MyWestworld

The Charismatic Adriatic

Posted on 01. May, 2009 by Kerry Banks in International

We’re huddled outside Trzaska Koca na Dolicu, a two-storey hut perched on a col beneath the imposing walls of Slovenia’s Triglav Mountain, while guides Andrej Spelic and Miha Loboda fire off the morning’s pep talk like preachers delivering a sermon. Last night the matronly hut custodian spooned proletarian portions of goulash and polenta onto our tin plates – nothing fancy. But around here they call it mountain food, so presumably we are at least nutritionally fortified for a day of ­climbing.

“There are some tricky sections up ahead. If you are anxious here, then you will be 150 times more nervous on Triglav,” says Spelic, without the slightest trace of a smile. A few in the group shuffle their feet and glance up at the 2,864-metre peak, Slovenia’s highest and the centrepiece of Triglav National Park, now ablaze with fiery morning light. The wiry, no-nonsense 32-year-old spent two years in the Slovenian army’s crack mountain unit in his early 20s and now runs ultra-marathons in the mountains here for fun. We take him at his word.

Bounded by Croatia, Hungary, Austria, Italy and 40 kilometres of Mediterranean seashore, Slovenia is a tiny land of mountains, forests and rivers straddling the cusp of Europe and the Balkans. The island-dappled Dalmation coast of the latter, Croatia, bears the marks of the Venetians, Romans, Greeks, Austrians and various other traders and invaders through the ages, and is next up on this journey’s three-week itinerary. Together, the two countries once made up the northern and westernmost portions of the former Republic of Yugoslavia, a complex political artifice that emerged from the rubble of World War I. Josip Broz Tito, known popularly as “Marshal Tito,” fought the Nazis during World War II here and went on to successfully consolidate this republic of Christians and Muslims under communist rule. After Tito’s death in 1980, Russia’s geopolitical experiment slowly unravelled in a pressure box of ethnic tensions that finally erupted in war in 1991.

The Julian Alps

On this six-day traverse of the Julian Alps, however, I’m experiencing only the region’s stunning beauty, which escapes the notice of most North American travellers. I’ve already discovered that Slovenia’s soul is in its mountains, with Slovenians celebrating their outdoor adventure athletes – such as Davo Karnicar, the first human to ski Everest, and famed Himalayan alpinist Tomaz Humar – the way Canadians revere Gretzky and Lemieux. In fact, there is a folkloric belief here that to be truly Slovenian, Triglav must be climbed at least once in one’s lifetime.

And so, suitably prepared for our own Slovenian right of passage, we set off, wrapped in the cold, indifferent shadows of an alpine morning. Soon the trail is less a path than an obscure track following narrow weaknesses in otherwise sheer cliffs. Hands grasp at the jagged, icy wall for balance and find rock prickly and coarse enough to shred skin and the via ferrata’s thick cable bolted waist-high. We cling to this safety line as Spelic and Loboda point to a pair of chamois traversing a cliff across the valley. Spelic watches carefully as we negotiate the trail’s “tricky sections” and plod up a massive cone of talus.

A trio of Englishmen, buoyed by their early morning ascent, tramp cheerfully toward us with tales of another climber, a Scotsman, who greeted them on the summit with bagpipes and a celebratory tune. Finally, the morning sun has erased the shadows, and car-sized boulders, damp from dew, are smouldering with steam. The Julian Alps are dominated by limestone, which, because of its solubility, can be rendered by water into a phantasmagoric subsurface world of sinkholes, caves and disappearing rivers. Yet Spelic treads quickly across the moonscape, springing effortlessly from boulder to boulder, demonstrating the Slovenian stoicism, love of the outdoors and reputation for hard work. Predominantly Catholic, the Slovenian people have always identified more with Europe than with their Balkan neighbours to the south, farming their valleys in tidy plots of vegetables rimmed by mountainside pastures for sheep and cattle; managing small-footprint logging operations that make the industrial-scale destruction of North America’s woods seem criminal.

We climb nose-to-heel – the mountains peaceful, with not even a puff of wind. Of course, this hasn’t always been the case. During World War I the Italian army battled the Germans and Austrians here for supremacy over critical passes and valleys. Artifacts of that brutal conflict are still evident: cement bunkers, rolls of rusted barbwire and mule paths by which provisions were delivered to the harsh alpine front. Cresting the talus slope, we find only picnic tables outside the Dom Planika pod Triglavom hut. But Spelic, our own personal drill sergeant, propels us onward after just a quick bite – the forecast is calling for clouds and possibly rain.

I fall in behind John Robertson, a good-humoured Glasgow Crown attorney whose normally boisterous chatter is replaced by grunts and laboured breathing as the terrain steepens. Then a seemingly featureless, blank wall of limestone reveals an improbable rock crevice that allows us to quickly gain the ridge, and from here we scramble rapidly upward, following the via ferrata to a flat notch and, beyond, across a steep ramp covered in pebbles as treacherous as ball bearings. A carelessly placed foot dislodges a basketball-sized boulder that tumbles over a series of ledges before launching into the void below. We wait for the inevitable crash of broken rock, but there is only silence. A barely perceptible, bemused grin creeps across Spelic’s face as he observes his latest band of foreigners facing down their fears.

The sky remains brilliantly clear, though below, dense clouds shroud the valleys, advancing and retreating, glaciers of air moving in compressed time. In the distance, limestone ridges protrude like shark fins plying an ocean of cloud. We pass memorials to those who have died attempting the climb, including one ornate marble plaque dating back to 1795. “Most of them perished when they were zapped by freak lightning strikes,” says Spelic, while noting such incidents have done little to deter the thousands who tackle the mountain every summer. “Some days you might have 200 people on Triglav. Half the population has climbed it. I don’t know why we have to prove ourselves – maybe because we’re such a small country,” he muses, laughing, as we regroup where the ridge is as wide and flat as a highway. “I’ve even seen people up here in flip-flops.”

The Summit

The summit is guarded by a final tower that from afar looks impassable. But as we clamber up the via ferrata’s crude, carved-rock steps, the faint, incongruous smell of cigarette smoke wafts downward. No bagpiper heralds our arrival at Triglav’s blocky peak, just a climber with the chiselled, suntanned complexion of a European mountain guide, nonchalantly puffing a Marlboro next to the odd, metal obelisk that serves as an emergency shelter. Below, mountains shimmer like waves toward the horizons of Austria and Italy. We linger for a few cliché photos as more scramblers, young and old, arrive to tag the apex of Slovenia.

“I think we go now?” says Spelic. The need for summit celebrations is muted by the need to get everyone down again safely.

Two days after the ascent, we hike down to our trek’s final chalet, Blejska Koca Na Lipani, situated in an idyllic meadow and protected by a semi-circle of limestone bluffs. The late-afternoon sun washes the mountains in warm, diffuse light; below, the forested Pokljuka plateau unfolds like a carpet of green. A savory aroma wafts from the hut where a commissar with tree-limb forearms greets us. “You want soup? Es good,” he says.

Later, over dinner, Spelic introduces Frank Kozelj, a lanky man with thinning silver hair sipping grappa with friends. A former Slovenian Olympic rower, Kozelj recounts how he moved to Vancouver in 1968, and we share a laugh at our coincidental encounter. Soon we are invited next door to the family shepherd’s hut to meet his brother Tomiz.

Inside, the stove crackles and the scent of wood smoke permeates thick wooden walls. Tomiz pours three generous portions of schnapps – “ancient mountain medicine” – and carves spicy sausage onto a platter. “For a long time we were hidden, just this little mountain country that nobody knew about,” Kozelj begins.

Spelic, in training for a marathon, abstains from the spirits but raises a thick slice of sausage as we lift our glasses to the mountains of Slovenia. The strong schnapps, sweetened with honey, floods my insides with warmth and brings tears to my eyes.

If the soul of Slovenia dwells in its mountains, then Croatia’s is surely found on the country’s Dalmatian Coast and the thousand or more islands that lie in the Adriatic like strips of limestone torn from the craggy, arid mountains of the mainland. Here, four days into a week-long sail, water laps the sides of the SS Leonardo as it glides toward a concrete pier on the island of Vrnik. The ship’s owner, Leonardo Naranca, a towering, thick-chested bon vivant, is seated on deck enjoying an early morning cigarette and glass of sharp, Croatian red wine.

“Zivjeli,” he shouts, raising his glass and offering the traditional local toast when I chuckle at his breakfast of champions. The crew ties up the boat. Over the railing, the Adriatic is so clear it looks drinkable; stairs leading down into turquoise waters are festooned with the magenta spikes of sea urchins, a shoal of small fish darts in the depths. Grabbing a towel, I jump ashore and am soon submerged in water as warm as tepid tea, contemplating something Naranca said yesterday over another glass of wine between the islands of Mljet and Vrnik. “I have lived my whole life on the sea. My father and grandfather were both sailors.” On a more philosophical note, he had then added: “The sea gives, and the sea takes.”

Croatians keen to escape life in the capital of Zagreb have always journeyed to the coast for rejuvenation. In times of trouble, they have also fled here for refuge. Barely three days ago, we too steamed northwest from the noise and crowds and stresses of city life, though not from the capital but from the ancient seaport of Dubrovnik. The UNESCO World Heritage Site once played a pivotal role in Mediterranean trade, and its outstanding baroque, Gothic and Renaissance architecture, dating back to the 13th century, makes it an international treasure.

Tragically, during what Croatians call “the homeland war” of the 1990s, when Yugoslavia disintegrated, the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav army laid siege to Dubrovnik for some 10 months from 1991 to ‘92. The fighting devastated the city and laid waste to the tourism industry on the Dalmatian Coast. But wandering Dubrovnik’s narrow, cobbled alleyways, past Benedictine and Dominican monasteries, Onofrio’s Fountain and one of the world’s oldest pharmacies, we had to search hard for signs of the conflict – a stone wall pockmarked with bullet holes or new, red-clay roof tiles bordering ochre-coloured tiles of ancient times. Tourism, long a staple of the region, seems well on the way to recovery. In fact, Dubrovnik is a city besieged with cruise-ship passengers, even in late summer. Boarding the SS Leonardo for a cruise between lesser-known villages and islands has provided welcome relief from its torrent of photo-snapping humanity.

Sailing the Coast

In contrast, the boating season on the coast is winding down – a good time to walk Vrnik’s waterfront. According to Samantha Brocklehurst, the ship’s sanguine British guide (she of the impeccable Oxford accent, with a sailor’s sense of humour), the city is renowned for its limestone, and modern and ancient quarries pock its hillsides. Standing in the hollow, desolate base of one, it is difficult to imagine stonemasons carving out blocks of stone to build the ramparts of Korcula Town, visible across the narrow straits. For there isn’t the slightest suggestion of activity anywhere in the city. Houses seem strangely vacant. Small, ostentatious, turreted summer manors are boarded up, their gates locked, their gardens left to grow wild in a riot of olive trees and bougainvillea – what Naranca calls the “dent of time.”

Korcula, less than 15 minutes’ sail away, is an entirely different scenario. Like many of the local islands, its communities are scattered around the island’s perimeter while its bony interior is an inhospitable mix of shallow soils, limestone bluffs and lanky cypress trees. The Venetian merchant and explorer Marco Polo, I’m told, was captured here in 1298 during a naval battle between the fleets of Genoa and Venice. As for Korcula Town, it is Dubrovnik in miniature – minus the cruise ships. The streets are noisy with travellers who have docked their private yachts to dine at its outdoor cafés and experience the kitschy, Disneyesque Moreska sword dance. The island is renowned for keeping alive this theatrical mock-fighting performance, a tradition with origins in Spain that has flourished here for more than four centuries.

Damir Taras, the intense but amicable chief steward of the SS Leonardo, invites me for coffee onshore. Here, pedalling the ship’s bikes along the narrow, twisting street that leads from the dock to the old city, tantalizing aromas float from numerous pizzerias, betraying the longstanding cultural and culinary affinity between the Croatian coast and Italy. Entering the old city via the arched “land gate,” we park the bikes to walk on limestone pavements polished as smooth as silk by centuries of footfalls. A leggy, raven-haired beauty passes in high heels, trailing perfume and the detached demeanor of a Croatian supermodel.

At a quiet café over robust espressos, the 36-year-old Taras speaks of the war, when he worked at the Split airport renting cars to foreign correspondents flying in to cover the conflict. It was a surreal and confusing time for a young man who should have been enjoying the prime of his life, he says, and he thought about leaving. But a love of the sea and the hope that life would improve made him stay. And things have improved, he notes. Tourism has rebounded to what it was during communist times, and there is no shortage of work for seafarers like him. Still, the boarded-up houses of Vrnik, an island that in another part of the world would boast a Club Med, suggest that the coast remains relatively undiscovered – indeed, as some travel brochures note, it remains “the way the Mediterranean used to be.” For while Slovenia may have escaped the worst of the Balkan Wars and been quick to join the European community, Croatia is still vying to be fully welcomed in. The country declared independence in 1992, but its road to nationhood has been fraught with conflict and residents like Taras are still recovering psychologically from a war that pitted neighbour against neighbour, turned citizens into refugees and claimed some 15,000 Croatian lives.

The following morning Naranca is already enjoying his morning constitutional as we weigh anchor early for Sipan, and just two hours later we’re docked at Sudurad, a collection of three-storey stone houses with red-tiled roofs wrapped around a sparkling cove. Here in the Middle Ages, wealthy families built residences to escape marauding pirates in their hometown of Dubrovnik.

Joining Brocklehurst for a cross-island cycle, we follow a lane bordered with wildflowers that climbs precipitously from the shoreline before levelling off in a shallow, fertile valley of fig, olive and pomegranate orchards. An austere Catholic church occupies a wooded hillock at the entrance to the valley, and inside, the air is cool and dank. Soaring walls of cracked plaster are hung with faded tapestries and a sombre oil painting of the Crucifixion. Half an hour later we arrive at the other side of the island and another tranquil village, Sipanska Luka, where we share a thin-crust pizza. Open-hulled wooden fishing dories bob at anchor. Nearby, a huge, gleaming white power yacht is tethered; its complement of male passengers – all sporting dark sunglasses – have the appearance of Sicilian gangsters.

After lunch, pedalling slowly back to the boat, I veer off the main road on a whim to follow a dirt track that meanders uphill through olive groves and past an old mansion before fading into an indistinct footpath. A woman dressed in widow’s black walks around the corner, shouldering a bundle of firewood; a half-dozen goats follow nervously. She mutters something in Croatian, shakes her head and laughs, then vanishes down the trail.

Later, strolling back to the boat at dusk after exploring another incredible 15th-century mansion, this one gloriously restored, a soft evening breeze carries the briny scent of the ocean. Gentle waves rustle a beach of polished stones, and I dip my hand into the warm water and cradle one, rolling it around and feeling its smoothness against my palm. The lights of distant Dubrovnik twinkle across the sea.

Tags: Adriatic, Croatia, Hiking, Sailing, Slovenia, Spring-09