All roads lead to Rome.....oops, I mean home.....

We spent the penultimate day of our holiday in Rome, pounding the pavements as we revisited some of the essential tourist spots that we explored last year, as well as getting to a couple that we missed.

First was the Trevi Fountain, where we again threw a couple of coins over our shoulders into the water (well, it worked last time – we’re here, aren’t we?), then to the Spanish Steps and the Piazza del Popolo, the magnificent square that was once the entrance to Rome, with its three main boulevards, the Via de Ripetta, the Via del Corso and the Via del Babuino, flanking out to form the triangle that is the old city of Rome. On the way we had a look at an Anglican church, an unusual find in Rome (come home Henry – all is forgiven).

We then jumped on the Metro to the Colloseum and again explored all available levels of this marvellous structure, where so many perished for the entertainment and amusement of the privileged few. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through the magnificent ruins of the Roman Forum and over Palatine Hill. There is just too much to describe, so you will have to come and see it yourself (and we will look forward to reading your blog!).

Then back on the Metro to the Piazza del Republica, just near our hotel, and a few minutes of quiet reflection in the wonderful Basilica de Santa Maria della Angeli. That was the first church that we visited when we arrived here last year, so it is fitting that it should be the last for this trip.

Tomorrow – leave here at lunch time for the long trip home, via Kuala Lumpur. Arrive in Sydney about 7pm Saturday, so hopefully home by midnight. Elizabeth is back to work on Sunday and Monday nights and John has an on-line exam and a fairly large essay to write by Friday. So everything’s back to normal. This has been a wonderful holiday – we have seen some amazing sights, met some delightful people and have another chest full of memories (and quite a few photos). Thank you for sharing our adventures with us.

Love this place – but we’ve gotta Split and Rome somewhere across the sea.....

After a beautiful meal at our adopted restaurant on Korčula Island last night, under Jelena’s tender care, we were up at the crack of dawn and on the hyrdrofoil at 6am, arriving in Split at 8.30am. After dropping our bags at the delightful Luxe Hotel we headed just down the road to Diocletian’s Palace, built at the turn of the fourth century in preparation for Diocletian’s retirement from his position as Roman Emperor, in 305. It was all but abandoned after the Romans withdrew from the Dalmatian coast until it was occupied by locals in the seventh century as they sought protection from marauding barbarians behind its massive walls. The many narrow streets and lanes (one of which we found to be named after John’s distant cousin Ipsod) contain a maze of shops and homes, however many of its important original features remain, including the original entrances, a tiny Christian church from the fifth century and the Cathedral of St Duje. The main part of the Cathedral, Emperor Diocletian’s Mausoluem, was constructed at the same time as the palace, and the end of the third century (making it even older than the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul) and is virtually intact today. The Bell Tower was built in 1100, although it was modified in 1908 and many of the original Romanesque sculptures were removed. An amazing sight, in the cathedral museum, is a sarcophogas, from the year 305, containing bones of St Anastasius, and the Evangelurium Spalatense (presumably a bible) written between 580 and 600.

As most of the attractions in Split close during the afternoon, we jumped on a bus for the little coastal town of Trogir, some forty minutes away. Trogir is a walled town from Roman times and its Cathedral of St Lawrence is a beautiful old building with a bell tower which we climbed to gain commanding views of the town. Then back to Split, a really good look at the cathedral, then back to the hotel for a spa and a scrumptious pizza dinner at a nearby restaurant.

This morning we caught an early flight to Rome and our now ensconced in the Hotel Centro, close to the Piazza del Republica. We’ve just come back from a tour of the Catacombs, where the early Christians met in secret and buried their dead (prior to the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire). There are seventeen kilometres of catacombs under Rome and at one time they held 150,000 bodies. The passageways are just wide enough to walk through and the walls are lined with cavities, just large enough to hold the body of an adult or child, which was wrapped in a white shroud for interment. This particular catacomb contains an underground church, which is still largely intact, and frescoes on the walls and ceilings.There are four underground levels. We then visited the Basilica of St John of Lateran , which is the true home of the Bishop of Rome and in fact has primacy over St Peter’s. It is an awe-inspiring building and is said to house parts of the skulls of St Peter and St Paul inside silver statues and a relic from the table of the Last Supper. Then a look inside a smaller church (Scala Santa), where pilgrims ascend the steps on their knees, and finally the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore , another imposing edifice, with a ceiling adorned with 1,000kg of gold (given by Queen Isabella of Aragon towards the end of the fifteenth century) and which is said to contain a piece of the manger where Christ was born .

Tomorrow – more of Rome.

Dubrovnik done; konnecting with Korčula.....

The last two days have been relaxation and indulgence. Yesterday (Sunday) morning we took the local ferry to the island of Lokrum, a short distance from Dubrovnik. We visited the old church and monastery, climbed to the highest peak to inspect the old fort (and viewed the Dubrovnik town walls from yet another perspective), meandered through the Botanical Gardens (viewing many Australian natives as well as some unusual cacti), then had lunch at an island cafe to the music of a guitarist who only paused from playing to light yet another cigarette . Back on the ferry to Dubrovnik, a look through the Rector’s Palace and museum, then on the bus at 6pm for an almost-four-hour journey, including a car ferry ride, to the island of Korčula. After arriving at our hotel we went to dinner at a delightful little husband-and-wife restaurant and shared a ‘Dalmation plate’ entree (local ham, cheese, marinated octopus, olives) and then each had a truly wonderful main course – dozens of sardines, or some similar small fish, coated in a very light batter and deep fried. This, with baked potatoes, a fresh salad and a glass of local white, made our day. Our hostess even gave us a shot of the brandy she makes herself, using dried figs.



This morning we awoke to a magnificent view from our bedroom window – we directly overlook the old harbour and beyond – and after breakfast went for a walk around the old town, which is still partly enclosed by walls. Highlights included a visit to the fifteenth century St Marks’ Cathedral and other smaller churches and a climb up the fourteenth century Veliki Revelin Tower for a view over much of the town. We then jumped aboard a local bus for a short trip to the village of Lumbarda and, after driving through the village, the driver stopped at a roundabout in the middle of nowhere, pointed down a narrow lane and indicated that it was a short walk to the beach. So after a pleasant 10-minute walk between the grape vines we came across a beautiful little bay, almost deserted, with crystal clear (but chilly) water, where we had our swim in the Adriatic. Bliss! We walked back to the village and stopped at a cafe run by a woman who spoke absolutely no English but discerned that we needed lunch. She served up the most delicious meals – roast pork, potatoes and a mashed chard , and a seafood dish with the same greens but with, again, a few dozen small fried fish and also a larger whole fish. This was accompanied by fresh crusty bread – it was too much for us to get through (although we did our best).



Then the bus back to town, a visit to the Marco Polo museum (there is some controversy surrounding Marco’s birthplace – opinion is divided between whether it was Venice or Korčula, in fact Encyclopedia Brittanica has concluded that it could have been either, which is not really very helpful), however he certainly had connections with the island and his descendants lived here until relatively recently. It was amazing just to look at a map of the world and see the extent of his travels more than seven hundred years ago.



Tonight we will just have a light meal then an early night for our 6am ferry departure tomorrow for Split and our last day in Croatia (sob).

Dubrovnik – doubly delightful on day dvije

A more restful day today; still sunny and 26 degrees. We started with a visit to the third oldest functioning pharmacy in Europe - in business since 1391. It may have been the first pharmacy in Europe open to the general public. The shelves were lined with glass bottles containing lotions and potions. Next was a visit to the sixteenth century Sponza Palace, which now contains the archives of the old Dubrovnic Republic. It is currently displaying photographic copies of a priceless collection of manuscripts – letters, treaties, papal bulls – dating back to the eleventh century.

The palace also contains the Memorial Room of ‘The Defenders of Dubrovnik’, a heartbreaking collection of photographs of young men – police, fire brigade personnel, rescue workers, civilians (many of them students) who perished between 1991 and 1995 during the conflict within the old Yugoslavia, as Serbia and Montenegro attempted to wrest control of Dubrovnik. Many of them died during the siege of Dubrovnik between October 1991 and October 1992, when the city was completely isolated and subjected to continual bombardment from Serbian forces. Electricity and water supply facilities were crippled and those residents who chose to stay in Dubrovnik (rather than be evacuated by a small flotilla of boats running the naval blockade) relied on water brought in by boats, some of which were sunk. Also in the Memorial Room, a photographic slide show was continually running, showing the destruction caused by the artillery bombardment – more than 2,000 heavy artillery shells lobbed on the town, resulting in widespread destruction to residential dwellings, damage to the historic town walls, and the gutting by fire of nine historic palaces. Many other historic buildings suffered serious damage. During our walk around the town wall yesterday we were able to identify the many, many buildings that had been damaged just by noting the relatively new roofs. The United Nations assessed the damage to Dubrovnik from the siege at US$10 million (in early 1990).

Lunch today was at a little open-air vegetarian restaurant called ‘Nishta’, situated down a narrow lane and up many flights of steps. Apparently the locals were baffled when a ‘vegetarian’ restaurant set up in town and since it didn’t serve meat they concluded that it must be serving ‘nothing’ – ‘nishta’ in Croation. Hence the name. The food was fresh and delicious and definitely worth the long steep climb. After lunch we strolled through the town and made our way down to the water’s edge where we dipped our feet in the Adriatic.

Tomorrow – most of the day here, perhaps a glass-bottom boat cruise, then the bus to the island of Korcula.

The dashing duo do Dubrovnik......

We arrived in Dubrovnik last evening after a pleasant but drawn-out eight hour bus trip from Zadar, hugging the Adriatic coastline and passing countless colourful little villages and bays with crystal clear waters. At one stage we passed through Bosnia and Herzegovina (with the usual passport checks) and back into Croatia just ten kilometres later (more passport checks).

Once again, our apartment is right in the centre of the historic, walled old town, just metres from the main town square and the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin. The apartment itself is in a 900-year-old building, and in one of the lounge/bedroom walls is a stone tablet placed by a former owner, who renovated the house in 1590 for his son. He inscribed (chiselled) and dated a commemorative stone and placed it in the wall, where it remains in plain view to this day.

Dubrovnik has many old churches, a couple of former monasteries and a synagogue, a few palaces and a several squares, each with a defining feature, such as the Lula Square which contains the Orlando Column, carved in 1417 and featuring a statue of Orlando, the medieval knight whose forearm was the official linear measure of the Republic – the ell of Dubrovnik, which measured 51.1 centimetres. And while we’re on the subject of forearms, one church has St Thomas the Apostle’s forearm on display in a glass case. We visited as many of these attractions as were available and saw some wonderful relics of a bygone era, including a bible dating from the eleventh century, transcribed in flawless text. Also on our agenda was a cable-car ride to the very top of Srd mountain, towering 415 metres over Dubrovnik and providing panoramic views of the old town, the rest of the Dubrovnik region, the surrounding sea and nearby islands.

The highlight of the day was our walk around the top of the city walls. Built between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, they are still intact today and it is possible to walk the full perimeter of the town without coming down to earth. They extend for two kilometres and in some places are twenty-five metres high, and from one and a half to six metres thick. We went up every accessible flight of steps, into every nook and cranny and had a wonderful couple of hours exploring and viewing the city and the sea from this commanding aspect.

Our day has finished with a wonderful seafood platter at the Lakanda Peskarija Restaurant (Lonely Planet’s top pick for quality and value), right on the water’s edge in the old port area (and just two minutes from our apartment). Mackerel, sardines, octopus, baby squid, mussels and heaps of prawns, all done in a tasty garlic sauce and served up with a fresh salad, bread and the house white – and all for less than fifty dollars including a tip. We might just have to come back here one day to try it again (dream on!).

Tomorrow – more exploring in this delightful old town, a bit of a look at the newer parts of Dubrovnik, and perhaps a short boat ride to view the old town and its imposing walls from another angle.

Roman through Zadar's history.....

What a glorious start to the day – 24 degrees and the sun glistening over the Adriatic. So we retraced our steps from yesterday afternoon, but stopped at the end of a pier opposite the old town and boarded a small wooden rowboat manned by a barkarioli – boatman – and rowed the 80 metres to the jetty below the town wall, saving a two kilometer walk. This transportation method is an 850-year tradition and is very romantic. The boatmen row back and forth from 6am to sunset every day of the year. It costs less than a dollar (four Croatian kuna) and makes you feel like you’ve stepped back to the late Middle Ages or the Renaissance.

We wandered around the old town visiting several churches and a monastery, and had a closer look at the Roman forum. The Cathedral of St Anastasia was built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and contains a beautiful marble sarcophagus containing the relics of St Anastasia, as well as lavishly carved choir stalls of the fifteenth century. St Simeon’s Church was reconstructed in the sixteenth century on the site of an earlier church. It also contains a sarcophagus, this time covered in the work of a medieval goldsmith.

The Church of St Donat dates from the ninth century and is an unusual (to our eyes) circular shape. The acoustics are wonderful and it is frequently used for concerts. The church was built over part of the Roman Forum and two complete columns from the forum have been built into the church, which means that we were touching columns shaped by man two thousand years ago. Across from the church stands a pillar from the Roman period that served as a “Shame Post” in the Middle Ages – wrongdoers were chained to the pillar and publicly humiliated.

The Franciscan Church and Monastery, consecrated in 1280, is the oldest gothic church in Dalmatia. It contains a wonderful original rendition, in Latin and Croatian, of the 1358 treaty under which Venice relinquished its rights to Dalmatia in favour of the Croatian and Hungarian King Ludovic. Measuring about one metre high by 600 wide, it is an exquisite example of the type of work produced by scribes of the era.

This evening – a walk along the waterfront towards the old town, another ride in the rowboat, dinner in the old town and then watch the ‘pyrotechnics’ of the Sun Salutation and listen to the eerie sounds of the Sea Organ. Tomorrow, the long bus trip down the Dalmatian coast from Zadar to Dubrovnik.

The adorable Adriatic........

Today we enjoyed a comfortable 3½ hour coach trip from Zagreb to Zadar, with scenery ranging from lush green hills with the occasional quaint old church or castle, to snow-capped mountains. We passed through many road tunnels through the mountains, a couple of them more than five kilometres long.

We are now on the Adriatic coast and the temperature has risen from thirteen degrees to twenty-three degrees. Zadar means “already existed” in Greek and traces of continual settlement on the Zadar Peninsula go back to the tenth century BC. We started our exploring this afternoon by walking the three kilometers from our seaside hotel into the old town centre. On the way we thought we must have taken a wrong turn as we came across the Sphinx in the grounds of a grand old mansion.

Zadar is a walled town and most of the walls and gates, built under Venetian rule in the sixteenth century, are still standing. We visited two of the city gates, including the elaborate Town Gate, built in 1543, embellished with a statue of the Venetian lion and coat of arms. Nearby is the Trg Pet Bunara (Five Wells Square), the site of a former moat and still containing a cistern with five wells that provided Zadar with water until 1838. We passed the town watchtower, dating from 1562, and walked through the Roman forum, constructed between the first century BC and the third century AD.

Two of the more unusual sights were the Sea Organ and the Sun Salutation. The Sea Organ (the world’s only) consists of a set of stone steps descending into the sea, with pipes and whistles built into them. As the movement of the sea pushes air through them, they exude wistful sighs and very hypnotic ‘music’. Right next to the Sea Organ is the Sun Salutation, a 22 metre diameter circle of solar plates cut into the pavement. The panels collect the sun’s energy during the day and with the wave energy from the Sea Organ, create a trippy light show from sunset to sunrise, simulating the solar system. The energy created from both of these attractions powers all of the lighting along the lengthy waterfront promenade.

We stopped for dinner at a little sidewalk restaurant, tucked away in one of the many narrow alleys, before wandering home as the glorious sun set over the Adriatic Sea. Tomorrow – explore Zadar old town in earnest.