City walls, city roofs and the sea

For you, Deanne. Is this anything like your Dubrovnik? Thanks for inspiring my visit!

 

I began the day drinking Turkish coffee with my eighty-year-old host, Ina. She has lived in Dubrovnik all her life, and seen it grow from a village to the tourist destination it is today. Her husband died ten years ago, and letting rooms in her house is a way to supplement her meagre pension. We talked about family and age and Dubrovnik winters and Australian bush fires and her niece in Sydney.

Even with Ina's directions supplementing my map, I ended up heading in the wrong direction. When I was corrected by a series of dead ends, I was surprised that I was almost on top of the city wall before it was visible, after catching a brief glimpse of its immense solidity through the haze of arrival late last night.

I bought a ticket to walk the wall, and was ashamed of my fumbling knee-favouring when I watched a woman with two sticks and a bent old man gamely tackling the incredibly steep stairs. RestlessJo had a story about Giraldo Tower in Seville which has ramps, because the muezzin insisted on riding his horse up to do the prayer call. By the end of the day I was ready for both ramps and horse.

But what a view! Out to the Adriatic over terra cotta roofs and spires and cupolas and chimneys and bells, with me at the same level instead of craning up. No fear of falling with the protection of these thick walls, although the drop to the sea was sheer. Views into people's backyards – a flourishing vegetable garden, a barbecue area, clothes lines with a Spider-Man towel and infant jump suits. And always the wall, with its turrets and keeps and gun emplacements. As I walked higher, I could see mountains and islands stretching beyond the immediate coast. As rain began spotting, crowds thinned out. Somehow I managed, mostly, to avoid populating the wall as I snapped and snapped.

I paused mid-circuit to visit the maritime museum, and geography and its effect on history in this region suddenly made sense: between east and west, and close to Venice.The museum was housed in wonderful vast curved rooms, part of the structure of the city wall. It contained models and paintings of ships; amphora; rolls of copper wire; pottery jugs; fragmented glass; photos of the 1991 attack taken by a young man killed as he photographed; sea chests with paintings on the inside of the lid.

Towards the end of my city wall ramble, I spent a lot of time sitting, watching dark clouds gather, and drawing in the wonderful prospect over the contained town. I told myself I was under no obligation to rise to the heights in a cable car, having risen pretty high with my feet, and went home and slept soundly for three hours.

I took myself out for dinner – beef soup and vego lasagne, half of which I brought home for breakfast. I sipped white wine, read emails and caught up with blogs, and watched a lightning-storm build up over the fading Adriatic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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