Sublime beauty in the shadows of war

A five-day trip is rewarded with the splendid view that the Lonely Planet travel guide promised, and a lot more

As I prepared to fly to central Europe recently there was a wonderful, vivid picture I could not expel from my mind. It was of a red pig flying a fighter aircraft, with the resplendent turquoise waters of the Adriatic below. Porco Rosso, a pilot cursed with the visage of a red pig, was the hero of a 1992 Japanese animated film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

By the time my friends and I had arrived in the Croatian capital, Zagreb, and boarded a bus for Plitvice Lakes National Park in the mountains, Porco Rosso had more or less taken a back seat in my mind.

A minibus took us from the lakes to the city of Split, on the eastern coast of the Adriatic. The mini-bus was packed with backpackers, and I was forced to share a seat beside the driver with a lady in her 60s. "I am a bum," she announced as soon as we began talking.

She was from Arizona and was traveling alone. She had spent a month in Germany, Austria and Slovenia, and planned to spend another couple of months in eastern Europe.

The lady asked to join our group of three, and we happily agreed. She obviously needed someone to natter to, and our conversation lasted throughout the six-hour ride. We had booked accommodation in a hostel in Split, but our new friend had booked nothing, so we suggested she tag along with us to our hostel.

To save money, the leader of our group insisted we walk there from the bus station. This turned out to be a 50-minute trek under scorching summer sun. At the hostel the lady, who had dragged a large suitcase, was told the place was full, so we bade this sexagenarian free spirit farewell. For us youngsters, I reckon, she is a beacon of hope. Like her, in another 30 years we could still be traveling the world alone, a consolation that is all the more comforting given that as young single people one of the greatest fears we nurse is planning to go somewhere but having no one to go with.

Another spirit who had no plans to do things by halves once he reached a certain age was the Roman emperor Diocletian (245-311). Split is a living testimony to that, the original settlement consisting of a grand palace covering 30,000 square meters that Diocletian had built at the peak of his power. The palace, which he planned to seek repose in once he retired, stands to this day, the giant white stones of which it is built almost succeeding in out-dazzling the waters of the Adriatic alongside which it stands. The stones, decorations and artworks that went into it were transported from every corner of Diocletian's vast empire.

Construction, which lasted several decades, was completed in the fourth century.

Even if you have not been to Split you may well have seen the palace and its 15-meter tall brilliant white walls because it was used as a location for palace shots in the TV drama Game of Thrones.

In June, when we were there, Split has the vibrant feel of a summer resort, something absent from the next city we visited, Trogir, a one-hour bus ride along the coast. Trogir, built by the Greeks, is not only more serene than Split but somehow more attractive, the laid-back feel underlined by teenagers playing soccer beside ancient castles.

In Trogir a challenging climb up the steep and narrow stairs of a church tower was recompensed with a panoramic view of the red-roofed city and the jade-colored sea, but soon there was a surcharge to pay: the harrowing descent back down the tower's steep stairs had my legs trembling all the way.

Also from Split, we took a three-hour bus trip into Bosnia and Herzegovina before reaching Dubrovnik in Croatia. Border checks between the two countries of the former Yugoslavia are strict, as evidenced by a group of tourists from Taiwan on our bus who had not brought their passports with them and had to get off the bus.

The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, after visiting the city in 1929, is widely quoted as having said: "Those who seek paradise on Earth should come and see Dubrovnik." Lord Byron called it "the pearl of the Adriatic", and in more recent times Game of Thrones, the same show that has made use of nearby Split, has done Dubrovnik proud by creating for the series a realm called King's Landing.

In Dubrovnik our penny-wise team-leader decided that if money was to be splashed out anywhere it should be here, so we decided to stay in a seaside apartment costing 90 euros ($100) a night.

The landlord picked us up from the bus station and drove us there, and then to a nearby supermarket so we could buy some supplies. This man was in his late 70s, someone who had been a sailor for 30 years before owning a ship.

"I was a captain," he beamed, adding that he had been to more than 80 countries, and that he had visited Hong Kong in the 1970s and 80s. This reminiscing old salt told of how much he missed Josip Broz Tito, who led Yugoslavia for more than 35 years until his death in 1980.

"Things were much better when Tito was there," he said. "Now everything costs a lot. Hospitals are especially expensive."

The bleak undertones of this nostalgia, coming from someone who had obviously seen a lot of the world, surprised us Chinese, who, even as he was sailing the seven seas, were growing up in a country that was opening up to the world and was beginning to blossom economically. Whatever, it is true that in Croatia public transport and using toilets and other public services are expensive.

On the other hand, Dubrovnik seemed to be thriving in the fresh air of a free economy, its main avenue teeming with tourists from around the world looking up in awe at the government buildings and churches on both sides, all of which were built of limestone more than 20 meters tall.

Dubrovnik was first built in the 7th century by war refugees from the north. Having run hundreds of kilometers along the coast, they built the six-meter-wide walls around their new home city. From then it thrived on its maritime trade and was an independent state until the early 19th century.

The balcony of our swish hotel offered us exactly what the picture that graces the cover of the Lonely Planet Croatia travel guide had promised us: the grand old city spread out along the coast.

That sparkling view greeted us at breakfast time every morning, before we headed out for the day, one activity being to climb the city's walls not only in sunshine but during a storm as well. Shrouded in dark storm clouds Dubrovnik comes across as a colossal castle rising from the sea.

After three days in this seaside paradise we boarded a bus, then a ferry for Korcula Island, one of the largest and greenest islands in the Adriatic, renowned for its white wines and according to some the birthplace of Marco Polo.

From there we returned to Split before taking an overnight ferry to Ancona on the western coast of Italy. That trip was made in pitch-black darkness, with barely a star, nor any other ship, to be seen. However, as soon as the sun rose, the gleaming waters of the Adriatic spread before us, and from the recesses of my mind Porco Rosso began to resurface.

In the movie, a friend of our porcine hero says: "The Adriatic is the most beautiful place, but people living beside it often have a hard life."

The movie, set in the 1930s, has as its backdrop Italy and impending war. It was released in 1992, 15 months into the Yugoslav wars that would last another nine years and result in the deaths of more than 140,000 people.

Throughout our five-day trip, for all the beauty we encountered, somber reminders of war never seemed far away. Dubrovnik was bombed over two months in late 1991, and in the same year Croats and Serbs clashed over control of the Plitvice Lakes National Park.

Once we were back in China, because of the Adriatic's appearance in news reports of ships carrying refugees from war-torn Syria, I could not shake it from my mind.

A "hard life" indeed, in a place where, when humanity is at its shining best, it bequeaths to the world such wonders as the cities of Split, Trogir and Dubrovnik.

If you go

Getting to Croatia from China: Getting around Croatia directly from China can be tricky and definitely requires careful planning, largely because of Croatia's unusual geography. There are no direct flights from Beijing/Shanghai to Zagreb the capital or Dubrovnik, and travelers are advised to take connecting flights via Milan, Vienna or Istanbul. This could help cut down a lot of the ticket cost.

After you arrive: From Zagreb, there are multiple bus lines operating every two hours to Split and Dubrovnik, but with a duration of almost 8 hours. If you happen to also visit the Plitvice Lakes area that is situated in between the two cities, buses are a good option, and if you want to further cut down two hours en route, you can take the private shuttle buses run by local cab drivers in the Plitvice areas (200 kuna per person). If you are traveling from Italy, night cruises from Italy's port city Ancona to Split might be a good choice. There is also a small airport in Split used by many low budget airlines. As the economic and cultural center of the Dalmatian coast, Split is bustling with islanders who flock into the city to work even as ferries whisk tourists out to many beautiful islands, the Bol, Hvar, Korcula islands to name a few. Not far from the airport, is the Unesco town Trogir, It is a smaller, cleaner, less touristy version of Split.

wangshanshan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 10/03/2015 page6)