Croatia: A Land with a Beautiful Coast and a Complicated History

Secluded beach at Lubenice, Cres Island

To cap off a wonderful, if exhausting, month of travel, we went at the end of September this year to Croatia for almost two weeks. We flew into Zagreb and drove down most of the coast of the country, finishing our trip in beautiful Dubrovnik. On our journey, we saw dry, wind-swept islands filled with the smells of freshly growing herbs, groves of pale olive trees, and roaming fluffy, white sheep. We saw cascading waterfalls filling turquoise pools of burbling water amidst limestone cliffs; the bright, towering white bluffs over the coast of Paklenica National Park; and cities, living reincarnations of the past, built on the ruins of earlier civilizations. Croatia was a fascinating destination, a country with a complex though important history located at a crossroads of civilization where East met West. Being there now, you can sense this history still, if you open your eyes to it: the vanguard of western civilization.

Town of Lubenice, perched on a cliff, Cres Island

We started in Cres, driving down from Zagreb and taking the ferry. The sheep here are famous for their flavor, and it is said to be from the wild herbs they eat as they freely roam the island. We saw flocks on the sides of the road as we drove into town, the hillsides terraced with olive groves; and when we got out of the car we could smell thyme on the air. It was like we were in Mother Nature’s kitchen everywhere we went. In the small towns on the island, we saw Venetian influence in the architecture. Cres Town has an old clock tower and some old churches from those times. We hiked to a small town on the other side of the island called Lubenice, perched on the cliffs and full of old Venetian buildings; here also was a steep trail down the hillside to a secluded beach. We hiked down and snorkeled in the waters until a rain storm came to shore and drove us, dripping wet, back up the hill and across the ridgeline back to our car.

Plitvice Lakes National Park

We left Cres and drove to Plitvice Lakes National Park and spent the day at the park before moving on to our next hotel at Starigrad, a small town near Paklenica on the coast. Plitvice Lakes is a natural wonder, a series of waterfalls and lakes in a broad valley meandering over and through sinkholes and tunnels in the limestone bedrock. By walking, riding a bus and a ferry, we made our way around the upper and lower lakes and took many pictures—it was difficult to put down the camera here—and breathed in the fresh air. There were many tourists and the boardwalks around the lake in some places could get crowded, but we also found quiet places at the further ends of the lakes, space for reflection and appreciating the beauty that was all around us. We found a trail up to a vantage point to get a better view of the biggest waterfall in the park, Veliki Slap, which I thought was a fantastic name for a waterfall—‘the big slap’.

Pag Town as the sun sets on the barren ridge, with Paklenica in the background

At Paklenica, we hiked up to one of the highest viewpoints in the park at Babin Kuk, and the next day went for a drive to Pag Island. Our guidebook describes Pag as straight out of a 1950s Italian movie set, and the reality was close to this. We had a glimpse of it all at once as we came around a bend in the road down the spit of coast that reaches out to the island; suddenly there lay Pag, a barren desert, stripped of life by the steady salty breeze coming off the Adriatic. Pag has four major industries: salt, wine, animal husbandry (which means sheep, the lamb here is also renowned for its flavor), and cheese production (they produce a very unique strongly-flavored cheese here using sheep’s milk). We saw the salt flats outside Pag Town as we came into town, drank the wine, and bought a good-sized wedge of the cheese to take home.

Swimming at the Falls, Krka National Park

The next day we left Starigrad and drove to Krka National Park, a park located along a river also formed above karst limestone bedrock, with networks of waterfalls and rapids. The Park also has Roman ruins and churches, but the most fun is had at the southern end of the park where there is a public swimming area at the base of one of the biggest waterfalls and you can sit in the turquoise waters and marvel at the surrounding wonders. Over the years, the constant flow of water over limestone has formed tufa, a hard, calcified substance—actually rock—that looks like algae built up over around the falls and gives the water a magical appearance.

Split waterfront

We finished our adventures in the cities of Split and Dubrovnik, two cities with very different unique histories, but similar charm. They are both built on top of very old cities and amongst ruins. Split has been built around Diocletian’s Palace, which was built for the Roman emperor at the turn of the 4th Century as a place for his retirement. He abdicated from his position as emperor and moved there. Since those days, the city has changed a lot, but many of the buildings remain. The Roman Temple of Jupiter and Diocletian’s own mausoleum were at some point taken over by the early Christian church, which converted them to their own purposes. The buildings remain a fascinating mix of competing mythos, filled mostly with later Christian decorations but also some carvings, especially along the edge of the ceiling, of animals and other images that evoke an earlier era.

Dubrovnik from the ridgeline

Dubrovnik was different, comprising a larger area of old ruins—the entire fortified city-state of Ragusa, as it was known in its day. The ruins are on the whole better kept, not so dilapidated, and flooded with even more hordes of tourists than in Split. This was especially the case in the later morning to midafternoon hours when the groups from cruise ships descended on the city. Here we stayed in the old city in an apartment within the fortress walls. The most charming part of these cities—both Split and Dubrovnik—was how alive they are today. They are filled with restaurants and other businesses, occupying buildings and rooms, many of which were part of the original structure of the city and the fortress. We walked the walls with the crowds and marveled at the teeming city below us.

Islands off the coast at sunset

Later, we went swimming from the very cliffs that formed the fortress foundation, sunning on the rocks before jumping into the water with our snorkels. Tour boats and kayaks passed by with passengers waving their approval, and the fish in the water played hide-and-seek among the rocks. It all seemed so surreal, which pretty well sums up our time in Croatia. Ironically the only time the walls of Dubrovnik were ever fired upon was during the Balkan Wars in the 1990s, a not-so-distant reminder of the tragic history of this place. But life continues here, much as it always has. And judging by the crowds of tourists, more and more people are taking notice of the beauty and the magic that is Croatia.