for the people who took over the fort when it was abandoned after the war.  They went further and turned their swords into paintbrushes, and have been living there ever since performing their art and making or finding what they need to survive.  

And these people were surviving pretty well.  This is not a surprise, as they must have had tremendous cardio-vascular conditioning.  The occupied portions of the place were spread along the steep side of a cliff, so it might be 100 steps to your neighbor's house just to borrow a cup of sugar.  Dealing with that every day, these people were probably in shape.  Secondly, they were artist and farmer types who made sales to the tourist types who were passing through.  This is not a bad way to survive.  On the way in, Anne and Mark bought some dates and figs, which were fantastic.  On the way out, Anne got roped into buying a bottle of pomegranate juice, so they extracted a few Euros.  Assuming this is par for the course, they probably make a decent enough living just off of the tourists passing by.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, the pomegranate is the Ft. Knox of fruit.  Nearly inaccessible.  It tastes pretty good, but the amount of work necessary to get the little individual bits of fruity goodness out of the husk and ready to eat is tremendous.  Way more work than a banana.  So even though a consumer may prefer the taste of pomegranates over the taste of bananas (the second most inaccessible fruit), if given a choice, the consumer will take the banana every time because the work to access the pomegranate goodness more than offsets the difference in taste preference.

So pomegranate juice is a good idea, right?  Someone else did all the work and Anne just buys the concentrated fruit goodness?  Right?  Kind of.  The key word in that sentence is "concentrated."  It was not like juices that we are used to drinking, it was more like syrup.  Way too concentrated to drink out of the bottle.  Of course, as people who drink pomegranate juice once every.... well, never, Anne and Mark had no idea that this would be so strong.  Mark took one swig and spent the rest of the afternoon wondering if he would be able to communicate the word "insulin" to a Slavic speaker through pantomime if it became necessary.

After getting a significant sugar buzz from the pomegranate juice experience, Anne and Mark made the last leg of the trip to Mostar.

As mentioned, Mostar was the site of significant fighting during the war in the 1990s.  Whereas most of the damage in Dubrovnik has been repaired, much more of the damage in Mostar is still visible.

Mostar has a long history featuring residents of vastly different ethnicities, religions and races.  The city has long been home to significant numbers of Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Muslims.  When war came to Mostar in the 1990s, these divisions in particular were thrust into the forefront and the city was divided, literally and figuratively.

One of the most famous features of Mostar is the Stari Most ("Old Bridge").  It was built by the ruling Ottomans in the 16th century.  In addition to being an engineering marvel ahead of its time, it became a not-so-subtle symbol of different cultures "bridging" gaps and living together peacefully.  In the war in the 1990s, the bridge was bombed many times over several months.  Eventually, it was destroyed.  Our guide opined that this was not a terribly important tactical achievement in the war, but was significant symbolically as it prevented the Muslims (on one side of the river) from reaching the Christians (on the other).

After the war was over, the people of Mostar wanted to rebuild the bridge with its original materials.  Unfortunately, some blocks of stone had sat in the river below for so long, they had become unstable and not suitable building materials.  So, as an alternative, the city rebuilt the bridge using stone from the same location as the original and using the same methods that were used in the 16th century.  It took even longer to build the bridge the second time (apparently, those guys in the 16th century were much better at certain bridge-building techniques than modern workers), but they got it done.  Now the "New Old Bridge" stands in the place where the Old Bridge used to stand, uniting the parts of the city.

That's a good looking guy in the baby blue polo shirt standing on that bridge.

How about a Bud(va)?

The second day trip that Anne and Mark took while staying in Dubrovnik was to the Bay of Kotor, which is located in the nation of Montenegro.  Our understanding is that Montenegro is the Italian word for the country.  The Slavic name would be Црна Гора, and both translate to mean something to the effect of "Black Mountain" or "Black Peaks."  It is a small country, a little smaller than Connecticut, and was formerly part of Yugoslavia.

Anne and Mark boarded their chartered bus in Dubrovnik and started off.  The trip took them across the border in Montenegro to the Bay of Kotor.  They drove completely around this fairly unique natural bay until they reached the city of Kotor.  Then they went to Budva, a resort town on the Adriatic for lunch, then back to the bay.  On the return trip however, instead of re-doing the three hour drive around the bay, they took the ferry that floats cars over the narrowest part of the bay.

The Bay of Kotor (pictured immediately above as well as at the top of this post) is a natural bay which features the advantages of being flanked by steep, almost fjord-like cliffs on both sides as well as having a dramatic natural bottleneck.  These features made the bay relatively easy to fortify and, therefore, the bay has been valued as a port for hundreds of years.  The photo at the top of the post features the Our Lady of the Rocks church, which was built on an artificial island there.  The entire drive around the bay was eye candy, with picturesque views in every direction.

After circling most of the bay, Anne and Mark reached the city of Kotor.  This city is now an inviting destination that welcomes visitors, but in the past it was a well fortified entry point from the sea.

For most of its history, the water reached up to the city walls (shown above) and this small gate was the only way to enter the city.  (Now, the water is kept about 100 feet away and the area in front of the walls is a public space)  In the photo below, you can see the city walls reaching all the way to the top of the surrounding mountainside.  The Kotorians Kotorese Kotorites people of Kotor were not about to attacked from any direction with putting up a fight.

The wall was closed.  Otherwise Anne and Mark were totally going to climb to the top of it.

Despite all of this fortification, Anne and Mark entered the city with little resistance.  Once inside, they looked around and sat down for a morning cup of coffee.  The cafe was next to the water pump shown below.  When the city was on lock-down because of an invading force or whatever, this pump was the only source of water for the residents (they claim that it still works, but Anne and Mark did not have the mechanical expertise to get it pumping, and being aware of this fact, they did not make an attempt).  According to the locals, people would hang around the water pump and gossip about the barbarians (more likely, the Venetians) at the gate and whatever else.  Perhaps this gossip at the water pump was the medieval equivalent of our modern office water cooler talk.

After a little idle chit-chat around the old water pump, Anne and Mark visited the Cathedral of St. Trifon.  You may remember St. Trifon from last February's celebration of St. Trifon's Day.  Well, this cathedral was dedicated to the same guy.  

This area has experienced its share of earthquakes and the cathedral has been damaged and rebuilt a few times.  You may have noticed that the two towers are not identical.  This is a fairly odd thing for church towers.  There are several local legends to explain this abnormality, although most are probably intended to scare children.  For example, one of these legends says that the tower on the right was completed, but they ran out of money before finishing the tower on the left.  See?  Scary stuff.

Anyway, back to Trifon.  The legend is that his body was in Kotor after he died and church officials were trying to transport it to somewhere else to put it to rest.  Each time they got in a boat with the body, however, a storm rose up and threw them back to the city.  After three tries, they finally took divine intervention for an answer and instead of transporting Trifon to somewhere else, they put him to rest here and dedicated a cathedral to him.

In the Orthodox Church, religious relics are held in high regard and with stored with reverence.  According to the locals, the room pictured above is filled with relics related to St. Trifon.  The most important of these, according to those who know, are the bones of the saint located in the silver box between the two kneeling angels and the head of the saint (without his nose, presumably) located in the golden case, also located between the two angels.

Before leaving Kotor, Mark took the opportunity to add another episode in his inconsistent series entitled "Donuts Around the World."  The photo below is the "before" picture.  (Imagine an empty display case, if you want to know what the "after" picture looked like)

From there, Anne and Mark traveled to the resort town of Budva.  On the way there, they stopped on the side of the road to take a look at the island of Sveti Stefan.  This is a hideout for the rich and famous.  How rich and famous?  If you have to ask, it does not apply to you.

As close as the Sveti Stefan people would let Mark get.

After this brief stop, Anne and Mark made it to Budva for sight-seeing and lunch.  Budva is a resort town and was well stocked with restaurants.

Budva on the far bank.

Budva also has an old town with city walls and gates, but not quite as extensive as Dubrovnik or Kotor.   So, having developed a case of city wall and gate fatigue (or perhaps, after having become "city wall and gate snobs"), Anne and Mark decided against exploring the city and instead spent some time in the shallows of the Adriatic.  Even though this was November, the water was pleasantly warm.

Anne rocks the "high waters."

After leaving Budva, Anne and Mark headed back toward Dubrovnik.  Most of this trip was on the highway, but a small portion of it was on the ferry that took them across the bottleneck portion of the Bay of Kotor.  This ferry trip took place very near to sunset and it was difficult not to enjoy the views.

The sun setting over the Bay.

Split Time

The road along the coast with the islands of Croatian in the distance.

The first day trip that Anne and Mark took from their home base in Dubrovnik was to another city in Croatia.  The name of the city is Split.  Readers of this blog might expect this blog post to be little more than some photos and a series of puns playing on the name of the city.  Mark would love nothing more than to do this.  Unfortunately, Anne has placed a ban on puns.  So there will be no fun with puns.  However, with a name like "Split," you have to do something to mark the occasion, right?  So, for the remainder of this post we will pay homage to the city's name by promising to unnecessarily split the infinitives used in this post.

The trip from Dubrovnik to Split is a fairly long one.  Anne and Mark decided to actually take a bus.  Even though both Dubrovnik and Split are located within the nation of Croatia, the geography of the region is such that Anne and Mark had to purposefully make two border crossings on the way there and two more on the way back.  For historical reasons that Anne and Mark did not fully comprehend, a small part of land belongs to Bosnia, even though Croatia is on both sides of it.  

The arrow points to the piece of land that is Bosnia that Anne and Mark had to cross.  Even though it has sea front, there is no port there, so Bosnia has coast line but is essentially landlocked for shipping purposes.

When Yugoslavia existed, the areas that are now Bosnia and Croatia were parts of that nation.  The infrastructure of Yugoslavia contained a major highway that followed the coast and that highway is still in use.  Now, however, that highway goes from Dubrovnik (in Croatia), through Bosnia for about a 30 minute drive through only one small town called Neum, and then back into Croatia.  

After a few hours on the bus, Anne and Mark were able to eventually arrive in Split.  There are several things that the city is known for, none moreso than Diocletian's Palace located there.  Diocletian was a Roman big shot who decided to expertly build a palace in Split while he was ruling the surrounding area.  Like many ruins from Roman times, much of this palace is well preserved.  Upon initial inspection, however, Anne was unsure whether this was a good thing.

Smells ike we're touring a garbage dump.

The brochure said that visitors should make a stop at Diocletian's cellars.  When Anne and Mark think "cellars," they think wine or storage or perhaps, since this was a Roman palace, some sort of prison set up.  Nope.  Upon inspection, Anne begins to olfactorily sense that the cellars were used for several purposes, including a garbage dump.  The ceiling contained holes that connected to the surface level.  Diocletian and his contemporaries would dump their trash in the holes and eventually, they filled up much of the cellars.  Some of it has since been excavated and the experts consider this to archaeologically be a treasure trove of information.  So keep that in mind - some day some archaeologist is going to scientifically dig through your trash to approximately figure out how you lived, so leave trash that represents you as you want to appropriately be represented.

Anne and Mark then endeavored to boldly explore the remainder of the ruins of Diocletian's Palace.  In the photo above, a headless sphinx guards the entrance to Diocletian's Temple to Jupiter.  As often happens over the years, the buildings get changed from one use to another as the ruling party changes and the dominant religions change.  Jupiter's Temple, for example, was converted into a church dedicated to John the Baptist (at which point the sphinx makes even less sense, but to each their own).

Speaking of sphinxes (is that the right plural?  I do not think I have ever had to properly refer to more than one sphinx before in my life), there were a bunch of them in Split.  Diocletian had been in Egypt for part of his career and really dug the motif, so he brought 16 or so sphinxes with him when he left.  Many of these are on display throughout the city, and many of them (like the one outside of St. John's) got defaced or otherwise damaged.  The sphinx in the photo immediately above was outside of the main temple in town and has remained remarkably well intact.

Before moving on to happily discuss some more of the nice parts of Split, it is time to necessarily deal with some ugly business.  Anne and Mark have not encountered many unpleasant people in their travels.  Sure, there was the Goonies lady in Venice and that mean Bren girl who was trying to nefariously drop coins into some guy's Speedo on the beach, but most people that Anne and Mark have encountered on their travels have been pretty friendly.

Then there is this Jack Hole (pictured above).  Mr. Hot Shot Purple Shirt (pictured above) is in charge of the mausoleum of Diocletian in Split.  The mausoleum has been converted into a church (Cathedral of St. Dominus) and is one of the main attractions of the city.  Anne and Mark arrived to respectfully visit the mausoleum/cathedral at about 12:15.  The sign posted there said that it closed at 12:30 (Anne and Mark never did get a good reason as to why it closed that early, but that is beside the point).  As they approached the entrance, Captain Fun Hater (pictured above) started yelling at them in Croatian.  He also was physically escorting people out of the mausoleum/cathedral.  Keep in mind, this is still before the posted closing time.  AND keep in mind - this is Europe.  Nothing runs on time in Europe.  Being late is expected.  So this guy decides to go rogue and shut down the mausoleum/cathedral early?  For shame.

Do not get us wrong, Anne and Mark had no strong desire to definitely visit this site prior to learning about it when they got there.  I mean come on, when you've seen one 4th century mausoleum converted into a cathedral, you have seen them all.  But why would you shut this down early, Jerky McJerkerson?  Some people are probably visiting Split for the one and only time in their lives and some people probably really made the trip to individually see this particular site.  The least you could do is keep it open for the time you said you were going to actually keep it open.  So, Captain Purple Shirt McJerkerson Fun Hater, congratulations, you are officially named the Jack Hole of the trip!!!

I am sorry you had to unfortunately witness that ugliness.

Anne and Mark did not let this one Jack Hole Croatian dude ruin the day trip.  Instead, they rallied and toured the remainder of the city.  Just outside the gates of the palace, Anne and Mark saw the statue of Gregory of Nin ("G of N" to his friends).  G of N was a bishop and is a big deal in this area.  The locals say that if you rub G of N's big toe, you will have good luck or a wish will come true or something (Anne and Mark did not get adequate clarification on the details of the toe-good fortune connection).  Due to some traumatic experiences, Anne is generally opposed to gratuitously touching other people's toes, so Anne and Mark skipped this opportunity.

Later, Anne and Mark went on a walk through the old part of the city and saw some of the artwork there.

This statue was done by some artist, who apparently had some issues he needed to artistically resove.  First, there is the small motif in the wall about 5 or 10 feet above the statue showing a man and woman arguing.  Weird.  Then you have the statue.  Very nice statue of... well, we really do not know who it is.  Not sure it that nice, either.  But look to the bottom of the statue, next to the figure's left leg. See it?

It's like a little dude hiding behind the figure.  What are you doing back there, little dude?  Do not be afraid.  Actually, according to the guidebook, the guy who paid for the statue wanted a statue of the saint or the bishop or whomever that statue is supposed to be.  This patron, however, also wanted to be remembered and demanded to be included in the work.  This creepy little guy is the result.  Was the patron happy with this?  No word on that.

After a good day of touring the palace and the old town, Anne and Mark spent the remainder of their time in Split down by the harbor enjoying a cold, locally-produced beverage.

Ozujsko, anyone?

All Around Town

Cruisers mill about on the Stradun.

Anne and Mark took several day trips while they were staying in Dubrovnik, but also spent a significant amount of time hanging around town.  Dubrovnik is quite the tourist destination and on a couple of the mornings Anne and Mark were in town, so were the passengers of a cruise ship.

Anne and Mark sat at a cafe and sipped coffee while the cruise ship passengers milled about.  They might even had appeared to be real Europeans except for the fact that Mark is roughly the size of 3 typical Europeans (Mark is sometimes mistaken for a street gang).  And even though it was late in the season, the street performers came out to ply their trade.  There was a parrot trainer guy right near our cafe.  For some reason, the parrots were trained not to fly or talk, but to walk around.  Interesting act, I guess.  There were also some other street performers, but they were clearly just going through the motions (not worthy of a photo on this blog).

What are you looking at?

After finishing their coffee, Anne and Mark sprinted to all of the other sites in town (it turns out that the coffee was actually espresso, so Anne and Mark sustained a significant caffeine buzz, which may explain the sprinting).  Just outside the main gate to the city (called the Pile Gate), there is a statue of St. Blaise.  Blaise is the patron saint of Dubrovnik and is usually portrayed with a model of the city in his left hand.  (And he is portrayed EVERYWHERE.)  The story is that St. Blaise warned the city of an impending attack and allowed it time to prepare to defend itself.  The attack was rebuffed and Blaise was declared to 'the man.' 

St. Blaise watches over the main gate to Dubrovnik

After the cruise ship crowds started to head back to their floating buffets and $50 pitchers of Sangria, Anne and Mark ventured further away from the main drag.  A friend who had previously visited Dubrovnik advised them to seek out the Hole in the Wall.  It turns out that this was great advice (thanks, Paulin).

Keep it short and simple.

The signs made it pretty easy to find.  When we found it we realized that this place was called the Hole in the Wall because... well, because it is a bar that you get to by going through a hole in the city walls (we probably should have picked up on that a bit sooner, I now realize).  The bar is actually set up on the outside of the walls.  And because of this, the unobstructed view is fantastic, or as the sign says, "the most beautiful."

Anne heads to the bar with the city walls behind her and the Adriatic in front of her.

After trying a local drink and soaking up the views at this establishment, Anne and Mark next ventured to the top of the mountain overlooking Dubrovnik.  The mountain is tremendously steep and the locals do not recommend hiking up to it.  This site is accessible by cable car and that is how Anne and Mark got up there.

The cross at the top of the mountain was installed by the residents of Dubrovnik.  The population of the city is mainly Roman Catholic.  When the Siege of Dubrovnik was taking place in 1991 and 92, the residents held strong in the base at the top of the mountain and the still-standing cross was a symbol to the entire city that the location had not been taken by the opposition.

While at the top of the mountain, Anne and Mark enjoyed a good view of the city and the Adriatic Sea.  

According to the tourist map, the far side of that island contains a clothing-optional beach.  Oooh la la.

Anne and Mark also visited a museum located in the old base on top of the mountain.  The museum exhibits made clear the fact that the people who fought in the Siege of Dubrovnik were not well armed soldiers.  For the most part the weapons they had available were mementos from World War II and hunting rifles.  Additionally, the photos on display in this museum show a fighting force made up mostly of local police and national guard-types, mixed in with what appear to be regular people and even a few tourists.

The guy on the left: You told me it was Bermuda Shorts day, not uniform picture day!  Real, funny guys.

I am not an expert in military issue headgear... but neither are these guys.

After a busy day of touristing, Anne and Mark finished it off by taking a nice walk along the beach in the newer part of Dubrovnik.  The area around the new port is well developed with resorts and play areas for the rich and famous.  Most of them were closed for the season however (it only got down to about 60 degrees that night, but this is "winter" in Dubrovnik, apparently).  This worked out well for Anne and Mark as with no one else around, they were able to relax, take advantage of the beautiful setting and watch the sun set over the sea.

City Walls of Dubrovnik

At the end of October, the University called fall break and Anne and Mark promptly left for a tour of the Dalmation Coast.  They set up camp in a place called Dubrovnik.  Dubrovnik is a very old city that has seen its share of action over the years.  It is located across the Adriatic Sea from Italy and has a history that dates back to before Roman times.  Early on it became clear that the city was strategically located and foreign powers would try to take it over.  You had all your usual suspects, Slavs, Turks, etc.  You also had the Venetians just across the sea during their hey day, trying to be a big, tough maritime power.  The local residents decided to fortify this location against these foreign threats.  Several fortifications have been built over the centuries, some replacing others and some built upon others, but even the most recent parts of the walls that exist around the city today are hundreds of years old.

Behind Anne in the photo above, you can see the entire "Old Town" portion of Dubrovnik.  The walls encompass the old town on all sides, with a wall to the sea and to the land to protect against either type of invasion, with only a series of gates through which people could enter or leave.

Despite having these significant fortifications, the city of Dubrovnik has been the target of multiple raids over the years, as well as being involved in several wars.  Most recently, Dubrovnik was put under siege from 1991-1992 in a war among the people of the nation formerly known as Yugoslavia (Dubrovnik is located in Croatia, which was a part of Yugoslavia until it dissolved).  As a result of this, the city has sustained extensive damage.  The old portion of Dubrovnik has mostly been restored, using original materials whenever possible.

The exceptionally good-looking man in the photo above (I realize it is the back of his head, but that can still be the better side for some people) is looking over the rooftops of the city while standing on top of the city walls.  If you look closely you can see that most of the roofs are bright red and only a few are of an older, more brown and "worn-looking" color.  The red roofs are the ones that were replaced following the bombing of the city during the 1991-92 siege.  The older-looking roofs are the originals.  As you can see many red roofs in the current version of the city, the damage to roofs in the city was extensive.

The photo above is the main drag through "Old Town."  It is called the Stradun and it is usually packed with locals and tourists alike (the photo above shows a nearly empty Stradun only because it was taken early in the morning).  The store fronts and the streets in Old Town sustained significant damage in 1991 and 1992, but the repairs made by the people have been done so well and so completely that the entire scene is nearly seamless.  Anne and Mark did notice a few places where the scars of the invasion still showed through, but mostly Dubrovnik has cleaned up and moved on.

If anyone is planning on visiting Dubrovnik, Anne and Mark have two pieces of advice: (1) bring your walking stair-climbing shoes and (2) pack light.  The city is built on a rocky island and to get around, the residents go up and down stairs nearly all day long.  This is fine for the local residents, who no doubt have fabulous cardio and strong calf muscles and do not have to carry around luggage.  On the other hand, these stairs are not ideal for Americans, like the one in the photo above, who happen to be carrying around an extra hundred pounds (and I'm not talking about the luggage).  Anne and Mark rented a room just off of the Stradun.  The location was fabulous: in Old Town, 50 yards from the main drag.  Perfect.  The part they did not tell us was that the 50 yards were all vertical.  72 steps from the Stradun to the room (but who's counting?)

Mark runs ahead to get a picture before all the other tourists arrive at the corner of the city walls.

Assuming that their cardio fitness was up to par, Anne and Mark decided to walk the walls.  The city estimates that it is about a 2.2 kilometers hike to walk completely around the city on the walls (2.2 kilometers is roughly 45 degrees Fahrenheit or 13 gallons - Anne and Mark are really starting to pick up this metric systems stuff).  At the end of the walk around the top of the walls, Anne and Mark visited the Fortress of St. Lawrence just adjacent to the Old Town.  The views from pretty much any point on the city walls and the fortress are spectacular.


Like this one: Spectacular

View of Fortress of St. Lawrence from the city walls.

... and this one: Spectacular

View of harbor and city walls taken from on top of the Fortress of St. Lawrence

And this one....well, maybe some are more spectacular than others...

Say hello to next year's Dubrovnik Tourism Association advertising campaign.