Cliff-Hanger: Would They Ever Leave?
By Daniel and Barbara Zwerdling-Rothschild
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, June 16, 2002
Our landlords insisted on cooking our first Croatian dinner, so Antun is grilling whole fish smothered with parsley and garlic in the outdoor stone fireplace, while Marija unmolds a flan draped in caramel and perfumed like roses. The sun is melting on a mountain ridge and the sea is turning from gold to red to pink, as cruise ships head across the bay like floating strands of Christmas lights.
And as we recall how much our loved ones back home are worrying about our safety ("Aren't they still fighting over there?"), we feel almost guilty.
We'd been dreaming for decades about visiting Dubrovnik, on Yugoslavia's Dalmatian Coast. Yugoslavia was the Friendly Communist Country, and Dubrovnik was the Renaissance jewel of Eastern Europe.
But we kept putting off the trip -- and in 1991, the Balkans exploded into war. Historians will probably argue eternally about precisely what triggered one of the worst bursts of genocide since World War II, but perhaps they could agree on some limited facts: The leaders of Croatia, one of the republics of Yugoslavia, declared that they were seceding from the nation and forming an independent country. Slobodan Milosevic, then Yugoslavia's dictator, sent in his army to try to prevent it. And Dubrovnik became one of the war's first victims.
Yugoslav troops fanned out on the mountain ridges that overlook Dubrovnik and warships closed off the sea. For more than seven months, they hurled artillery and mortar shells at the city as the international community watched in shock. The world would learn about the carnage in places like Sarajevo and Kosovo later, but back then, in the first months of 1992, it seemed incomprehensible that Milosevic would order his troops to bombard an ancient, cherished city filled with civilians, apparently out of spite. The United Nations reported that two-thirds of the churches, palaces and proud old houses had been hit. Some had been gutted.
So we were astonished when we ran into an acquaintance a couple years ago who had just returned from a work trip in the Balkans, and he said, "Want me to tell you a secret? Go to Dubrovnik, and go soon. Go before every other tourist in the world finds out that Dubrovnik has been repaired. In fact, it might be more beautiful than ever."
Cultural Survival
Sometimes we start our days by meeting Darija, our guide and interpreter, at our favorite cafe in Old Town. To get there from our house on Zaton Bay, we drive for 20 minutes through layers of history, like sediment layers on a cliff: We pass hillsides of drab, communist-era apartments on the outskirts, then park in the faded Victorian quarter of "new" Dubrovnik; we cross the old moat and stroll through one of the massive gates in the medieval walls -- and suddenly, we enter a time warp. Dubrovnik is a magic pedestrian world where almost every cobblestone, statue and doorway was built between the 13th and 17th centuries -- unless, of course, it's been restored since the Balkans War.The place feels a bit disorienting: The facades look Italian but the people crowding the alleys look and sound almost Russian. It's a Slavic Venice without canals.
And the marble tables of the sprawling Gradska Kavana cafe make a great stage for people-watching -- no wonder leaders of the old communist regime used to hang out here. When we sit on one side of the cafe, we gaze over Dubrovnik's little marina, where fishing boats and cabin cruisers rock at the base of the fortified walls. When we choose the other side, under the fuchsia awnings, we look up at the baroque dome and columns of St. Blaise church. On weekends, the organ spills through the stained-glass windows, and we linger over espressos so we can watch wedding parties pose and mug on the steps.
"Hello," a voice says in soft, accented English, and there's a striking young woman with a delicate hoop piercing her belly button. Darija. We've never hired a guide and interpreter before on vacation, but this young artist could use the extra work, and we figure she's a friendly way to get to know Croatia.
"You can't possibly imagine what this town was like during the war," Darija says. "The morning it started, it was the first day of school. My brother and me, we were excited, we were going to see our friends again. My parents were dressing for work. And I went outside when I heard something" -- she pauses, searching for the right word -- "something like thunder. But it was so strange, because the sky was completely bright. Then we heard that the Serb soldiers were coming down from the mountains to kill all of us with their knives."
The soldiers didn't invade with knives, but the bombardment had begun. Local residents say the troops rained explosives down on the city from October until May, from sunrise until dark. Most people, like Darija's family, lived like rats in basement shelters during the day. The moment they stopped hearing the "thunder," they'd surface and head for the marina and bathe in the winter sea, using kerosene lanterns to guide them. They didn't have electricity or running water until the siege ended.
We stroll down the smooth limestone cobblestones of the Stradun, which is like a walkway of polished ivory tiles. This is the main promenade, lined with shops and cafes all shaded by blue awnings and crowded with young Croatians who look gorgeous and trendy and thin. Darija turns down a narrow alley and we follow her past art galleries and shops into the market square. Local farmers sell garlands of dried figs and bay leaves, and they pile tomatoes and peaches and baby arugula on rickety tables under striped umbrellas. By evening, the vendors will have disappeared and the square will be filled with tables, and we'll be feasting on platters of briny oysters that a fisherman just lugged in from his boat.
But now it's time for lunch, and Darija motions us to sit in the shade outside Buffet Skola, her favorite sandwich shop. She's right: Who could believe that much of this glorious town was rubble? The moment the siege ended, the Croatian government and United Nations began raising tens of millions of dollars to repair the damage. They ordered a city's-worth of clay roof tiles from European factories; the new replacements are a bit too orange next to the muted tiles that survived the war, but hardly anyone's complaining. They hired stonemasons to replace every pulverized cobblestone and rebuild every collapsed wall. They imported sculptors from other nations to heal every statue that was missing a hand or nose.
Darija gives a gracious, fake little laugh and says she's tired of talking about the war. The waitress has just brought thick, crusty slabs of yeasty sourdough bread, topped with local sheep's cheese and smoky ham. The bread is still warm, and we ask if we can buy a few slices to take home for dinner. The waitress says no -- and then wraps two hot loaves as a gift.
"I'm sorry, I have to go soon," Darija says. "I'm working tonight as an usher at the festival concert." The Dubrovnik festival was one of Europe's great summer attractions before the war. Actors like Daniel Day-Lewis would perform Hamlet in the ruins of a 16th-century fort and world-class musicians would make a pilgrimage to perform here.
The festival is finally reviving after years of forced intermission, although it's still not back to its former glory -- which is the only reason we can get tickets on short notice to hear Bach and Mozart in the Rector's Palace. The music is magical, but the setting transcends it: The orchestra performs in an intimate courtyard, with balconies rising above us like tiers on a wedding cake. The overflow audience hangs over the balustrade and pigeons swoop among the arches.
As the ovation fades, we exchange smiles with the stranger sitting next to us. "What a beautiful concert," we murmur. "Do you know, by any chance, which countries the musicians in the orchestra come from?"
"But they all live here," she says, looking surprised. "This is the Dubrovnik Symphony."
Berta Dragicevic introduces herself. She says she just stepped down as deputy mayor, and she cites an astonishing figure: The local government spends 20 percent of its budget on culture. Think about it: Dubrovnik is still recovering from the war. Some of the biggest (and ugliest) hotels are still abandoned. The unemployment rate tops 20 percent. Yet the city spends a huge chunk of its budget to support a full-time symphony and professional theater, a folk ensemble and choir, plus a gallery and museum -- all for a community that has at most 50,000 residents. "We have traditions," Dragicevic explains.
A Mouthful of Mussels
When we were planning our trip, we planned to use Dubrovnik as a base to tour the Balkans. We were going to venture over the mountains and visit Sarajevo. We were going to take ferries to islands like Korcula and Kvar, where hot young Europeans hang out. We would drive three hours south into Montenegro, which by all accounts is shabby and spectacularly beautiful.We never made it. We'd start sipping coffee most mornings on our terrace, then watch, mesmerized, as the sun spilled onto the islands and mountains and our little bay woke up: first, a lone fishermen in a puttering skiff, then a freighter moving down the channel, then a sailboat or two. If one of us felt energetic, he or she would cover their coffee with a saucer and run down the steps past our swimming pool, returning five minutes later with, say, a handful of figs.
"Okay," someone would finally say, "does anybody feel like taking an expedition?" And we'd just sit there -- happy and inert.
But we weren't lazy. By mid-morning we'd embark on a daily adventure. We'd descend the dizzying steps our landlord had built all the way down to the water, and go snorkeling at the base of our cliff. The water was so clear and pristine that every day we were dazzled again. We would swim through clouds of plump white fish as big as trout, and others striped like underwater tigers, and masses of neon-purple fish that floated in place like Calder mobiles.
Sometimes we'd harvest our lunch before we got out of the water. The base of our cliff was covered with thousands of small mussels, like bouquets of black flowers clinging onto the rocks. We'd pry them off by the handful, then steam them in garlic and wine -- plus an occasional rosemary sprig from our giant bush.
On other days, we'd clamber into our outboard motorboat, putter across the bay and tie up at one of the restaurants with tables set at the water's edge. At Marko's, you don't even have to look at a menu; you just sit under the vine-covered trellis, sipping honey-colored wine as the owner and his son Darko serve whatever traditional coastal dishes his wife feels like making. She might start with mountains of tiny clams tossed with capers, then faintly charred shrimps bursting with juice, and fried baby calamari with a wispy and fragile crust, and whole fish with the skin grilled so crisp it crackles. By the time Darko serves his mother's crepes dusted with ground local walnuts, we're begging, thank you, please, we have to stop.
War-Torn Memories
When the Yugoslav army invaded the area around Dubrovnik, they seized our rental house and turned it into a command post. "And we were lucky," says Marija, our landlord. At the moment, we're sipping Antun's rose liqueur and nibbling olives with some of their family and friends, and watching another sunset off our terrace."Yes, lucky," Marija repeats, with a bitter laugh. She's speaking Croatian, which her daughter-in-law translates, plus a smattering of Italian that many Croatians speak. They tell us how Serb soldiers from the Yugoslav army burned some of the nearby homes on this bay but saved this house because it was a perfect lookout point on the shipping channel. The family took refuge in shelters in a nearby town.
They're here this evening because our month in Dubrovnik is almost over and they want to send us off with a traditional Sunday dinner. So Antun is back at the outdoor fireplace, shoveling glowing coals around an enamel casserole that's heavy with potatoes and chunks of lamb. Marija is simmering seafood risotto that's black and musty with squid ink. As we work our way through a bottle of local wine, we figure that we've finally become friendly enough to broach the issue that local residents usually avoid:
Have they put the war behind them?
There's an edgy silence. The Croatians look at their drinks. Finally, our landlords' daughter-in-law, Marijana, speaks.
"Do you know what it's like to live for months below ground, while there are bombs exploding outside?" she asks. "One day, some of the people went outside just for a few minutes, to smoke cigarettes." Marijana flushes and starts to cry, and nuzzles her baby. "And just at that moment, an artillery shell hit. Seven people died. Friends."
"And do you know what we found when we came back to this house after the war?" Marija says. "The soldiers destroyed or stole everything. All our plates, all our furniture, everything." Now Marija is wiping away tears, too. "And the Serb soldiers used our floors as a toilet. Can you picture that?"
We murmur something that we hope seems supportive but objective, but ends up being inadequate. Both Serbs and Croatians committed atrocities, according to all the evidence, and both Serb and Croatian military officers have been charged with war crimes. It's the innocent civilians who are always caught in the vise.
Their friend Stefi cuts us off, her voice trembling. She works part time at the Croatian tourist bureau. "Only last week, a man came into the tourist office and wanted some information," she says, "and I knew he was Serb by his accent. The Serbs are coming back to visit our Dubrovnik for the first time since the war."
Stefi says the man wanted some details about traveling, but she politely explained that she didn't have them, and the man got belligerent and stormed out in a huff. "And as he was opening the door," Stefi says, "he turned and he looked at me. And he said, 'I wish we had killed all of you when we had the chance.' "
And now she's the third person crying at our dinner party.
"The risotto is ready," Marija says, in a voice that's too cheerful and loud. "Mangia. Let's eat."
Hugs and Strudel
The morning we leave Croatia, we're in a fog. The Milky Way still sparkles as we lock the house at 5 a.m. and lug our suitcases up the cliff. By the time we get to the airport we're waking up just enough to feel sorry for ourselves: We have to leave Dubrovnik and go back to reality.But at exactly 6:15 a.m., Antun and Marija walk through the airport doors. "I made strudel for your trip," Marija says, and we peek under the wrapper at little pillows bulging with apples and raisins. She and Antun give us big hugs.
That's our last memory of Dubrovnik: Antun and Marija standing at the metal detector, waving as we board the airplane, cradling packets of impossibly flaky pastry in our arms.
Daniel Zwerdling-Rothschild is a senior correspondent with National Public Radio. Barbara Zwerdling- Rothschild is a psychotherapist and freelance writer.
Details: Croatia
Or you can rent a house. We found ours through a friend -- it had never been listed before. Perched on a cliff overlooking the Adriatic, with four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a main kitchen, two mini-kitchens with extra refrigerators, a large outdoor terrace and swimming pool, it rented for $5,500 for one month, but current rates may vary. For information, e-mail the owners' daughter-in-law, Marijana, at vicko.soko@du.hinet.hr.
Dubrovnik is just beginning to develop a rental house market, but many apartments are available. The Croatian National Tourist Office (see below) lists more than 25 firms who can help arrange private accommodations. Here are some options:
These agencies can also help arrange bookings at B&Bs, where rooms start at $20 per night. Or you can find rooms last minute by driving along the coast and looking for signs proclaiming "Zimmer-Chambres-Camere."
Near Dubrovnik,