Dalmatian vacation

We spent a couple weeks last summer in Dalmatia. Dalmatia is the coastal part of Croatia, right across from Italy, North of Greece and Albania, on the part of the Mediterranean Sea that is called the Adriatic.

It's a beautiful place dubbed "the Mediterranean as it used to be." The big town on the coast is Split. My family is from inland, across the mountain range, close to where the Turks were stopped on their northward advance into Europe. Every year, Sinj (pronounced like "Siñ" in Spanish) celebrates that victory with an ancient horse competition called the Alka. We're hillbillies from just east of there by 5 km, aka 3 miles. It's a land of proud folks used to a hard life.

Play this to hear a sample of some very old style of singing from the area called ganga:


But our vacation was on the coast so this is a picture book of what it looks like on Jadra (local name for Adriatic.)

The picture above shows the island of Brac, our destination. Nope, it's not a stock or NASA photo, it's homemade. It shows the coast side facing the mainland, all the way down. The high resolution version shows Supetar and its port, our village called Splitska and other villages and coves all the way down. The island is 14 km wide by 40 long.

We got to Splitska the day before August 15, the Assumption, aka Virgin Mary Day. Splitska is a tiny village on the coast, population is under 400 during most of the year. It got its start as the place where Roman Emperor Diocletian mined the stones to build his palace across the way in Split. The quarry was only used for that but the stone from the island is very famous. The White House is built with Brac stone. My son and I spent a day at the old quarry. We saw the ancient carving of Hercules and found some cut stones from the Roman days. It was pretty exciting.



Here is Hercules and, digging for treasures...



The main road goes above the village which is great because it cuts down on traffic on our riva. The riva is the boardwalk along the edge of the sea; the French call it the "Promenade"-- the place to go walking. This photo is from the road on the way back from the quarry.



Here is one that shows the riva at the bottom of our street.



And another. You can see our little house in this one.



On August 15, Velika Gospa, the Virgin Mary is taken out of the church and a procession walks around the "old town" and blesses the houses. Our small house is the 4th on the way up and it's great to see the little children with flowers and the whole village pass by. They've done that for hundreds of years; some houses, like ours, are about as old.





Here are some photos to give you a flavor of the village.







And some more...







The place is beautiful. There are vineyards all around, cicadas chirping away like there's no tomorrow, swallows dancing in the sky, small private coves with Mediterannean pines at the edge of the sea, water so clean you can see the bottom 20 feet down, sunshine....

Play this to hear a song about the folks on Brac:


We took a few side trips on the island. There’s a famous beach called Zlatni Rat in Bol, on the other side but it's overwhelmed by tourists.

We also went to the southernmost village called Sumartin. Many villages start with "su" as in Sutivan, Supetar etc. It means "saint" so Sumartin is Saint Martin. We had drinks there and thought about taking the ferry to Makarska but it was too late so went back to Splitska.



We went often to Supetar, 3 miles away, where the ferry to Split comes and goes. We have a market in Splitska and local farmers sell their fruits and vegetables at the bottom of our street but we get our meat and fish there. The riva is full of cafés so it's fun to go in the evening, sip on a local wine or rakija and enjoy mighty good crepes. I also like to watch a good (English) Football game on the TVs some places have. It's fun to sit with Italians, Germans, French and locals and hear "Ja!" or "Andiamo!", "Ah, punaise!" and "Bogati."






We went one afternoon to Old Town Split (Stari Grad) and walked the streets of Diocletian's palace. The huge statue represents Bishop Grgur Ninski, by Ivan Mestrovic. The bishop fought to give the people of Nin the right to use their own language in liturgy instead of Latin. It's a tradition to rub the statue's toe for good luck.






Another time, we took a Hydro Glisser to visit a few other islands. There are over 1,000 up and down the coast. We went to Korcula, (pronounced "Korchula") the birthplace of Marco Polo (aka Marko Polo.) The Italians claim him as their own but it's true the island was part of Venice in those days.

Play this to hear some Klapa from Korcula:














And... these funny sculptures on each side of a door into a church (there's one at every corner.) This sure beats the monsters on Notre Dame in Paris and the weird sculptures on the Neues Rathaus in Munich.


We also went to Mljet (pronounced "Mlyett") where according to the legend, Ulysses was kept prisoner for 7 years by the nymph Calypso. In the middle of the island, there's a small one called St. Mary with an ancient Benedictine monastery and a church dating from the 12th century.


We stopped in Makarska briefly on the way back.



Our days were lazy, restful and peaceful. I even had time to read a great book, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, and another fun, adventure historical novel, No Quarter by Broos Campbell.

We packed everything, turned off water and electricity, sadly left our little village and stayed at my Dad's the last few days, right across from Splitska.








Time to say goodbye to the Adriatic...

We got on a plane, flew to Brussels, Kennedy Airport and finally LAX. The trip took 27 hours door to door. Well worth it.




Here's a video presentation of the island: