Stari Grad Walkabout

I’m given the key, and, unceremoniously, both Eddy and Ana turn, walked down the 10 stairs to the door to the apartment (with just a hundred or so to go) and disappear. I breath a sigh of relief and look around. Frankly, it was only then that I had enough focus to truly assess my new digs and designated it “Hotel Dump”. I yearned for that simple but relatively luxurious apartment in Sibinek, but told myself that one needs to give and take when traveling, so I’ll give myself a break and endeavor to enjoy the “experience”.

Quickly parking my stuff, I grab my Lonely Planet guidebook (page turned to the Dubrovnik chapter), gallop down the flights of stairs, and enter the brisk-turning air of the Old City as twilight approaches.

In ten strides, I leave the alley and step into the famed pedestrian thoroughfare, the Placa. No cars other than service vehicles are allowed in the Old City, or “Stari Grad”, so it’s a great place to people watch, and given the worldwide popularity of Dubrovnik, you can see people from everywhere here. Unlike elsewhere in Croatia, here Americans amply contribute to the tourist composition. And what we tourists all observe is majestic, magical and historical.

Right across from my alley is the imposing baroque church, St. Blaise built in 1715, a relative youngster in this place. I stand for awhile and gaze at it, and as the outside light dims with the approaching night, the inside light of the church is revealed in strong colors of blue, red, purple and yellow through its hauntingly beautiful ornate stain glass windows. I turn to the left and gaze at the large and tall stone Clock Tower that demarks the east end of Placa, just before this broad walkway narrows and leads in a slightly upward and curvy path to the western entrance/exit called “Polce Gate”.

Taking this in, my appetite is whet and I decide to quickly dash up Placa to take note of the sights to be recorded on my camcorder tomorrow, before dusk pulls down its inevitable nightshade.

My Lonely Planet guide book makes this surveillance of antiquity easy, at it suggests a self-guided tour that begins from the western gate – Pile Gate – through which I first entered Stari Grad. I again study the Renaissance Gate itself and the drawbridge at its entrance that once upon a time was raised every evening as the gate was closed and the key given to the Prince.

Next, after entering the Old City, I note step-worn stone stairs to my left that lead steeply up to the rampart of the aged stone wall that encircles the town. Right before me, just to the right is Onofrio Fountain, a famous landmark built in 1438 as part of a water-supply system. Sixteen carved stone masks gush water from their mouths into a drainage pool.

Beside the stairway to the town wall, I encounter St Saviour Church build between 1520 and 1528, and a few meters along Placa to the east is the Franciscan monastery and museum built in 1498. Moving east, a quick detour off Placa is the site of a Serbian Orthodox Church dating from 1877, and containing a fascinating collection of icons dating from the 15^th to the 19^th century.

Nearby is the city’s 15^th-century synagogue, the oldest Sephardic and the second-oldest synagogue in Europe. I could recount several more, all inspiring given that their pedigree and location huddled 824 buildings surrounded by massive white stone walls reaching heights of 75 feet and nearly 2 km around at the edge of the sea.

I leave the Stali Grad and climb a nearby hill that overlooks it. The moon by now is high and it baths this antediluvian place in a soft luminescence. A spell is cast. I remain motionless for time uncounted.