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Dubrovnik And The Islands Off Southern Croatia Are Tempting Travelers With Organic Beauty And A Buzzing Nightlife.
By CruiseDirector | February 9, 2012
My friends and I play a travel game we call Swoon. The principles are simple: Choose a storied locale from a particular moment in the past 50 years, and the place that earns one of the most “aaah’s” wins. Someone invariably picks St.-Tropez circa 1955, or Ubud within the seventies. Precharter flight Ibiza. Post-Cold War Prague. Such places are the geographical equivalents of Truman Capote’s Grayscale Ball or Manchester’s Hacienda Club: that perfect confluence of location and time-before the rest of the world arrived, before the inevitable Wild On! specials on E! Think about Bahia in the sixties, Saigon in the nineties, or Tan-gier in Paul Bowles’s day.
Think about these and you’ll begin to understand the Dalmatian Coast in 2005. At this time, the islands of southern Croatia are-among a particular group of people-the premier destination within the Mediterranean region. They glimmer for the periphery enough to attract the trendy, yet hang enough off the radar to elicit blank stares one of many rest. And the rest don’t know it now, but are going to coming soon, too.
Europeans long favored Croatia’s coastal resorts like a low-key alternative-Greece, Italy, and Spain without the tourist junk or the exorbitant prices. (Inside the 1970′s and 80′s, Yugoslavia drew more British travelers than another European country besides Spain; many of them were bound for Dalmatia.) When Yugoslavia erupted into civil war in 1991, the Dalmatian Coast has not been as hard hit as the inland regions of Bosnia and Serbia. But violence was widespread even here, and tourists-the backbone of Dalmatia’s economy-disappeared altogether.
Today the pockmarks of mortar fire are faintly visible in Dubrovnik’s ancient walls, grim reminders in the 1991?92 siege by Yugoslav forces. In many of Croatia, the war now feels ages, not simply a decade, gone. And tourism is increasing by as much as 50 percent a year. Europeans are again flocking here each summer-arriving by yacht, by sailboat, by car ferry, or by Gulfstream and collecting where they left off. Americans, too, are finally being clued in: dozens of cruise lines and tour companies have added Dalmatia on their itineraries in recent years. And, for better or worse, Croatia was recently due to the Wild On! treatment on E! If that is not a tipping point, I don’t know what is.
So what’s the appeal?The landscape, first off. This is the most stunning coastline in Europe: a mix of limpid bays, craggy bluffs, hidden coves and beaches, vineyards, olive groves, and forests of cypress and pine. Remarkably well maintained ancient towns hold vivid examples of Greek, Roman, Venetian, and Slavic architecture. The sailing and yachting scene here rivals another, with hundreds of ports and dozens of marinas and countless natural inlets scattered across a lot of islands. Dalmatian cuisine-consisting of superb fish, shrimp, octopus, and oysters, as well as increasingly renowned wines-compares favorably to Italian cooking, and borrows heavily from this: here risotto becomes rizot and prosciutto becomes the delectable pursuit. But Dalmatian meals are earthier and rougher than Italian, blending hints of Hungarian (paprika-laced goulash), Turkish (kebab-style raznjici, or meat skewers), and Slavic (sour dumplings). It’s also exceptionally affordable.
Finally, an exuberant nightlife dominates for the larger islands of Hvar and Brac, where revelers keep the party going until sunrise. There is a palpable urgency to the proceedings. This is the most widespread consequence of the war: everyone-Croatians themselves, and blissed-out guests seems to be making up for lost time. For the time being, it’s Croatia’s moment; who knows how long it will last?
DUBROVNIK
Dalmatia’s most famous city is touted as a possible unspoiled gem, though this is actually a matter of degree. While it isn’t yet as overrun as, say, Prague or Positano (the two unlikely places that Dubrovnik most resembles), it’s well within the crosshairs of mass tourism. Dubrovnik’s Old Town looks after a precarious equilibrium between Then and after this, Here and Elsewhere. Menus in Italian, English, and German hang outside every traditional wooden-beamed konoba, or tavern. Benetton and Diesel boutiques line the medieval lanes. And pushcart vendors proffer not merely handmade olive soaps but also Old Town mouse pads. Also, in Makarska you can view some old walls and monuments.
Such culture clashes from the essence of this city, try to have. In the Old Town, one feels feeling of displacement, as if all of Europe had come to cluster within Dubrovnik’s fortified walls. At various points, nearly all of Europe has. Witness the twisting staircase above Gundulic Square, an explicit homage to the Spanish Steps; the 16th-century Baroque cathedrals abutting Renaissance palaces and medieval fortresses; as well as the Gradska Kavana, a café straight out of fin de siecle Vienna.
That old Town is shaped like a cereal bowl; by reviewing the elevated rim you can gaze through the city’s orange roofs to the vividly blue Adriatic beyond. Below, at the center of the bowl, lies the Stradun, Dubrovnik’s limestone main drag. Centuries of casual strollers have buffed the path to an icy gloss-you expect a Zamboni to get to any moment. Each evening the Stradun roars to life for the nightly korso, or promenade. A motley crowd emerges: teenagers in sunbleached-blond dreadlocks, grizzled Croatian men smoking pipes, cruise-ship passengers in flip-flops, Italian men in Ferragamo loafers. A white-haired nun passes by, cocooned in the all-white habit. She’s trailed by a surfer dude in satin shorts, anything. Both wear crucifixes.
The summer crowds might appear unavoidable down on the main streets, so start any lane into the higher areas of town. Here the only warning signs of life are alley cats dozing for the cool and shady stone. The air carries the scent of jasmine and lemon trees, laundry soap, cat spray, and, occasionally, the buttery aroma of scampi frying in tiny kitchens. Climbing a deserted lane one afternoon, I heard, of the stuff, faint strains of Dixieland echoing along the alleyways. I soon came upon an open doorway, inside which-barely visible within the dim-sat a half-dozen young Croats in shorts, gleefully blowing jazz to have an audience of indifferent cats.
I was lucky enough to score a bed in the 19-room Pucic Palace, the Old Town’s first upmarket hotel, carved away from an 18th-century nobleman’s mansion. Even now, as tourism explodes, hotels in Dalmatia are generally Socialist-era holdovers with lackluster service and design. The Pucic Palace will be the glittering exception, a stylish mixture of contemporary (gallery lighting, Bulgari bath products) and old-world (copper-shelled, claw-foot tubs; rustic beamed ceilings, olive-wood floors). Balconies go over Gundulic Square, one of Dubrovnik’s prime social spots. In the evening it’s filled with café tables and Cinzano-sippers, but by sunrise the entire piazza is transformed into a farmers’ market. Every morning I would step outside to acquire a breakfast of figs, plums, and Charentais melons. The peach bins were swarming with honeybees, but the stall tender paid them no heed; she simply tossed a couple of peaches into a paper sack, bees and all sorts of, then handed them over with a toothless smile. I closed the bag tight, tucked it inside my backpack, and waited till noon to start it, by which time the bees had given out. The peaches were sublime.
That old Town has some compelling museums-the good ones focusing on 16th-century religious art-but they draw curiously few visitors, and a lot of those seem to be merely seeking respite from the heat. You almost receive the sense that Dubrovnik’s tourists can’t wait to get away from the city and into the surf, or at best onto a chaise lounge. Browsing displays of medieval coins, muskets, and teacups in the Rector’s Palace were two barefoot Spanish girls in dripping wet swimsuits. The guards hardly noticed.
Despite its sober visage-stone battlements, stately Baroque façades-Dubrovnik in July feels as louche just like any Mediterranean beach resort. For each Franciscan monastery, there’s a raucous café serving cocktails called Test Tube Baby and Blow Job. The bacchanal reaches its apex at Buza. Via a the perfect beach bar, I’ll consume a honeybee. A literal hole-in-the-wall (reached via a tiny opening within the Old Town ramparts, and marked by a sign reading COLD DRINKS), Buza unfolds across a few terraces hewn to the cliffs. There is nothing but a narrow railing between your Adriatic. Plastic chairs and tables cluster under a thatch canopy; the bar itself is just a refrigerator and a stereo, both powered by an extension cord cord running up the cliffside. At sunset I joined the locals leaping off 20-foot-high bluffs to the green water below. Dean Martin was crooning “Cha Cha de Amor” while a 12-year-old girl waited tables, bringing chilly Ozujsko beer in the fridge. At some point, a yacht pulled up and dropped anchor within the cove below. We all watched as the bronzed pilot dove into the water, swam as much as the rocks, climbed the winding staircase, sat down at a table, and ordered a beer.
KORCULA
The sharp scent of pine resin mingles with salt air on Korcula, three hours by ferry from Dubrovnik. Forests of Aleppo pine, cypress, and holm oak get this to one of the Adriatic’s most verdant isles. It’s noted for top-notch wines and for being one of many alleged birthplaces of Marco Polo.
Korcula’s primary draw, however, will be the town of the same name. A snow-globe version of Dubrovnik, using a compact historic quarter encased within stone walls, Korcula took shape under Venetian rule between the 10th and 18th centuries. The Italian influence lingers in Renaissance-era loggias, arched bridges linking the top stories of palaces, and myriad statues of St. Mark. In contrast to Dubrovnik’s, the architecture is quite rough-hewn-all of Korcula looks being carved from a single piece of stone, as an Adriatic Petra-and is on a decidedly smaller scale, with squat fluted windows and minuscule doorways rimmed with green shutters. The 30-odd lanes wending with the old quarter are so narrow that one could leap from rooftop to rooftop clear across town.
The English writer Rebecca West, visiting in 1937, likened Korcula to “a goldsmith’s toy, a tortoise made of precious metals, sitting on its peninsula as on the show-stand.” Not much has changed. Days start out with ink-black espresso at one of Korcula’s ubiquitous cafés, followed perhaps by a circuit around the pine-fringed promenade just away from city walls. The Old Town’s promontory juts being a thumb into the shimmering bay, lapped by waves on three sides. From the walls, however, you’d have little idea you’re on the sea; the crooked passageways huddle in shadow for the majority of of the day. I alternated stints at the sun-drenched town beach with cooling strolls along the old quarter’s lanes. Peering into darkened ground-floor kitchens I possibly could glimpse the dim figures of housewives preparing lunch: grilled squid, sautéed shrimp, wine-braised octopus. At Korcula’s jumbled Abbey Treasury museum, a charming old docent followed me from area to area, pointing out Titians and Tintorettos and switching lights off and on as we went.
In the afternoons I’d personally bike out for a bracing swim at Przina beach, a pebbly strand on Korcula’s southern peninsula, at the town of Lumbarda. Lumbarda is famous for Grk wine (wonderful name, that), a pungent white with all the sweet character of liqueur. Vineyards crept in the roadside here; wheel-crushed grapes stained the asphalt. The road wound past olive, lime, and almond groves, past stalks of blood-red sunflowers, past a medieval chapel dropped down the middle of a vineyard. With slices of prsut and sharp paski sir cheese procured from a butcher, I stopped to picnic next to the shell of a stone farmhouse; a copse of trees poked up through what remained in the roof.
I returned to Korcula Town prior to sunset, the evening air soft like a silk shirt. The passageways were bathed within the glow of amber lamps; moonlight cast a blue aura on ship masts and church steeples. Several women were grilling garlicky dorado on the barbecue while their children squeezed in the game of soccer. I assumed these were Korculan, but upon closer inspection, I realized these were all speaking French. (Foreigners-particularly French and Italian-are buying up property right here at a dizzying pace.)
Just past the medieval walls, Vespas were honking their way with the crowds by the marina. Beck’s “Sexx Laws” thumped from a harborfront disco. At the Internet café, Croatian teenagers were playing Grand Theft Auto. But along the musty, catacomb-like corridors of the Old Town, the night slipped back 100, 500, 750 years, and Korcula looked almost as much as it must have in Marco Polo’s day. Your wine, of course, helped.
HVAR
By far the most glamorous in the Adriatic islands, Hvar is heir to that noble lineage running from Cannes and Capri through St. Bart’s and South Beach: the most recent of the famous international playgrounds. On the height of summer, Hvar Town is really relentlessly gorgeous it makes the eyes ache. Everything screams, Ogle me: the harbor edged with bougainvillea, the perfectly aged Renaissance façades, the absurdly huge yachts and sailboats, plus a nonstop parade of caramelized torsos. Like the cast and setting didn’t already suggest a perfume ad, Hvar’s entire waterfront is redolent of lavender, which proliferates for the island and is sold in satchels by sidewalk vendors.
Each afternoon in summer, another dozen yachts glide into Hvar’s mandrac-the marine same as the driveway at Monte Carlo’s casino. Here come the brand new arrivals, in their brushed-steel cleats and finery: the Pescatore from Tuscany, the Commitment from London, the Aerie from Cap d’Ail, the Coup de Grace from Barbados. And here come their occupants, strutting insouciantly down gangways to alight for the pier: men in cream linen suits and Gucci sandals, divas in sheer silk wraps and Michael Kors bikinis. These individuals can make an ATM withdrawal look sexy, writes tagza.com.
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