Exploring Croatia With Darka

The   Benedictine monastery of St. Andrew on the island of Rab cherish tradition of the island since its existence. Thousand years long story behind the walls of the monastery is connected with each stone of very long history of the town of Rab and the island itself. There was recently  Monastic consecration  in this monastery and It was great honour and privilege to participate in the  Holy Mass . Impressed by the story of the Lady of Rab, I made a short video on YouTube in  English  and in  Italian  language. The Croatian version is in the text below. You can find it in  Krajolici baštine  as well. Mladen Šćerbe: Dawn over Rab Samostan svetog Andrije – posebna rapska veza sa svijetom Uplovivši u luku grada Raba, ne prestajemo se diviti viđenom pejzažu, koji kao da je i sam lađa sa četiri jarbola. Samo nakon par prijeđenih koraka već smo unutar gradskih zidina i zastaje nam dah zbog ljepote klesanog kamena i mirisne oaze parka Dorka....

It may be so that our first tourists came long time ago with steamships from the north of the Adriatic. Our very first visitors were very often rich and young nobles who, when travelling, were also writing their memoirs. Today such memoirs are the first stories of travel adventures describing habits, costumes, architecture and many other facts of our Croatian coast and the coastal hinterland. From such stories we find out what was once eaten, how people were dressed, what kind of music they played, we discover many habits of the 18th and the early 19th century. Regarding our first visitors, there  is a multi-disciplinary installation research   project  by Institute of Art History funded by the Croatian Science Foundation, Grand Tour Dalmatia. One of steamships with such first travellers was Euterpe, built in 1886 in the J.L. Thompson & Sons shipyard. It was a large cargo-passenger steamship of the Austrian Lloyds Company.  Talking about Lloyds , just one di...

Have you ever visited a UNESCO World Heritage Site? In Croatia we have eight cultural and two natural sites. You can find them  HERE Seven of eight are situated at the Croatian coast, and both natural are close to the coast. Living in a country with such a beauty and heritage that belongs to the whole world is not just a privilege but also an obligation to make the beauty constant and persistent for future generations.  The interpretation of such sites sometimes includes even small pieces of a puzzle; that could be flowers or even a smell that goes back to past centuries. Presenting the UNESCO World Heritage Site also means understanding all the phases it went through before reaching its current state. The plant that tells the story of the town, photo by Darka By Darka

Each time I come to the island of Pag I can hardly wait to go to Lun to see old olive trees with their curved structures. Centuries and winds carved out and wrinkled the bark, so that trees sometimes look like a birdwatching house, or like a creature that will walk  away any second . You can see shapes of hearts or even monsters.     Old olive tree  Lun is like a fairyland and there are colours and  sounds  that make you feel as if you were in a dream. There are animals and flowers, ponds and dry stone walls. The art of dry stone walling, knowledge and techniques belong to UNESCO intangible heritage You can feel the most intense smell of herbs on the peninsula of Lun. It is the most beautiful natural spa. Dry stone wall   It is hard to imagine that there is so much vegetation on this rocky karst island. The green oasis of olive gardens is a special place where olive oil is still being produced in a traditional way. People make cheese, honey and they ma...

When you live in a historical city, you get used to the beauty of the past centuries. Still, you know the importance of the story and you teach your children about that heritage.  Being a tourist guide in Split is a special privilege. Your daily activities are all inside of the world heritage site and you see your audience impressed. Even you get impressed each time you point your place.               Eastern or Silver Gate to the Diocletian’s Palace  All around the UNESCO site of Split, you feel and live the history.  Enjoy a little bit of the ambiance in the following link   In Split it is all about the Palace All materijal, including photos by Darka