Author: Gordon R. Barnett

While Amsterdam is another city built on an ancient system of canals, it could hardly be more different than Venice.

The spatial aspects of both cities are unique in spite that each is flat to the sea. The Dutch, coming from the land, built yet more land. Venice… perching precariously on pilings anchoring only a few small unstable prehistoric islands, squatting in the shallows of a lagoon…

Protected by all those walls we walked in Croatia… Venice arched inwardly upward, hoarding the spoils of world trade well before any Dutch expansion.

The periods during which each reached maturity have much to do with their differences. Older by many centuries, Venice plyed the classic shipping trade routes inside the warmer enclosure of the Mediterranean, connecting Europe to the mid-east, the Indian sub-continent, & ultimately China. Its smaller size amassed some sense of the mysterious enclosure characterizing an “Oriental” quality. 

There is plenty of auto traffic, but all is rather subservient to the obvious first choice to ride bicycles… evidenced by the fact that there are more bikes than citizens!

Specific, well separated lanes are dedicated to bicycles & one must honor that or be threatened & cursed for being in their way! The cross-walks become sometimes complicated to get to the center islands where one waits to board the trams. Electronic tickets, touched at sensors upon both entering & leaving the car, calculate the fare for the distance being deducted from the balance. Oh! that we could learn such easy good sense in more of our cities in the States! 

This is a stately old building, bridging over the main street which runs through & under its facade into a vaulted foyer echoing with Vivaldi.

Musical ensembles play outside modern entrances up into the museum… or down into the new depths enlarging antique spaces to accommodate essential modern facilities… I like this improvement’s mixing of clean functional lines with the original Gothic Victorian.

To be able to see almost the entire oeuvre of an artist who accomplished so much in only a decade chides my career, which began [& still dreams] in paint while getting side-tracked by the fantasy of jewelry before the whimsey of bells.

We had lunch at Ston, an ancient center for evaporating sea salt in 200 year old stone pans. Its walls are second only to China’s Great Wall for length & was constructed to protect that most valuable resource… salt was gold in those times.

Ston’s wall begins its length of protection in the north at the base of the Pelješac Peninsula along which we traversed toward the ferry to Korçula. We found ourselves climbing through vineyards, some with retaining walls impressive in their own right…

We stopped fortuitously at a tasting room where I wish I had at least taken a photo of their unusual specialty of aging bottles under the sea, allowing limpets & barnacles to decorate the glass! Their finest is curiously tucked first into a clay amphorae to keep the light out… making an even more visually dramatic product looking like salvaged antiquities. I lifted these images from the web to give a hint:

Waiting for the ferry at Orebić we observe how differently this one works to our tightly organized Washington State Ferry system.

She gave us good advice & directions toward the dramatic main gate of the old city… instead of the rather closer, but less interesting side gate, which we would discover later on our own…

We strolled out to begin acquainting ourselves with what was to become probably my favorite walled town, being small & rather intimate… certainly compared to Dubrovnik.

We returned after that initial foray to our second floor suite of two rooms. The hotel has more than a century of simply renewed grace bringing it forward without losing much of its classic quayside charm. The old-fashioned key opened first into a rather close bedroom whose window was draped against a view of an uninteresting walkway fronting the city’s wall. 

But the lofty sitting room offered grand arched windows full of western light.  We opened the sashes first thing to appreciate the view of the city continuing around the bay we face… with a variety of boats sailing in & out of the portage.  Opening one of the bottles, we poured ourselves a lovely arrival into a novel movie dreaming in a stone fortress stage.

The second thing I had to do was to rearrange the furniture! An out-sized couch occupied one wall… facing the flat screen on the opposite wall. Two large armchairs flanked the mid-room… also squarely facing that screen. This was a theater for the presumption in every hotel room in the world that travelers want to watch television! Many do! But…

I dragged those chairs around to face the gift of 

such a generous dose of outdoor ambience…

Fun playing with the curtains catching the breezes. 

I love living this antique dream!

 The drama of wispy drapery was soon to be upstaged by a superlative sunset

We ate well while watching the kitchen activities tucked into ancient stone-walled spaces.

 We found much to see, keeping ourselves busily exploring the churches, along with the various exhibits & small collections tucked into the ancient stone walls…

The city’s museum was surprisingly rich in collections of objects used in the daily life of those centuries passed. This  happily informed & enhanced my dramatic fantasies of interacting with these stone walls: protective, resisting… ultimately also restricting.  Inviting thus this now.
I feel the gentility of being a tourist welcomed into
some sweet distillation of ancient time

 

Since they chimed the hours there was clockwork involved as well.
This apparatus was also replaced, allowing me to enjoy in the same museum it’s
mechanique antique