Travel Stories

Travel Stories >> Bosnia >> Dog Days in BiH (Bosna i Hercegovina)

Dog Days in BiH (Bosna i Hercegovina)

Yesterday was Bastille Day, and we celebrated here in Sarajevo. Not in the manner the French might, but in our own sort of post-war way. In one of many emerging efforts to help return Sarajevo to a state of semi-normalcy, the Milan Symphony Orchestra and Chorale, Directed by Ricardo Muti, joined forces with the Sarajevo Symphony and Chorale to provide 7000 sweltering fans with a primo performance at the Center Skanderija located across the river from where USAID is housed. They opened with some Schubert, then played some Brahms, then finished with Beethoven's #3 (Eroica) - an old favorite. Muti gave us an encore with two Verdi pieces, the second and final one, the Jewish chorus from, is it, Nabuko? (I am woefully ignorant of the details on much of this music).

We waited for about half and hour in long ten-person wide lines due to the tremendous hold up by the metal detectors we passed through when we finally did enter. The concert started about fifteen minutes late so as accommodate the seating of everyone. The acoustics in this enormous hall were actually very good, but the lack of any microphonic equipment meant one had to re-adjust one's inner ear tuner to stretch for the softer sound. This also meant that the guy cracking his gum in time behind us, and the two cell phones that went off during the Brahms were somewhat more audible then they might have been otherwise. I think that fact that the Sarajevans have suffered for a long time without the cultural sweetspots was one of the reasons that people clapped inappropriately between movements (much to the outrage of one of our interpreters, Damir, who groused to me later, "God, these people are such HEATHENS!"). Hell, I clapped when the other 6999 did. I might have been horrified at home, but the mood here in the heat was sort of expectant and jubilant and was really nothing like any of the NSO or any other music performances I've ever been to. People WANTED to clap after everything!

The theme of the night's performance was, "A bridge over the Adriatic" between Milan and Sarajevo, and being that the visitors were Italian, the enormous hall contained quite a number of Italian SFORs in their camouflage (but with hair combed, of course). After listening politely to the European composers, when Muti announced the Verdi encores the Italians went wild and a deep, loud "BRAVISIMO" boomed out from behind us. It was all very funky, and the music was very good.

So how was Dubrovnik, everyone wanted to know. I left Friday, having been invited to accompany a new friend and his dog to the ancient city on the coast. The trip out (and back for that matter) in the Land Cruiser was uneventful and we took the same route I described in my last "Notes". At some point I will cajole a friend to drive me to Mostar and back - stopping all along the route - just so I can take pictures. It is not a fair request to make of a beachgoer - for whom time is of the essence in his/her exodus to the sea. Dubrovnik is not considered part of the Dalmatian Coast, this I learned later. It was, for almost 13 centuries (that's a long time, Mouseketeers), its own Republic, managing to play the Christians and the Ottomans off one and other, and maintaining quite a high level of economic stability as a major trading center and ship-building center on the Adriatic. Every guidebook you will ever pick up about Dubrovnik quotes George Bernard Shaw, "If you are looking for paradise on earth, come to Dubrovnik." The rumor is that of 365 days in the year, Dubrovnik is sunny 270. Graham said, "yeah, the hotels give you your money back if it rains." hmmmm. So I don't need to go into detail about my sunburn. Without selling George cheap, I will confirm that this is the sort of place that one really does want to see before one dies.

Actually, Dubrovnik's history is a fascinating mixture of tales about successful defenses against almost all invaders (although the Fascists managed to creep in in 1941) great diplomats, traders, merchant marines, and poets. The motto of the city is "Liberty is More Valuable than Gold". When the Yugoslav army (the Chetniks attempted to bomb and shell the city, international voices who had been relatively silent while Sarajevo and many other cities underwent terrible siege, cried out, and the city suffered only slight damage. The whole city is quite large and actually occupies a large lagoon, and the peninsula along the coast. The piece you will hear about or visit is just the old town which is completely walled. These great fortress walls contain within them the labyrinth of narrow streets which make up the old town, its restaurants, cafes, churches, museums, shops, and residences. Old Town is free of vehicles (except of course on Saturdays - wedding day) and I'm am still somewhat mystified as to how they got them inside the walls for the hornblowing show after every wedding. Once inside, there are only a few streets they will fit through.

The fortress (city) walls can be and are traversed regularly by the tourist hordes. The circumference is an easy mile or so and we walked along it, as I ate through a roll of film, and looked out over the new city, the southern coastline, Lokrum island (right off the coast to the SW), and Fort Lovrijenac (outside the city walls just to the West on the coast ). In each direction, the wall walkway widened into larger fortressed areas, each protecting a vital or strategic passageway: the harbor, the seas, or the mountains to the East. We were there in the late afternoon and did not venture into any of the churches - Croats are very Catholic and there are an astounding number of churches for such a confined space - some of them containing quite a few choice pieces of art, sculpture, jewels, and reliquaries (although after Provence and Prague, I really didn't need to see for example, the reliquary containing St. Blaise's leg - weird customs these old catholics had) and although I would have liked to explore the city with more time, especially the museum and the Sponza Palace, there will be another trip to this beautiful walled city perched the Jadranska More, I just have that feeling.

Sunday was spent exploring and playing off the coast a little farther south of Dubrovnik in a small town called Cavtat (say: TZAV-tot). Cavtat sits on a little peninsula (the Peninsula "Rat") and is quite wooded (pines, cypress) compared to other beach towns I've now had the pleasure of seeing along this coastline. The end of the peninsula is also closed to cars, and a brief walk out to the point under the cool, ancient pines left us in front of the stone foundations and walls of what was once, not so long ago, a large, beautiful home. Since we are in Croatia, concern for mines has been shelved, and we wandered around the grounds and through the shell of the structure. Graham has long decided that he is going to buy this place and has run already most of the structural and design renovations around on that graph paper in his mind, including the hot tub on the deck. A waitress in town tells us that the home was owned by a Russian ballerina and her Montenegrin husband (read: Serb) and that now the Dubrovnik Summer Festival Council now owns it (Dad, as a planning board chairman, care to wager a guess at how easy this place will be to purchase? ha). The coastline just beyond this structure of dreams is a beachscape of enormous jagged boulders which jut out into the sea. They are a mountain goat's delight, and yet are full of little nooks, and pools, and surfaces on which bathers of all persuasions may find sweet sunny refuge. So I don't need to go into detail about my sunburn.

It was another one of those weekends that whizzes by like a child growing too quickly, turn your head and it's gone. Today in the cold rain of Sarajevo, it seemed like a movie I saw a week ago, so far away. Sarajevo in the rain is a bone-chilling event - none of the hot steamy summer rains of our East coast. It amazes me how stiflingly brutal the heat can be one afternoon, and then how downright cold the rain makes the next. The sidewalks are full of the pocked-marked memories of the shelling, and in the sunshine they are a broken ankle waiting to happen (particularly in heels), the rain however, fills these little basins with water - now providing two reasons not to step into them. In the rain, the begging gypsies are not as evident, and the men in the parks with the mini-cars have not left their garages. You are wise not to wear light colored pants because the young men in their fast cars hit those puddles with a certain smug satisfaction, and the dry-cleaning facilities in this city are few and far between.

Ah, they say that when the talk turns to weather you know your speaker has run out of more meaningful things to say. Until the next edition.... Sunburned and wet - yours in the Federation.

(top)