I have been to some of the world's most beautiful cities -- Paris, Budapest, San Francisco, Salzburg, Venice -- and I have never seen anything to match Dubrovnik. It is breathtaking. You can walk all the way around the old city wall for incredible views, then visit a museum, shop, or have a meal at the waterfront.
As you go north from Dubrovnik, you find forests and waterfalls -- lots and lots of waterfalls. We went to two national parks, Krka (pronounced Keerka) and Plitvice (Plit-veet-cee), which each have literally hundreds, maybe thousands, of waterfalls. They have built wooden paths over, under, and around the waterfalls. It is an unbelievable experience to walk through these parks.
Of course, we also saw a lot of this. I took this view from our hotel window, and later asked the girl at the desk what had happened to the church next door. "It was damaged in the fighting." What a shame, I said. "Oh, it's okay. That is the Orthodox church. It's abandoned. Our church is still there." Translation: virtually every town is "pure" now. It may be Roman Catholic, or Greek Orthodox, or Muslim, but they fought really nasty battles to segregate themselves according to religion. You see damaged, burned, and empty houses, but you also see a lot of construction. I suspect that houses are going for back taxes, now that the original owners are either dead or run off to some other place.
We went to Ljublana, Slovenia, for an afternoon
and to Pula, Croatia, where we found this Roman ampitheater, which is in such good shape that they hold concerts in it today.
The most surprising place of all was Bosnia. This bridge is in Mostar, and leads to what is essentially an Arab market. There were fascinating things for sale, but what I liked best were the ball-point pens made from spent bullet casings. It is a step toward the hope that someday all swords will be hammered into plowshares.
It is difficult to imagine the hatred the Balkan people have for one another, because they are so incredibly nice and helpful to strangers. They are also the cleanest people I have ever seen. Someone was always vacuuming the porch, or pulling the dust cover off the air conditioner so they could dust it, or sweeping out the cracks in the street. We were never afraid. Sometimes we would catch a little whiff of the hatred, as in the comments of the hotel clerk, but for the most part they just seem really sick of war, and wanting to build good lives and a strong future.
4 Comments:
What great , beautiful potos. I would like to go and see these countries in person. I particularly like you aalogy about the pens made from bullet casings. My Son-in law did a tour of duty in Bosnia with the arm. He too spoke about the beauty of the area.
Looks beautiful!
Wow, I had no idea those countries were so picturesque. It shows me just how little I know about our world.
How did you happen to be traveling these countries? Were you on vacation?
These are wonderful photos. It is really fascinating to see the beauty of these places. It stands in contrast to the horror the people have experienced there. I find it interesting to have stumbled across your site and this post, as in our life now we are involved in the Balkan countries too but only as related to the war and the war crimes committed there.
I appreciate seeing it from a different perspective this morning.
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