Sarajevo-Part 2. A walking tour with Amir.

We’ve been traveling with some guidebooks, including Rick Steves’.  One thing he highly recommended for Sarajevo is to hire a local guide and he lists Amir Telibechirowich as a key resource.  We contacted Amir and were lucky that he was available as he had just returned from leading a Rick Steves’ tour throughout the Balkans.  Amir is actually a journalist rather than a guide, and he brought a journalist’s depth of detail to our experience, but even more so, his personal experience living through the nightmare of the siege of Sarajevo, including the death of several close family members.

We started at a pair of graveyards right across from our hotel.  One was an old Ottoman era graveyard, with many tombstones topped with turban shaped decorations.  The graveyard is located in an inhabited area, not because the housing expanded to this neighborhood, but rather because the local tradition has been to bury the dead in open spaces in amongst houses.  This was done to avoid thinking of the dead as spooks, zombies, or any of the other scary things western culture often associates with the dead.

Across the road is a much larger, newer graveyard.  Although to a cursory look, the tombstones seem almost identical, in fact there are people of different faiths buried here.  Once the dust cleared from the early 90s conflict, some 10,000 Sarajevans were dead (including 1,600 children) and 50,000-70,000 were wounded.  The currently population of approx. 310,000 remains about 200,000 below the prewar peak.  This graveyard is just one of many from this period when even burying people during the war was dangerous – people were shot by snipers while conducting funerals.

We also learned about the mysterious Bogomils, who were a mystic Christian sect living in the area that associated with neither Orthodox or Catholic churches and ultimately became Muslims under the Ottomans, whose philosophy was closer to that of the Bogomils rather than the more traditional Christian denominations. 

From there we climbed to a lookout with a great view of valley.  Sarajevo has to have one of the most impressive locations of any European capital nestled in the heart of a deep valley that would seem to be a great defensive position if you controlled the nearby peaks.  However, sometime well before the conflict, citizens saw construction equipment building fortifications around the peaks.  When they asked questions they were told that these were for the protection of the population, but in reality the guns placed there were not pointed away from the city, but towards it, making the city indefensible once the shooting began.  Nearby we could see an old prison station.  This was where Princip got taken after assassinating the ArchDuke (and getting beat up by the crowd).

Walking back into down we saw the Moorish style, Austro-Hungarian built City Hall.  Due to a building mix up (or a deliberate act on the part of the slighted architect), the balcony, from which the Mayor would make his proclamations was not placed on the side facing an open space as would make sense, but instead toward the narrow quay with a river in front, with very little space for any crowds and the sound of water to compete with.

In the Ottoman core of the city we visited the exterior of one of the main Mosques, then headed across the street to the old Madrassa (school) which is now a museum as the Madrasssa is in newer quarters next door.  The old town town includes many Mosques, and bazaars selling food, jewelry and all sorts of knick knacks.

We then walked through the Austro-Hungarian middle part of the city, passing the Jewish Museum, Catholic Cathedral, Serbian Orthodox Cathedral, plazas and so forth.  In a number of places throughout the city serious damage from the war can still be seen and Amir took us into several alleys to see this.  Much of the damage was done by mortars that could lob a shell over the buildings and into the spaces in between where the shrapnel would wreak havoc.  As we walked along the streets in a number of places small pock marked areas on the street  could be seen, many of them filled with red paint.  These are so called “Sarajevo Roses” and denote the site of a massacre, defined as the death of 3 or more people from a single mortar bursts.  The non painted ones mean that either no one was killed or “only” one or two people.

As we passed into one of the newer areas of Sarajevo, we were now in the heart of “Snipers Alley” where people had to dart between buildings in order to avoid the Serbian snipers who seemed to shoot anything that was moving in their sights.  Amir related how the streets were empty and one day someone offered him a lift back to his home, near the airport.  He drove at around 200 KM/Hr (about 125 MPH) through the streets, in part to avoid the snipers, but also because he wanted to and he could.  Amir wasn’t sure which he was more frightened off – the snipers or the driver!

We had come here at my request to visit the National Museum in order to see the Sarajevo Haggadah.  Unfortunately the room is currently kept locked so we could only glimpse the book through a glass door and under a glass case.  This was very disappointing, but we got to see other parts of the museum including Roman and other artifacts, an Ethnographic wing with dioramas of Ottoman life, a Natural History wing, and Bogomil tombstones outside.

Amir took us to a fun Cafe called Tito that is decorated with lots of memorabilia of the former head of state.  Outside are some military vehicles including one of the 5 tanks that the locals used to defend the city.  Imagine – going to a museum to get a world war II era tank to try to protect your home. 

Amir and I drank Cockta, a drink I’ve seen on every menu in the former Yugoslav states.  He explained to me that Tito did not ban foreign products, so for instance, Coca Cola was available, but he also encouraged the creation of local equivalent products, and so this is the Yugoslav version of Coke - somewhat different in taste, but not bad.

We delayed our departure from Sarajevo the next morning in order to visit the Memorial Gallery 11/7/95 which is a gallery that includes photos of the aftermath of the Srebrenica Massacre as well as various films and presentations attempting to explain what happened there and how it affected the families of the dead,  It also includes an exhibition of graphic protest posters from the time.  The Srebrenica Massacre took place in the northeast of the country in a Muslim town close to the Serbian border.  It was officially a safe area protected by the UN, but unfortunately they ended up being woefully unable to do their job and 8,000 men and boys were deliberately exterminated in a horrific coordinated act of ethnic cleansing.  Somewhat telling is that the Court in the Hague ultimately found that the Dutch UN peacekeepers were directly liable for the death of 300 of these people.

A sobering end to our visit to such a beautiful town.  No one who lived through the conflict will forget this episode of madness, but from the friendliness and positivity of the all the people we met, it seems they are doing their best to write the next chapter in this city’s long and illustrious history.

Sarajevo–Part 1

When you hear the name “Sarajevo”, what comes to mind?  My guess is for most people, it is often something negative, such as the assassination of ArchDuke Ferdinand at the hand of the Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip that started World War I, or the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s.  On a more positive note, some of you may recall the 1984 winter Olympics.

What is generally less well known is that Sarajevo was for centuries a model of tolerance and inter-cultural living.  Jews, Muslims, and Christians of eastern and western churches all lived side by side. Unlike most cities that allowed Jews in the late medieval and renaissance period, the Jews of Sarajevo did not live in ghettos, but amongst their neighbors.  Today the old Sephardic synagogue (from the majority of the Jewish population who came here from Spain after 1492) is now a Jewish museum, but the Ashkenazi synagogue (founded by the Austo-Hungarian Jews who came here in the 19th Century) is still in operation.  Of special Jewish interest is the Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the oldest surviving illuminated Jewish manuscripts, most likely made in Spain around the 13th Century and carried to Sarajevo sometime after the expulsion in 1492.  Apart from the magnificence of the manuscript itself, its history is fascinating – including numerous brushes with destruction at the hands of the inquisitors, the fascist Ustaše in WWII and the siege in the early 90s.  In the latter two instances it was due to the heroic actions of muslim curators that we still have this priceless treasure.

If you have about 7 minutes, the following video is well worth watching.  I am pleased to report the National Museum re-opened in late 2015.  However, whether due to low levels of staffing or security concerns, the Haggadah can only be seen from afar and it was quite a disappointment not to be able to view it close up.

We got in to Sarajevo early enough to visit the Franz Ferdinand Assassination Site & Museum at the corner where Gavrilo Princip, a 19 year old Bosnian serb shot and killed both the heir to the Austo-Hungarian Empire, Franz Ferdinand and his pregnant wife, Sophie.  I learned a number of things of which I was not aware.  First, this was part of a wider conspiracy to kill first the governor of Bosnia, but instead the target changed to the Archduke.  Serbian conspirators in Belgrade supplied and trained a gang of young men, most of whom were members of a secret society called the Black Hand.  On the day of the assassination, one of them threw a bomb at the open topped car, but it bounced off and blew up under the following vehicle.  The Archduke and his wife sped on to their destination, too fast for Princip to shoot at,  but remarkably, after making a presentation, continued with their visit.  Just imagine what would happen if there was a modern attempt on a head of state or senior diplomat’s life – they would rush them out of the city as fast as possible.  The governor, who was travelling with the Archduke didn’t want to deploy a large contingent of troops in the city to further protect the royal party as they were just back from maneuvers and not kitted in the appropriate dress uniforms. 

A decision had been made for the royals to visit the injured from the earlier explosion and therefore the return route was altered, but somehow the instructions did not get passed on to the driver of Ferdinand and Sophie’s car, and so he continued straight along the quays rather than taking the needed right turn.  The governor stopped the driver and told him to back up – exactly where Princip was standing, so the car was essentially stopped and he was able to fire from a very close distance at stationery targets, first hitting the Archduke and then his wife.  Princip later claimed that he was aiming for the governor and not Sophie and whether his hands were shaking or he missed because he was grabbed, or he was indeed aiming for Sophie will never be known for sure.  Sophie was from a Czech noble family and almost persona non grata with the Austo-Hungarian Archduke’s family, and so there are all sorts of conspiracy theories, including that the Archduke’s own family might have been behind the killing.

Princip was only 19 and so too young to be executed, so he received a 20 year jail sentence instead.  However some of the Serbian officers who planned and equipped the attacks were executed.

Belgrade, The White City

We left Zagreb and took the highway over the border to Belgrade, a journey of about 4 hours and $21 in tolls ($17.50 on the Croatian side and $3.50 on the Serbian side).  Crossing the border was an almost trivial formality – we didn’t even need to get out of the car.

While the roads are in excellent shape on the Croatian side – comparable to Germany or the UK, on the Serbian side highways are less well maintained.  However, as we were about to discover, most things are also much less expensive here.  It’s also easy to tell that we are in Serbia rather than Croatia as the signs in Serbia are in Cyrillic (although sometimes with Romanized signs alongside).  The language is essentially the same, so it was a good way to practice my Cyrillic reading as I could just compare my decoding to the adjacent latin letters.

For those of you not up on your Balkan geography, the former Yugoslavia consisted of six states: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzeogovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia, which contained the national capital Belgrade.  While we’re at it, some linguistic decoding might also help.  “Yugo” means south, so Yugoslavia was the country of southern Slavic states, as opposed to Eastern Slavic states like Ukraine and Russia or Northern Slavic states such as Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Grad is the slavic word for city (think Stalingrad, Leningrad, etc.), so Belgrade means “white city” although what is “white” about it, I am not sure.

Arriving in Belgrade we discovered that the local drivers are extremely aggressive.  As soon as traffic slowed a bit on the highway, I was overtaken on the inside by people driving on the hard shoulder. Twice.  Only to be followed by two police cars speeding up behind me in traffic with flashing lights but no siren and overtaking me on both sides at the same time!  As we exited the  highway near our apartment people started making 2 lanes out of only one marked lane on the curved exit ramp.

Google took us to a location that did not match the address on our reservation, but it turned out to only be about a block or two down the same street.  But when we pulled in to the correct address, we couldn’t see any signage for our apartment.  After calling the contact number we were told to wait 20 minutes at they were on their way.  In the end it was 45 minutes before they got there and could let us in to the apartment.

Unfortunately this apartment turned out to be a mixed bag,  While it was spacious and nicely decorated, it immediately smelled of smoke, although in theory it was listed as non-smoking.  In reality, I don’t think anything in this country is non-smoking.  Later evidence of cigarette burns on the couch and butts on the balcony confirmed as much.  Since a pack of cigarettes costs the equivalent of US$1.50, smoking is something else that is much cheaper here.

There was what looked to be a decent kitchen until you opened the cabinets and the only cooking vessel was one frying pan.  No mixing bowls or the like, so basically fine for breakfast and microwaving things, not so good if you wanted to actually cook anything.  The other odd thing was that although the apartment was spacious, the bedroom was tiny.  Like I mean it could barely hold the bed tiny.  Also unfortunate was the fact that the a/c unit was in the lounge and did nothing to cool down the bedroom, but thankfully it naturally cooled down a bit at night while we were there.

The location isn’t bad.  On the ground floor is a restaurant, which we ate at on our last night, and there were nearby bakeries and other facilities.  The city center was about a 50 minute walk so we took a bus in, but later walked back to the apartment.

We headed for Kalemegdan - Belgrade Fortress which has a good view of the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers. The fortress is today a park and includes several rings of battlements. What’s kind of interesting is that the old moats have been repurposed for use as tennis courts, basketball courts, etc.

The park contains a zoo, gallery, a number of museums and restaurants. But with the exception of the latter, most of these were closed by the time we got there. However, the Military museum has a number of pieces that are kept on open display in one of the former moats. This included a number of WWII tanks from Allied and Axis forces, as well as other bits of military hardware of various vintage. The thing that most caught my attention was a 300 mm mortar that is huge. One can only imagine the sort of damage a shell from this might inflict.

Belgrade seems to be a much bigger and less pretty city than, say, Zagreb, but has a number of nice pedestrian thoroughfares such as  Knez Mihailova Street, the main drag.

It was about dinner time, so we went on the hunt for someplace to eat. We had read about a restaurant that sounded interesting, but were completely unable to find it. Using Google Maps to pinpoint its location, no one seemed to know about it, even though there were recent reviews. We are figuring out that Google Maps is less useful here than in Western Europe. While it’s accurate much of the time, there seems to be a number of addresses and driving directions that are incorrect. In the end, we found an outdoor café on a busy street that had a live singer and guitar player. Kelly ordered vegan Mexican fajitas and I ordered a tuna pizza. Mine turned out to be pretty much what I expected. Kelly’s turned out to be kind of a burrito made from pizza dough casing, filled with corn, mushrooms, and fake cheese. Note to self, remember the #1 culinary rule of travel, don’t order the Tex-Mex outside of the SW US or Central America. On the plus side, they had a lemon-mint cider which was something new for me and very tasty.

We stopped at the market on our way back to the apartment and since it had a washing machine, we decided to make use of that, necessitating the purchase of washing powder. The prices in Serbia seemed significantly less expensive than Croatia and way less than Western Europe or the USA (unless we are talking about imported goods). For instance, a box of washing  powder, maybe half the size of a small box in the US cost the equivalent of 0.60 cents.

The dominant religion in Serbia is Eastern Orthodox. The largest Orthodox church in Serbia, which is also one of the largest in the world is being built 10 minutes from our apartment. It is called St. Sava Temple and it’s being built by donation,  sort of like an Orthodox Sagrada Familia. The church is huge and the quality of materials, from what we could see, were very fine. The location of this church is where in 1594 the Turks burned down relics of St. Sava (founder of the Serbian Orthodox church in the late 12th/early 13th Century).

It struck me that when we travel and see classic churches, synagogues, and mosques, it seems like they’ve been around for a very long time and so it’s unusual to be able to see a religious building of this magnitude in the process of being built.

The other thing we wanted to see in Belgrade was the Tesla Museum. Nikolai Tesla is one of the few figures revered by both Croatians and Serbians. He was a Serb, born in what is today Croatia, who later moved to the US and became a naturalized US citizen. He is famous for his work in electricity and advocacy of a/c as the primary means of electrical distribution (rather than the d/c system proposed by Edison). He was also a futurist. At the museum an engineering student demonstrated a number of Tesla’s experiments, including using a Tesla coil to wirelessly light a bunch of unconnected fluorescent tubes held by various members of the crowd. We also saw a system that was used to remotely control a ship via wireless power signals, which Tesla pioneered. In Tesla’s time, many who witnessed this demonstration thought he was a magician or that there was a trained monkey inside the ship that responded to his commands. Also on display were some of his personal effects. In fact, this museum is the repository of his papers and is a serious research institution. Tesla never married and died with no children, but he had wanted his effects to be donated to Serbia when he died, and the government dedicated this building to that purpose.

Before setting out this morning, we had stopped in the restaurant on the ground floor of our apartment to see if they had anything we could eat. A nice waiter by the name of Sasha told us of a number of options that sounded good. He told me however that he would not be working later, but to ask for his colleague “Troll” who would be on duty tonight and who spoke English. They called him “Troll” because he is so large. When we arrived in the evening we had no doubt as to who Troll was, but he was surprised to hear us use his nickname and instead preferred that we call him Igor. Igor had worked on cruise ships and apart from speaking English, he was exceptionally friendly and helpful in arranging a meal that we could safely enjoy. Kelly and I started with some fresh tomato soup, after which Kelly had seared salmon and vegetables while I had a fresh forest mushroom risotto. I had a pear cider with dinner that was served over ice with chunks of fresh pear. It was really very nice, as was all the food. We finished up by sharing a slice of chocolate mousse cake. All-in-all the meal probably cost about half to two-thirds of what it might in Dublin and was a nice cap to our time in Belgrade.

On our way out of Belgrade we needed to gas us and there was a roadside filling station close to our apartment.  However, they do things in a manner I’ve never seen before.  They charge your credit card before they fill up – not put a hold on it, but actually charge it, so you have to decide how much fuel you want beforehand.  The idea of “fill it up” didn’t seem to exist at this station and if I were to charge say US$40 worth, but only have room for US$30, well hard luck me.  Luckily I was able to make a pretty accurate guess and ended up filling the car in one shot.

Z is for Zagreb

Good trivia question – what is alphabetically the last national capital?  Congratulations – you guessed it, Zagreb, capital of Croatia. 

We drove from Rovinj to Zagreb, 251 Km, or about 160 miles which only takes about 3 hours by highway.  The landscape changed from arid vineyards and olive plantations to huge swathes of deciduous forest.  The roads are good, but the tolls pretty expensive – it cost us about US15 equivalent for this 3 hours of driving.

The old part of modern Zagreb was actually two distinct towns – Gradec and Kaptol which were separately by a river and often at war with each other.  The river has long since been drained, but a vestige of the old animosity remains with a street whose name means Blood Bridge that links the two areas. 

There is also a Stone Gate that once protected Gradec and is now a significant pedestrian pathway between the two areas, but is also a shrine, so as people pass through, they stop for a few moments to offer prayers.  The walls are crammed with small tablets offering thanks for answered prayers.

We are staying within walking distance of the city center. Since we were in early enough, once we got settled, we walked to the old town and headed to The Museum of Broken Relationships which was open late.  On the way, we passed the Church of St. Marks and as this is Saturday and the church is located very close to the registry office, the square was filled with wedding couples having their pictures taken.  I’ve honestly not seen so many wedding couples or photographers in one place before!

This is one of the most unusual museums we’ve come across in all our travels and is certainly unique.  The rooms are filled with objects and notes or short presentations about how these items relate to the owner’s broken relationship.  Not all of these are romantic, some have to do with parental or filial relationships, but most of them are stories about how a love relationship ended.  This is not at all depressing – in fact it seems pretty cathartic for the people involved.  Some of the stories are lurid, some angry, some sweet, some full of disappointment. 

 

One story accompanying some stiletto heels from a Dutch woman stuck in my mine.  She had started a romantic relationship with a boy when they were both young, but they separated after a short while.  I think his family may have moved away.  She fast forwarded to 30 years later when she was quitting her job as a prostitute and decided to write a book about S&M.  In order to do some research, she got herself a job at an appropriate (!) club.  As she was disciplining one of the customers, they each realized that they were the same people who had loved each other so long ago.  Apparently the boy had grown up with an overbearing father and that led him to feeling like he needed to be disciplined.

We tried to avail of the opportunity for some ethnic food here in the capital and ate dinner at a Sri Lankan curry spot.  It was something different, but only so so. 

Zagreb is really quite a lovely town.  Our restaurant turned out to be on one of the key pedestrian streets and an ideal spot to sit outside and watch people go by.  Eating outside is a treat and the weather has been pretty lovely. The downside is that lots of people smoke, so you’re pretty much guaranteed to get a whiff after only a short while.

After breakfast the next morning we walked back to the old city center of Gradec, first stopping at the extensive market near the main square.  There were two main outdoor areas, one mostly fruits and vegetables, and the other flowers. 

Adjacent were indoor markets for fish and, separately, meats, cheeses, and other delicatessen type goods.  At the market we picked up strawberries and apricots, which were both very tasty.  The strawberries were less than $1 for a pound!

We were on our way to a museum next to the Museum of Broken Relationships, The Museum of Naïve Art, which is dedicated to a school of artists who were not formally trained, but nonetheless very creative and expressive.  The movement was lead by a man by the name of Generalić and you can see his self portrait here.

The early naïve artist’s medium of choice was oil on glass, as this was a less expensive and easier medium to work with and the images have an almost poster like quality with their vivid colors.  The method they used was to sketch a scene, then place the glass over it and paint on the reverse of the pane.  Thus all of the images when displayed are actually mirror images of the original sketches.   By the way, this is still a popular art form here in Croatia.

Leaving the  museum we headed back to St. Marks in order to hear a concert in the church, performed after mass had ended.  Coincidentally we arrived just as a military unit marched up and did a changing of the guard ceremony right in front of the church. There are several government buildings lining the square, but the guards stand on the portico of the church itself.  Given how hot it was and how heavily dressed they were, one could only imagine that their guard post was an endurance test.

The concert featured the church’s organ and included pieces by Bruxtehude and Bach, some of which sounded very esoteric.  The organ was very powerful and as the church is not huge, the lower tones resonated in a most impressive manner.

We had taken our dirty clothes with us in order to use a nearby laundry.  While waiting for things to finish washing and drying, I brought back some lunch and we finished listening to one of the David Sedaris audio books we had brought.

Once all the laundry was fluffed and folded, it was time to explore another part of the city, so we headed south and walked to the Botanical Gardens, which are lovely.  Sort of like islands of specimen samples, each area of the garden seemed different.  Following a well deserved rest, we walked back to town and up to the Cathedral, which dominates the skyline of the city.  Apart from having a chance to view the interior, we were also there for another concert, which was also of organ music.

As we headed back to the hotel it started to rain – the first precipitation we have experienced in the Balkans, so we had dinner at a close by restaurant that turned out to be very good.  Kelly ordered tomato soup and I ordered nettle soup.  For main course Kelly had fresh tuna and I had the branzin (sea bass), both of which served with vegetables.  All washed down with the local beer and very reasonably priced.

Motoring to Motovun

Today’s travels will take us into the heart of truffle country and to the hilltop town of Motovun (see above), a fortified enclave in the heart of Istria. 

But first we drove about an hour to the seaside town of Poreč (the č is pronounced “ch” like in punch). 

Poreč is a popular seaside resort, which seemed to be populated by a surfeit of Germans. We are here not for the seaside, but to see the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Euphrasian Basilica, which dates from the 6th century. The complex contains earlier 4th century remains, a Bishop’s residence, a baptistry, a Venetian tower, and the spectacular golden Apse mosaics.

The  view from the Venetian tower is really pretty, and as you can see, we’ve been enjoying some lovely weather. 

The Apse dates from the 6th Century and the mosaics predictably depict Christ and the Apostles, the Virgin and child as well as St. Maurus, Bishop of Eurphrasus after whom the basilica is named.

In each of the Istrian towns we have visited we have seen lots of what I might call “Romeo and Juliet” balconies, but there appear to be lots more of them here in Poreč.  It is really easy to imagine yourself back hundreds of years just by looking around at the buildings and the street.

In a land that lives on seafood and meat, vegan options are few and far between.  We’ll have our fair share of fish this trip and will minimize our dairy intake, but it would be impossible to avoid entirely on this trip, even if we wanted to.  So far all the restaurants we have seen have been local Croatian places, which tend to serve fairly simple meat and fish dishes as well as pasta and pizza.  We have not seen any ethnic restaurants yet, although I think we did spot one McDonalds (if you could call that ethnic!) in Rovinj. 

Since we know we’ll mostly be eating fish in local restaurants this trip, we’re taking advantage of diversity when it presents itself.  Here in Poreč there is a vegan restaurant called Artha, which is unusual as we’ve been led to expect only to find such places in some of the big towns like Rijecka, Zagreb, Split, and Dubrovnik.  So we took advantage and had a nice vegan lunch before heading off to the hills and the town of Motovun.

The approach to Motovun is pretty spectacular and reminds me of other fortified hills towns we have visited in France and Germany.  Indeed the overall landscape we’ve been seeing is very similar to Provence, France or Tuscany, Italy.  Even if not quite as pretty, many of the local produce is similar – truffles, olive oil, wine, lavender, and the land and landscape seems vaguely familiar.

In Motovun, you have to park at the base of the hill and either hike up or take a bus.  As it was kind of hot, we wimped out and took the bus, but only one way – we would walk back down under our own steam.  The views from the ramparts are pretty spectacular.

Also the high position and late afternoon thermal currents make this a good place to paraglide and we saw three paragliders in action, including watching this one take off by the city gates.

Motovun has no shortage of truffle shops, most selling Zigande brand truffle products. The next town down the valley is Livade, which is truffle center, Croatia, and the HQ of the Zigande company.  Even here, truffle products are not cheap.  Costs depend on the type of truffle (which varies by season) as well as the type of product.  Fresh truffles seem to currently be selling for about US$300/Kg (2.2 Lbs), so even a few ounces cost a decent amount.  Truffle is often mixed with mushrooms and olive oil as these enhance the flavor and expand the volume of whatever you are using the truffles with.  We bought a medium size jar to make a nice truffle sauce for some pasta when we get home.

Truffles are so expensive because not only are they rare – they are very hard to find.  Buried about 8 inches down, usually in oak forests, the only way to find them reliably is to used trained animals.  Pigs in some other countries, but here they use trained dogs and we’ve seen pens of them on our walks.  Apparently they do the truffle hunting at night, which encourages the pooches to use more of the their sense of smell to navigate (and hopefully pick up the smell of truffles) rather than eyesight.

One of the shopkeepers told me that in the past anyone could hunt for truffles, but they almost wiped out the entire crop from overhunting and picking truffles too small (i.e. not letting them reproduce).  A flood a couple of decades ago also did major damage to the crop.  Today you have to have a license and trained dogs, both of which cost a lot of money, and hence the premium price for this epicurean delight.

We had read about an affordable restaurant called Konoba Dolina in Gradinje, the town next to Livade where we ended up having dinner.  Every night we’ve eaten al fresco as the weather at dinnertime tends to be lovely and tonight was no exception.  The only downside is that lots of Croatians still smoke and while it is supposedly banned indoors, no such luck on the terrace.

The dinner was simple, but very tasty, starting with a simple salad followed by gnocchi with wild asparagus and another pasta dish with truffles, which was the star.    This was made with something called fusi, or homemade pasta, which was a shape I had not seen before – imagine rolling out ravioli squares, but instead of filling them, you just roll end up, kind of like a mini (empty) cannoli. Down home cooking, Croatian style, washed down with the local vino.  Not a bad way to live.

Roving in Rovinj

Istria is, depending on whom you talk to, the most Italian area of Croatia, or the most Croatian part of Italy.  Actually this town, and many others in Istria are officially bilingual and in this case the town is known as both Rovinj (Croatian) and Rovigno (Italian). Indeed Istria was part of Italy until not so very long ago.   The whole Adriatic coast was strategic to the Venetians, and as evidenced by the bell tower at the top of the hill, Rovinj/Rovigno was an important location for them.  Apparently on a clear day you can actually see Venice from the bell tower.

Surprisingly, after Croatian the most common language I hear on the streets is not Italian, or English, but German.  It is a bit of a novelty for shopkeepers to automatically assume we are Germans.

Unlike other major Venetian port towns, such as Pula, the harbor here was not so large and deep, and therefore the Austro-Hungarians didn’t develop this into another navy port.  Staying as a sleepy provincial backwater was actually to Rovinj’s benefit and today it maintains much of its medieval charm and lacks industrial squalor.  Rather the area around the town is surrounded by harbors and beaches, which in this area does not mean sandy shores, but rather rocky patches and man made terraces by the sea.

The town itself is a charming old burg with the sorts of cobbled streets that make you wonder if these stones were ever replaced, or have been there for thousands of years.  After a good walk upon them, we stopped at the museum to see an exhibit of Chagall prints and lithographs as well as a local photographic exhibition upstairs.  Some of the photos were pretty good.  In the “nude/body” category, there were images taken in museums and art galleries which included subjects in black or white full body suits.  Sort of like a “where’s Waldo” it took me a minute to figure out that some of the “artwork” was in fact these people and not inanimate objects.

One thing I like to take pictures of is unusual doors (I have a huge collection from Spain and Portugal if anyone ever needs them!).  The one above caught my attention as it was so ornate.  Only later did I notice the smiley face on the panel next to it.

We sat at a café in the harbor and got some drinks.  Kelly stayed conventional with a cappuccino, but I’m always on the look out for something I haven’t tried.  There was a listing for “Cedevita” which the waiter said was kind of like a lemonade and I could choose orange or lemon.  I opted for the latter and when he came back, he explained this was a vitamin drink for kids and gave me a glass of water and a yellow packet, which ended up being something like Tang (or Squash for those in the British Isles).  Well, at least I know what Cedevita is now.

Kelly and I knew we would have a lot of driving on this trip and as we had recently attended the David Sedaris event in Austin at the Bass Concert Hall where we had a blast, so brought with us a bunch of his audio books. (Shout out to the Austin Public Library – great system – once you are signed up, you can get your content to download and manage checkout, returns, etc. automatically.)  We spent a nice half hour listening to some of his stories, enjoying the view of the town and the crystal blue water, and improving my vitamin intake.

Our apartment manager had recommended a nearby restaurant called Maslina, so we headed there for dinner.  Started with a tuna carpaccio, which was excellent, followed by fish with truffle sauce and vegetables, and a pizza.  They had a special “homemade cake” which was nutella based with a hazelnut crust and a nice end to a simple, but tasty meal.   Kelly compelled me to add that we walked for many miles today, just in case anyone might think we are gluttons. (Maybe gluttons for punishment!)