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I had always heard–rather outlandishly–that some of the last of all European jackals live on the island of Korcula. This claim made me dubious, to say the least. Jackals, those Egyptian desert dogs, offspring of Anubis, inhabiting a green Adriatic isle? No way. And indeed, the claim is wrong… but not for the reasons I suspected.

According to legend, Korcula’s jackals originated during the Middle Ages, and the centuries-long rivalry between the Venetian Empire and the independent Republic of Dubrovnik. Supposedly those dastardly Venetians imported jackals from Africa and set them loose on Korcula thereby somehow to plague Dubrovnik’s land and citizens.

 Korcula (photo by Bob Blade)

There are two problems with that old story, however. First, research has shown that the jackals of the Dalmatian islands are actually not closely related to African jackals. In fact, the Dalmatian jackals are much more closely related to wolf species. The upshot: those jackals on Korcula didn’t come from Africa. Second is a historical refutation of the legend: throughout the several centuries (from the 1400s until 1797) of Venetian rule in the Adriatic, Korcula belonged most of the time to Venice, not Dubrovnik. So why then would the Venetians import those jackals as a scourge on their own territory? Doesn’t make sense.

So, then, where did those pesky jackals come from? People who are much more knowledgeable than I about such things have determined that these Dalmatian jackals probably spread thousands of years ago into the Balkans from Asia Minor, since the genetic relationships between the species of these two areas are pretty close.

Next question: how did the jackals end up on islands like Korcula, where they were historically more widespread than on the mainland? I don’t think the answer is that they liked the beaches, wine, and island lifestyle more. Rather, it seems to be that jackal species lived more extensively on the islands because on the mainland they suffered from competition with wolves. Where wolves were relatively thick on the ground, the jackals were sparse. And make no mistake: Dalmatia has wolves, even today. If you’ve ever seen those rugged Dalmatian mountains, you can imagine that wolves still live there. One intriguing, wolf-related fact that I came upon while doing the research for this post was that in 1348, when the city of Split was ravaged by the Black Plague, wolves came down out of the mountains and preyed upon the corpse-heaped city. Pretty cool.

What’s interesting is that these days, wolves in the Balkans are threatened, their numbers declining. As a result, though, jackal populations have been increasing. This is another reason that the old saw about Korcula harboring “the last jackals of Europe” is untrue. In fact, according to the EU-sponsored European Mammal Assessment, jackal numbers are stable in southeastern Europe, not even endangered. That’s good news for these hardy little critters, since all the way back to 1491 jackals have been hunted on Korcula.

 Canis aureus, the Golden Jackal

Anymore, though, the Golden Jackal–that’s the species that lives on Korcula–seems to be doing pretty well. Yes, they really are there… even if they are not the last of all European jackals. I’m told, actually, that on some moonlit nights out in the countryside, you can still even hear the jackals howling. That, too, is pretty cool.

Thanks to Bob for his photo!

There are two particular islands in the Adriatic that I associate with Yugoslavia’s communist regime under its founder, Marshal Josip Broz Tito. Neither of these two islands, frankly, show Tito and his regime in a very positive light. The first island–or rather, archipelago of islands–are the Brijuni Islands, Tito’s favorite summer resort. The second is Goli Otok, communist Yugoslavia’s prison island.

 Brijuni

The Brijuni Islands (or “Brioni,” as they’re known by their Italian name) sit just 3 km off the coast of Istria, not too far from the city of Pula. This archipelago has quite a history. The remains of dinosaurs and Stone Age humans have both been found here. In Roman times, patricians built luxurious residences on the islands. The Byzantines, worried more about defense than luxury, constructed a fort. By the end of the nineteenth century, though, luxury was back: an Austrian industrial magnate by the name of Paul Kupelwieser bought the archipelago and built villas, hotels, and parks.

In his own day, Tito picked up on that era of Austro-Hungarian swank and had his “summer palace” here–fitting, perhaps, for the man referred to by the great English historian A.J.P. Taylor as “the last Habsburg.” But Tito did live in style, reserving the island of Vanga for his palace and the larger island of Veli Brijun for his guests. And there were some posh guests, too, both before and during Tito’s time: the likes of Josephine Baker, Gina Lollobrigida, and Sophia Loren all glammed up Brijuni. Tito also hosted some rather less beautiful but perhaps more powerful guests, including some of the most important political figures of the day. In 1956 Nasser of Egypt, Nehru of India, and Tito started the Nonaligned Movement here, an important initiative in the Cold War.

It was common for visiting foreign leaders to give Tito some gifts–and often the gifts were animals. So over the years quite a menagerie was built up on Veli Brijun. Tito probably even shot some of them, since he maintained a private hunting reserve here. Today, though, two elephants given by Indira Gahdhi in 1975 still enjoy the island lifestyle. You can also meet one of Tito’s pet parrots who has outlived his Marshal. The islands are a significant nature reserve in their own right, with some 700 types of plants, including stone oaks that are hundreds of years old, and 250 different bird species.

The islands were made a national park in 1983, three years after Tito’s death. Nowadays the public can visit just two of the islands, Mali Brijun and Veli Brijun. You take a ferry over for a daytrip, or you can stay the night. It can be pretty nice, though, since cars aren’t allowed on the islands they’re fairly peaceful. So it’s a unique chance to live the life of a communist satrap.

 Goli Otok prison

Goli Otok, on the other hand, is not so pleasant. Its name means “Bare Island,” though it could also be called “Yugoslavia’s Alcatraz.” Both names are apt: Goli Otok is a forbidding lump of rock out in the Adriatic, nearest the island of Rab.

After Tito broke with Stalin in 1948, Goli Otok became for five years the site of “re-education” for Yugoslav communists whom Tito suspected of being a little too friendly with Uncle Joe in Moscow. This re-education involved forced labor in the island’s quarry and frequent beatings. Despite Tito’s paranoia about Stalin’s threats to Yugoslavia, many of the prisoners may not have been guilty of much of anything–for some, their only “crime” was not agreeing with Tito and daring to say so. In later decades, people were sent here for other offenses as well, such as deserting from the army.

In fact, one of my friends’ fathers did his military service on the island as a guard. He didn’t like being a guard there, watching over people who had only dared to speak their minds, but for each year you served as a guard on Goli Otok, it counted for two years of your military service, so you could get out more quickly. Most of the Yugoslav public didn’t know about Goli Otok and what went on there, however; the regime didn’t even acknowledge the prison’s existence until the 1980s.

The prison was shut down in 1988 and abandoned in 1989. Today you can only get out there with your own boat. It’s a historically resonant place, but there is not a whole lot to see, mostly various crumbling structures. This is a pretty comprehensive site about Goli Otok if you want to know more.

I once knew a guy who was into re-enacting World War Two battles. One time he was going to jump out of an airplane with his whole re-enactment “battalion” to make believe some parachuted-in firefight in France. The only problem was that the skydiving company wouldn’t let him jump with the rest of his group… because this guy was too fat.

What does this story have to do the Adriatic? Well, it tells you that re-enacting historical battles can be silly but kind of fun. It also tells you that people today are often fatter than they were in history. All of these lessons apply to Korcula’s annual re-enactment of one of the greatest naval battles in medieval Europe.

 Korcula

This battle was a titanic clash in 1298 between the rival fleets of Venice and Genoa. Venice launched some 95 ships at the Genoans, who were seriously outnumbered. Legend has it that among those sailing for Venice was none other than Marco Polo, who, also according to legend, called Korcula his hometown.

Fortune was not with Marco Polo and the Venetians that day in early September some seven hundred years ago. The Venetian commander, son of the doge, was killed. Of those 95 ships, the Venetians lost 85. And despite being outnumbered, the hardy Genoans managed to kill 9000 of their enemies. Even Marco Polo was supposedly taken prisoner and thrown into a cell in Genoa… where he began dictating the memoirs of his travels, which subsequently became famous, and remain so until this day.

Much more recently–just a few years ago, in fact–the people of Korcula began re-enacting this storied battle as both a commemoration and a tourist bonanza. I was there last September when the re-enactment took place. It was indeed a little bit silly. Korculan guys paraded around in medieval outfits. Actors, including one portraying Marco Polo, delivered somewhat cheesy speeches in Croatian that very few of the tourist onlookers actually understood. A bunch of excursion boats sailed around in the strait between Korcula and the Peljesac peninsula, pretending to attack each other in the very same waters where once the soldiers and sailors really were at each others’ throats.

But hey, it was fun. It’s a bit of low-key spectacle. The Korculans do their best. And it is kind of a neat way to connect to a stirring historical event. I’ve included a few of my pictures from that day, but if you want to check out a pretty good, edited video of the whole festivities, surf over to this site.

For a more in-depth account of the historical event, see this summary.

Recently a friend sought my advice for a cycling trip to Croatia he was thinking about taking. I decided it was a perfect opportunity to do a post with ideas for some fantastic bike trips you could take along the Adriatic coast. So I’ve got some itinerary ideas of my own, some links to companies who operate bike tours in the area, as well as some other related websites that are worth a visit.

My itinerary ideas:

There are a couple places I think you could happily spend a few days cycling around, or you could link together these places for a longer trip. My first suggestion, not surprisingly, is Istria. Base yourself in a great hilltown like Motovun, or one of the lovely seaside towns like Rovinj. Then you can hit some highlights, like Pula’s Roman amphitheater, the Lim canal, other tiny hilltowns like Groznjan or Hum, or the medieval ghost town of Dvigrad, not to mention putting in stops at some wonderful wineries, truffle shops, and restaurants along the way. Istria is definitely a bit hilly, but the terrain isn’t brutal, and in the interior, especially, the roads shouldn’t be too crowded, even in high season.

My second suggestion would be to head to Rijeka and catch a ferry for one of the islands. If you want to get away from some of the crowds, head to Cres: it’s quieter, more rugged, but still with some nice little towns and beautiful landscapes. It would also be fun to spend a few days cycling around Hvar. Besides seeing the amazing main town, there are other cute villages, as well as fields full of lavender, some caves, and the spectacle of the international yacht set that now descends on the island each summer. Here are links to some cycling routes on Cres and Hvar. As a last island suggestion, Brac would be great. You could bike around to the villages of Supetar, Bol, and Sumartin, get some windsurfing in at Croatia’s best spot for it, and of course visit the magnificent beach at Zlatni Rat:

 (image credit)

I wouldn’t highly recommend cycling in mainland Dalmatia, since in my experience the older, winding roads can be so clogged during the summer months that it could be a little scary biking with so much traffic, at least in my opinion. Instead, my last suggestion would be to do a loop around the Bay of Kotor, Dubrovnik, and may even over the mountains into Hercegovina. An easy reach from Dubrovnik, Kotor has several little towns amidst the awesome scenery of the fjord, and the roads should be pretty low-key. If you’re hardcore you can head right up over the mountains to some really unbeaten paths in Montenegro. The same goes for the route up from Dubrovnik up towards the town of Trebinje in Hercegovina. You will have left the tourists behind, gotten some killer exercise, and taken in some pretty amazing mountains.

Tour operators:

More and more companies are starting to offer “adventure tours” of one sort or another in Croatia. I can’t vouch for any of these companies in particular; if you’re thinking about a guided tour, check out their prices and itineraries and see what looks good to you.

Here’s one list of a bunch of bike tour operators in Croatia, and here’s another. Pedalsea Adventures is an established tour company offering “adventure vacations,” and REI offers two Croatia tours I would bet are good.

 Kotor (image credit)

Other useful links:

There’s an excellent list of resources at find-croatia.com. You can also surf over to croatiatraveller.com’s cycling-related page. Finally, for those who might find actual cycling a little too sweaty, here’s your shot at some armchair cycling via a New York Times article about a bike trip in Istria. One word of warning: if you read it, you’ll want to go!

Any comments or questions about cycling along the Adriatic? Let us hear about it in the comments!

Well, the secret has been out so long it’s hard to remember it was ever a secret. Hvar has planted itself firmly on the itineraries of the international jet- and yacht-set. And where Gwyneth Paltrow goes, the New York Times’ editors apparently follow…

The NYT has singled out Hvar in its recent list of “53 places to go in 2008.” The blurb calls Hvar the “St. Tropez” of the “new Riviera” that is Croatia. Such is the reputation of this ancient little town, crowned by a Venetian castle among hillsides covered in aloe and lavender: a party place for starlets and wanna-bes.

If you want to get away from the glitz, though, head over to the town of Stari Grad for an equally ancient, if less sexy, Dalmatian getaway. Or drive along the mountainous spine of the island and check out a few other villages like Vrboska or the vineyards around Sucuraj. You might not glimpse Gwyneth in these quieter spots, but it’s an unbelievably picturesque island… which makes it all the stranger that the NYT used a photo of Vis island, as Jeanne Oliver points out.

Get your fill of Hvar town’s pounding discos, then get off the beaten track, and you might even capture some of the magic I experienced on some beautiful December days back in the late 90s when I was the only tourist in town. I suppose I don’t mind sharing, though, particularly if it nets me a ride on some heiress’ yacht…

 (image credit)

I love legends, myths, and other dubious stories that plumb the mysteries of a place. Here’s a good one about the island of Rab:

Once upon a time there was a young shepherd named Kalifront, who guarded the sheep of his father on Rab. Kalifront’s father was a friend of Barbat, the powerful but somewhat thick-witted lord of the eastern part of the island, after whom that part of the island is still named today.

Lord Barbat had a daughter, Draga, who naturally—since this is a legend—was the most beautiful of all the maidens of Rab. Barbat was thick-witted because he let his one and only beautiful daughter hang around with the island’s shepherds. It wasn’t long before Kalifront, consumed with all-too-typical teenage hormones, fell in love with Draga.

His better judgment drunken with lust, Kalifront ignored the obvious fact that he, as a low-born shepherd, would stand no chance with the lord’s daughter. So one day he poured his heart out to her, swearing that no boy had ever loved any girl more than Kalifront loved Draga.

Draga was not amused. Like the haughty cheerleader hit upon by a pimple-faced dweeb, she spurned Kalifront. But, since this was a long time ago, Draga was not quite as promiscuous as the average cheerleader today. In fact, her mother had vowed Draga’s chastity to the goddess Diana, and Draga used that as one of the many reasons why she and Kalifront could never be together. That, and Kalifront was hopelessly uncool.

Teenage lust cannot be denied, however, and Kalifront was determined to have her. Draga saw the look in his eyes and fled. Kalifront pursued her. Across the island they ran, through the fields of sheep (who probably would have been willing recipients of Kalifront’s attentions), along the rocky coastline, over the mountaintops… and finally the boy caught up with the beautiful girl at a dead end, right in front of the cave known as Loparska Jamina.

Seeing no way out, helpless, Draga did what the desperate usually do: she prayed. She beseeched the goddess Diana to protect her chastity. And the goddess listened.

The gods, though, typically grant our prayers only in a roundabout way. So Diana ensured that Draga would remain forever chaste by turning her into a stone statue right there in front of the cave. Kalifront, for thinking with the head between his legs and not the one on his neck, she punished too.

Kalifront was cursed never to find peace until the little stream that poured out of the cave dried up. Until that time, he could only eat the wild fruits of the forest—and the goddess demanded that every day he continue replenishing those fruits and that forest by planting new trees.

Because of Kalifront’s plantings, the forest gradually grew thicker and thicker. And a strange transformation gradually came over the boy, too. As the forest grew thicker, there grew upon Kalifront’s back a thicket of leaves and branches and roots. Over the years he grew ever greener, until finally, as a result of Diana’s curse, he became one with the forest he had planted.

Nowadays that forest on Rab bears his name, Kalifront, just like the other part of the island was named after the lord Barbat. So that lowly, horn dog shepherd boy has gotten his place in history after all.

(Adapted after a version of the legend from the Rab tourist office)

Notice Kalifront and Barbat on this modern map of Rab? (image credit)

One of the greatest glories of the town of Korcula—a pretty glorious place in most regards—are the carvings on the main façade of the cathedral. They count among the most impressive artistic achievements of the entire medieval age along the Dalmatian coast. They amaze me for both their actual sculptural quality as well as for their outlandish inventiveness.

In September of 2007 I caught the cathedral in spectacular light at the very end of the day—that honeyed light for which Dalmatia is so famous. My photos turned out quite well, and you can get a great look at these carvings, many of them executed by local artisans (not ones imported from Italy, which was more common).

Korcula cathedral photo 1

In the first photo you get a good overall look at both the traceried rose window, the wonderful carvings on the cornice, and the bell tower. In the bottom left of the photo, notice the serpent at the corner of the cathedral façade: the cornice decoration actually bursts out of the creature’s mouth, so in fact the entire roofline is really an ornamented representation of a serpent’s tongue.

Korcula cathedral photo 2

The next photo gives a good look at the peak of the cornice, crowned by a floral finial. Beneath the finial, notice the carving of a woman in 14^th century fashions. You can also see the pattern of beast heads alternating with scallop shells in pointed arches.

Korcula cathedral photo 3

I really love the work in the next photo. To the right you see the carvings of the corner of the cathedral façade; notice the bizarre long-nosed monster at the top, above the human face and the serpent head whose tongue forms the cornice. Just below the human face is a wonderful devil’s head—though it has horns, this face looks like a cross between a pig and a dog to me. The little arches to the right and left of the devil’s head are reminiscent of a typical Venetian Gothic arch. Notice also the clock in the tower, with the orb showing the phase of the moon.

Korcula cathedral photo 4

The last picture shows some of the carvings around the main cathedral doors. Though I didn’t manage to get them in the same miraculous sunset light, you can still get a good view of the beautifully detailed medieval representation of a lion. The lion has another creature in its claws; it almost looks like another lion, though a lamb would be more typical given medieval symbolism. Beneath the lion that’s what I think is a rather dirty image of Eve, really letting it all hang out.

Do you have any favorite churches or art along the Adriatic coast?