Croatian Chronicle (Part I)

Sunday, May 17, 2009 (Day One)
Today marks the first day of the Innsbruck Program’s academic field trip to Croatia. I will admit, this trip was one of the reasons why I signed on to the program. I couldn’t miss a chance to explore my ancestral homelands in the Balkans.
Our trip is a seven-day affair, which began today with a bus ride from Innsbruck to Zagreb, followed by a reception given by the students and professors of the Philosophical Faculty of the Society of Jesus at the University of Zagreb. Tomorrow, day two, will consist of two lectures given by the Faculty and a tour of Zagreb, punctuated by free time in the early afternoon and evening. Tuesday, day three, is another day of travel. We go south by bus to the medieval fortress-city of Dubrovnik, stopping along the way at Plitvića National Park. Days four and five will be spent in Dubrovnik and its environs. Day six is the first step of the return journey to Innsbruck, as we travel by bus from Dubrovnik to Opačije (a town on the Croatian-Slovenian border) via the city of Split. Day seven is a day of unrelenting travel through Slovenia and Italy back to Innsbruck.
To chronicle this odyssey, I’ll be keeping a journal of sorts on my computer, to be posted to my blog when I get back to Innsbruck. So, I begin.
Today began at the uncomfortable crack of dawn, with our departure from Innsbruck at 6:00am. I arose at 4:30, showered and breakfasted, made a last-minute check of my luggage, then walked to the arranged meeting-point. We traveled by charter bus, as we will this entire trip, a necessity when one realizes that well-organized railways (our program director’s favorite means of travel) do not exist south of Hungary.
The bus ride proceeded by several stages. The first was from Innsbruck to a rest stop located somewhere in Styria (one of the provinces of Austria), then from there to the city of Maribor (known as Marburg in German). We took an hour and a half to wander through the city and idly pass the time throwing bread to the ducks in the Drau River. I’ve seen the Drau at a point near its source in the Austrian Alps, and while it was there a rushing torrent, it is in Slovenia a fat, slow, and disgustingly brown body of water.
Our final leg of the journey took us through Slovenia and into Croatia, through a landscape which started out looking much like the Appalachian Mountains, but slowly became more and more like northern Indiana/southern Michigan. We finally came to a halt in front of the Philosophical Faculty building in Zagreb at 4:45pm. It is located in one of the nicer parts of the city, and is itself quite a new building, its exterior built of plain tan stone and the interior furnished with sleek metal and polished Slavonian oak. We had some time here for refreshments, as well as to meet the students enrolled at the faculty. It was for me a bit surprising, since all of them study philosophy, and I’ve not spoken to other fellow philosophy student since I left the US all those months ago. The conversations were pleasant, as all of them were fluent in English, as well as German, so a middle ground could easily be reached.
At 6pm, we repaired to the auditorium for a series of presentations by the students of the Philosophical Faculty to showcase Croatian culture and talent. A pair of singers performed a duet from a Croatian opera; a string quartet played a piece by a Czech composer written for a wealthy Croat in the 18th century, and one student performed as a mime. These pieces were coupled with a presentation about Croatian culture, and the usual addresses of overture by various potentates of the Faculty.
Directly afterwards was dinner, a pleasant buffet affair which lasted until 8:45, with singing and music by three students playing guitar. I met and talked with more students of the Philosophical Faculty, discussing various things under the general order to have a “cultural exchange.” After the dinner, we boarded our bus which took us to our lodgings, a convent and spiritual center outside Zagreb, where I sit now writing this.
Thus is the first day concluded. Good night to you all; I shall furnish further reports when there is more to report.

Monday, May 18, 2009 (Day Two)
Our second day in Croatia was also our only full day in Zagreb, and as such it was packed to the proverbial gills. I rose once more at dawn’s break (6 am in this particular case), and breakfasted with the rest of my group, a simple, continental affair of bread, spreads, cheeses and meats, washed down with coffee and a sweet raspberry tea. We left our lodgings at the convent at 8:45, arriving in Zagreb at 9:30 outside the Philosophical Faculty building, where we were to have our first lecture. This was on the economy of Croatia, and was given by the Dean of the Zagreb School of Economics and Management. His English was not what might be called the best, filled through with forgotten articles and a thick Slavic accent. He was fortunately assisted by a graduate student who spoke English with a pronounced American accent, certainly a strange thing to hear after all of my time in Europe.
The presentation was an overview of the Croatian economy since 1945, but it was designed with an audience of economic students in mind. The students of economics number two in our group, which made for some amusing moments as the lecturer would declare “as you have learned in your macroeconomics classes”, a phrase which would invariably be followed by a stream of financial technobabble which might have been uttered in Swahili for all of the understanding I had of it. Still, when it was not enveloped in technicalities, the lecture was enlightening enough to make it worth its while. I recently gave a presentation in my Economics class in Innsbruck on the very same subject, so it was very nice to hear the matter treated by experts in the field, rather than a student of philosophy who doesn’t know the difference between macro- and micro-economics, and who couldn’t care less.
This lecture was followed by a walking tour of Zagreb, or at least of the older parts (the “upper town” as it is known to the locals). We began at the Cathedral of Saint Steven and the Assumption of Mary, standing outside to hear a lecture in art history which I have known for three years now, and then a more interesting tour of the church itself. The cathedral has been through many different phases of architectural existence: it started out as a basilica. That burnt down and was replaced by a church in the Romanesque style. That too burnt down, and was replaced by a Baroque church. That one fell down in an earthquake and was replaced with the present neo-Gothic building. As is to be expected from any cathedral of a capital city, the Zagreb cathedral contains the tombs of various Croatian heroes and holy people, along with relics, copious small chapels and altars, and tour groups.
After the cathedral we walked through the city market, which was redolent with the smell of fresh fruits and vegetables. It’s much like a US farmers’ market, although perhaps somewhat cheaper. We then walked down a small alleyway crammed with the tables and umbrellas of its cafes, to find ourselves on a street which was built over a river which once flowed through Zagreb. It marked the border of the old “Bishop’s Town” and the “Duke’s Town”, that part of Zagreb which was given a charter (and hence tax-free status) by its local ruler sometime in the 14th century, as I recall. Our route into the Duke’s town took us through the old eastern gate, now a shrine to Mary which is often frequented by the townspeople, who on their way past stop to offer a quick prayer and bow. The interior of the gate is covered with stone plaques hung by the faithful in thanks for prayers heard and assistance granted.
We then arrived in the main square of the Duke’s Town, which contains the church of St. Mark, a building much like the Stefansdom in Vienna in construction, with a roof made of brightly lacquered tiles. Unlike the roof of the Stefansdom, the roof of this church displays not the black eagle of Austria but the coats of arms of Croatia and Zagreb on a red and white checked field.
This square also holds Zagreb’s government offices and the building of the Croatia Parliament, and it is here in front of the cathedral that the president takes his oath of office, an act done in commemoration of the square’s medieval functions as place of declaration and execution. Next to the square is the Jesuit Square, which holds Zagreb’s Jesuit Church (an essential to any properly Catholic European city) as well as the buildings which held the novitiate and the Jesuit-run high school, both established in the very early 17th century.
Nearby is a panoramic view over the “Lower City”, that part of Zagreb which was built during the 19th centuries. In the centuries before that the ground of the “Lower City” was a field which was often the sight of great battles as the Croats clashed against the invading Ottoman empire. Now it is a place where skyscrapers and the revived architectural styles of the 19th century rub shoulders and hobnob amid a profusion of cars, pedestrians, and streetcars.
Our way down from this panorama lead us into Trg Bana Josipa Jelačića, or, in English, Josip Jelačić Square. It is named after Josip Jelačić, a 19th century Ban (or governor) of Croatia, who lead the Croats to victory over the Hungarians in 1848. A statue of Jelačić now resides in the square, depicting the general astride his charger with sabre pointed at the invisible ranks of his adversaries. The statue, when originally built, pointed northwest toward Hungary, but it was removed when Yugoslavia was created. It was restored in the 1990s after Croatia’s independence, but Jelačić now levels his gaze southwards, toward Serbia, as a reminder of the Croatian War of Independence.
Here our tour ended, and we were given 3 hours’ free time to explore Zagreb. I and some friends repaired to the nearest ice cream store, and having refreshed ourselves walked southwards into the “Lower City”. We passed by the National Theater, and several other galleries and buildings of pompous presentation, before turning east at the Botanical Gardens. We walked east for about 10 minutes before coming to a halt at a park much like the Mall in Washington D.C. in its form. We rested in the grass at the base of a monument depicting King Tomislav, the 6th century ruler who was also the first king of the first independent Croatian state.
After resting for a goodly while we turned northwards and walked back to the square in front of the cathedral, where our bus was waiting to pick us up an return us to the Philosophical Faculty. When we arrived we attended a lecture given by our philosophy professor from the University of Innsbruck. The lecture was the first of three he will give this week, all on the subject of Political Ethics. While I personally found the subject matter fascinating, the lecture was over before my professor could satisfactorily get to the point, although I’m told that he will continue the lecture in my next philosophy class on Tuesday the 26th.
After the lecture we went into Zagreb again, to enjoy a glass of beer and some food with the students at the faculty. The point of this time was supposed to be to “build cultural connections”, although most of my conversation with the Croatian students was spend roundly abusing Serbs, Slovenians, and all other nationalities who spoke ill of Croatia. It seems that the famous Balkan pride is still alive and quite vigorously well.
At 8:30, we got back on our bus and traveled to our lodgings for our last night in Croatia. Here I’m going to end this day, since I have to wake up at 4am tomorrow morning, a prospect which I find wonderfully dreadful.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009 (Day Three)
If I wasn’t writing this on Wednesday evening, I would say that Tuesday was the most grueling day of the trip so far. Fortunately, if that’s the right word, it wasn’t, but it gives Wednesday a run for its money. The day started when I slept through my alarm, to be awoken ten minutes before our bus left for Dubrovnik. I had had the foresight to pack the night before and to lay out my clothes for the next day, so I threw those on, almost forgot my watch, toothbrush, and toothpaste, and bolted out of the building, stopping briefly to turn in my room key and thank the nuns in hurried German (the only language in which we could communicate). I got on the bus, found a seat, and settled in for a 10-hour bus ride to Dubrovnik. I felt rather like Bilbo at the beginning of his adventure, rushing out of the front door without pocket-handkerchief, coat, or especially breakfast.
Like all of out bus rides, this one was broken up into stages, three of them in this case. The first was a stop at Plitviča National Park, which I would not have missed for a mint of money. I could best describe it as a canyon filled with uncountable waterfalls, but broad enough for the water to form a series of small, fjord-like lakes, each connect to each other by yet more waterfalls. The lakes were clear as fine glass, and where the water did not sit placidly it rushed out and into open space. I made, then and there, a resolution to come back with a few days’ time at my disposal rather than ninety minutes.
The second phase of the trip was made up of reading and napping, and I awoke from my nap to find that our bus was traveling not through the Michigan-like countryside of northern Croatia, a landscape full of fields and forested hills. Our highway wended its way through a countryside that looked like Wyoming highlands, a desolate place filled with stark low mountains, sparse clumps of buildings, and the Croatian equivalent of sagebrush. We stopped at a rest stop in the middle of this expanse, and the heat that met me as I left the bus hit me like a punch, and then roasted me like an oven. My travail was alleviated by cool water and a sit-down in the shade, followed by a walk to a breezy promontory overlooking a startling blue lake. It was quite large, and I think connected in some fashion to the Adriatic, for I could see from my vantage point docks and wharves crowded with sailing ships and yachts too large for a mere lake.
The third leg of our journey took us through this desolate country, up and down and through the mountains, on a small two-lane road which seemed to cling with all of its strength to the mountainside. From it we could see the new, four-lane highway which is under construction, and which traverses the distance much more easily with a series of long tunnels through the mountains and longer bridges over the valley.
This third phase ended when we crossed into Herzegovina. This might sound a bit strange, but the interlocking of Croatia and Bosnia/Herzegovina means that there is a small, three kilometer stretch of Bosnia which cuts straight through Croatia to the Adriatic. It is a relic from the 15th century, when Dubrovnik (which owned the land at the time), was in fierce commercial and even military competition with Venice. While Dubrovnik was impervious from the sea, it was somewhat less invulnerable on its landward sides. Thus, the city rulers gave a small piece of their land to the Ottomans (who controlled much of the Balkans at that time), a piece of land which was in between Dubrovnik and the Venetian-controlled region of Dalmatia, the same piece which we drove through. Thus, if the Venetians wanted to march an army down toward Dubrovnik, they would have to land in Venetian-controlled Dalmatia, and then march through Ottoman territory to reach Dubrovnik. The Ottoman Empire would not have taken kindly to a large body of armed men gallivanting through its territory, and thus did the buffer zone function. It remained part of Bosnia and Herzegovina throughout the rest of history, up to the present day, where it represents a tiresome delay on the drive to Dubrovnik, although I hear that Croatia is building a series of bridges between outlying islands in order to route the new motorway I spoke of around this strange little Bosnian interjection.
Our passage into Bosnia was lax and straightforward, without even so much as a passport check. We rested in Bosnia for half an hour, then drove back into Croatia and along the coast to Dubrovnik, or rather the port of Dubrovnik, since for our time here we are staying at a hotel on the island of Koločep. We disembarked from our bus, boarded a ferry, and arrived at the hotel at 8:30. After check-in I ate at the hotel’s restaurant, since I was nearly fainting with hunger (having had no breakfast and only bread and water for my lunch). After dinner, which was an excellent salad with grilled turkey, I showered and went straight to bed, which is why I’m writing this on Wednesday and not on Tuesday.