Aachen

This is a picture of the inside of the Aachen Cathederal where Charlemagne's remains are held.

Sorry folks

There are a lot of posts and photos that I would like to add, but I don't have the time today. I'm planning on adding some photos from Trier to Erica's last post as soon as I get a chance.

Behind on the blogging...

I haven't had much time to blog about the day-to-day events of the TASA program, so I'm providing this link if you want a brief summary of the type of activities we are engaged in.

Also, I forgot to mention that we ran into 12 people from Knoxville in Strasbourg! They were in three different groups; one group was just some students visiting the city and the two others were there for the Tour de France.

Yes, I did...

The TASA group headed to Strasbourg today for a tour of the city and some other academic appointments. The city is really nice and historically interesting; however, I skipped out early because, by some lucky cosmic coincidence, the Tour de France was in town too! I found a spot inside the 1 kilometer mark and managed to snap a few photos. Watching a flat stage in person is anticlimactic, but it was awesome to be part of the energy that surrounds the race. To be honest, I’m not even sure who won the stage. I heard George Hincapie was in the lead, but I don't think he won the stage. By the time I made it down to the finish line they had already presented the yellow jersey.

We are staying at a hotel across the German border in Lautenbach, a small town in the Black Forest. It’s a nice little stereotypical German town; all the hotel workers are fat German girls with rosey cheeks and blond pigtails. Too funny. Strasbourg is pictured above.

Visit to Stasi headquarters

On Wednesday afternoon we visited the former headquarters of the East German security service, or Stasi. Our tour guide was an author who grew up in East Germany and whose father was arrested and imprisoned for not following close enough to the communist party line. The name (I can’t remember his name) found great irony and deep satisfaction in touring American students through the office of the former Stasi chief. He made a lot of quotable comments. For instance: “There is no such thing as peace in a dictatorship. Peace in such a place is merely a state of undeclared war on the state’s population. Therefore we should not argue against intervention on the basis of peace.”

Another Berlin post

On Tuesday, we started off our day with a visit to the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (expressed as the German acronym SWP), a think tank for German security issues. SWP is, however, very different from the American “think tank” concept because it receives funding from the federal government. SWP also has, theoretically, a direct line of influence to government officials that is unheard of in the US model. Is this a good thing? In this case, definitely no, but it might well explain why German foreign policy is usually amateur hour. The SWP representative that spoke to us blasted US foreign policy (expected) and said that all of Europe’s terrorism threats were caused by the US led war in Iraq. What is so absurd about this comment is that, though it may contain some truth, it ignores the glaring fact that France, Germany, and the UK have been sitting on a volcanic chain of unassimilated Muslim populations for the past 20 years. The Iraq war did not create an underclass of Islamic outcasts in Western Europe, the cultures and policies of those countries did. Even so, if the presenter had simply stopped there I wouldn’t have wanted to beat my head to unconsciousness on the table. But of course he didn’t. When pressed on the issue of intercepting terrorists abroad he said, “Well of course countries can catch terrorists abroad, but murdering them is unacceptable…blowing up suspected terrorist with missiles in Yemen is simply wrong.” I find this concept more than a little difficult to wrap my mind around; this clown wants us to send a diplomatic envoy to a country that doesn’t exercise effective control over 60 percent of its territory in the hopes that it will dispatch its ineffective and corrupt police force to arrest an admitted enemy of our country? I can discuss different policy options and perspectives with many different people with different opinions and backgrounds while keeping and open mind, however, I have no use for someone that does not see the value in a well placed HellFire missile from a Predator drone. So I decided to keep these thoughts to myself and I slipped into an intellectual coma, safe and out of the reach of the relativist black hole that had formed between his ears.

Perhaps this story provides a good opportunity to segue to an email question I received a couple of weeks back; Barrett wanted to know about the European reaction to Zarqawi’s death. I honestly didn’t find out until several days later and was informed by someone in Croatia who said, “Well, I guess your country finally managed to murder Zarqawi, huh?” I responded with a deadpan response of, “Interesting”, not really interested in the provocation. I’ve heard a few similar comments, but not many. The general feeling is that it won’t accomplish much. My take: My ethical response is best summarized by a quote from French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, “Vengeance is pointless, but certain men did not have a place in the world we sought to construct.” My strategic evaluation of the situation is that he is replaceable but I doubt his successor will be as eager to stick his neck out. I also think that his death makes the reconciliation between Shiites and Sunnis much more plausible.

The photo is from the visit to the Bundestag the previous day.

Chancellery and Reichstag

On Tuesday we visited the German Chancellery and the Reichstag. A point of clarification from my point yesterday: The German parliament is building is still called the Reichstag while the law making body is referred to as the Bundestag. Both buildings are in a much more contemporary style than government buildings in D.C. Touring the Chancellery was strange because unlike a White House west wing tour, we pretty much had the entire building to ourselves. Very modern, kind of boring.

Missing photos from last post...

I think I've managed to find the worst internet connection in Germany...

So, what is it like being in Germany during the World Cup?

The atmosphere in Germany during the World Cup is not really comparable to any sporting event we have in the US. If you want a rough idea, I suggest you imagine what it would be like if the entire South Eastern US (about the population of Germany) only had one football team and it only played in a bowl game once every four years. We went to the main Berlin Fan Fest for the Argentina vs. Mexico game last night. We couldn’t go watch the Germany game there because there were 750,000 people in the square and the police were not allowing anyone else into that section of the city. People from all over the world are in Germany, not to attend the games (FIFA WC tickets are more illusive than a Golden Ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory), but just to watch them on a big screen with tens of thousands of screaming fans. The late game we showed up for was a lot calmer and only 300,000 to 400,000 packed into the square.

Me and two other guys left the game early and went up into the Bundestag (or Reichstag, as it was once known). This is the German parliament building that the Nazis burned to the ground to consolidate their grip on the government. When Germany was reunited and Berlin was restored as the national capital, a modern dome was added to the top to symbolize unity and hope for the future. In the pictures I had previously seen in magazines, the dome always seemed most beautiful at night, so I was insistent on visiting it then. We were not disappointed. On top of the Bundestag there is a wide open square from which to view the city and the dome. The dome itself has two long interlocking corkscrew ramps - one for up-bound traffic and one for down – that never intersect. This creates a mind-bending effect as you ascend to the top observatory. At the top the dome there is an open skylight and a circular bench on which you can lay down and gaze heavenward. I’m usually pretty uninspired by modern architecture, but given the history of the spot – once a gravesite of democracy and the point of cleavage between East and West – only a clear break with the past could convey Germany’s hope for the future.
We went on a bus tour of Germany today and saw some interesting things; however, I fell asleep and missed a lot of sites. After a month of traveling, it takes a lot more to get me excited than it did earlier on the trip. Tour guide: “And over here is the Holocaust monument…” Me: “Oh wow. I guess I should take a picture of it. By the way, is reason we haven’t eaten yet part of some Holocaust sympathy experience?”

Ever since visiting Sarajevo I’ve been thinking about how long it takes a city to recover from that level of destruction. Visiting Berlin is a clear warning not to be overly optimistic. There are quite a few buildings that are still tattered with bullet holes and if you look at the Greek Embassy on the West Berlin side, it looks like WWII ended yesterday, not 60 years ago.
We also visited the Berlin wall. The attached picture is of me and fellow UT student Jesse Cragwal on the East German side. And, it is possible that the two youths pictured above might be in possession of pieces of said wall. The Gipper told us to.

So, what exactly is Matt doing in Germany?

The Transatlantic Summer Academy (TASA) is a yearly summer program that focuses on a particular area of European – North American relations. This year the subject is terrorism and there are 24 students from 10 different countries. 14 of us are either Canadian or American, and the other 10 are mostly from Southeastern and Eastern Europe (Generally, the academy only invites members from non-European Union countries). The school, organized through the University of Bonn, is 3.5 weeks of intensive lectures, discussion, and travel pertaining to the philosophical, economic, political, and legal consequences and causes of terrorism. Our lecturers are all well known experts in their fields. In fact our first speaker, Paul Wilkinson, is something of legend in International Relations literature. We also take some equally impressive excursions, with visits scheduled for Berlin, NATO headquarters, and the European Parliament.

I’ve really enjoyed our group so far. The Americans and the Canadians initially gravitated to each other because we are all (either by national stereotype or coincidence of individual personalities) all loud, extroverted, and talk really fast. Half the fun of hanging out with the Canadians is making fun of them. Best Canadian joke so far: “Canada is like a quiet apartment over a really cool party.”

This year’s TASA is culturally diverse; we have 3 Muslims participants who have made our discussions very interesting. We also have a few odd-balls. For instance there is a girl from Illinois with, what sounds to me like a Persian accent, but she is a 100% homegrown American. When pressed about this fact, she told us that she developed an accent while studying abroad a few years back. Umm…okay…We’re pretty sure she’s an Al-Qaeda spy.

Missing three trains in 2 days turns Matt and Erica into homeless people

So why have your intrepid travelers disappeared for the last few days? Well, we were booked on a night train from Belgrade to start our journey back to the comforts of western civilization; however, the train was 3 hours late. This put us in Ljubljana, Slovenia one hour too late to catch our train to Venice. The resulting five hour layover in Ljubljana was actually a very pleasant disruption to the itinerary, aside from the never-ending computations of exchange rates (Slovenia joined the EU in 2004 but has yet to switch currencies). Erica and I explored the city in shifts and were impressed enough that we plan to revisit while en-route back to the Balkans in July.

At this point, all would have been fine…if our train to Venice had showed on time. I must interject and say that I am utterly stupefied as to how trains can be so regularly late. It’s not like the engineer is lounging around at home watching the world cup drinking a beer and it suddenly dawns on him, “Oh crap! I’ve got to pick up two-hundred people in Belgrade tonight!” Or maybe it is. That would certainly explain a lot. I mean, I suppose occasionally a train obliterates a herd of cattle or a broken down Lada, and they have to clean the remains off the track. But that can’t happen everyday, can it? In any case, we arrived in Venice too late to catch the train to Milan or any destination closer to Germany. I knew that there was a night train leaving for Zurich in 2.5 hours, so I hoped we could grab a couchette on it. I also knew it was probably going to be booked and we would need a reservation. Unfortunately, when we arrived in Venice the international ticket office was closed and the self-service kiosks only worked for inter-Italy tickets. When the train did arrive I ran out to see if there was anything else. Nada. It was midnight and the next train was not until 7 the next morning. So Erica got the extra night in Venice she had wished for, with a twist. We slept in shifts on the steps of the Venice train station.


It was kind of like the story of the monkey-paw that you wish on only to have an evil version of your wish come true. I slept one and a half hours, Erica managed 2. At around 5 AM, the train station opened and we got inside where it was warmer and I caught another few minutes of sleep. Luckily for us we were up and awake before the security guards starting harassing the other bums. During the course of the night, a homeless lady that had begged us for money in our first visit came and laid down near us. When she never asked us for money I realized it was because we had joined her social class.

On the train the next day we were disgustingly filthy and hungry. We had money for food but, almost everywhere we went was closed. After spending eight hours as pariahs on the train, we finally arrived in Lucerne. What’s Lucerne like? I don’t really know. We walked briefly and took some pictures. It looked really nice, but all we wanted was a shower and food. We arrived at 4:00 and went to bed at 8:30. Being back in the fluffy creature comforts of western culture has a rejuvenating effect. The tiny $80 hotel room we had last night might as well have been the Four Seasons.

I’m writing this on the train to Bonn, where I am attending this year’s Transatlantic Summer Academy for three and a-half weeks. I’m racing a dying battery, so I’ll have to end this post here. But I will end this post by saying that we are now clean, fed, and almost rested.

Serbia

I was a little apprehensive about visiting Serbia because of lingering anti-Americanism from the U.S. bombing campaigns in 1995 and 1999. Before the trip, every person knowledgeable of the area assuaged my concerns and encouraged me to visit. They were correct, though the anti-American sentiment is noticeable, it is not overt. In fact a lot of what I initially interpreted as an anti-American vibe was, as I later discovered, is really just part of a general xenophobia. It turns out that, in contrast to their forefathers, very few Serbians (less than 15%) have visited the West.
The Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia was the most economically successful of all the socialist bloc countries. When Stalin and Tito split in the 1950s, Yugoslavia needed to strengthen Western ties to discourage a Soviet invasion. The result was a communist country liberally engaged in trade with Western economies. Whatever prosperity had been accrued the following decades was obliterated by Milosovic’s maniacal mismanagement of the economy in the 1990s. In an eight year period 30 -40 percent of Serbia’s economy disappeared. Though Belgrade is today a modern and thriving metropolis, the results of the economic collapse can be seen in the large shanty-towns that appear along interstate overpasses on the city’s outskirts.

The most important interview of my trip was supposed to be here and I had planned the entire first half of our trip around his schedule. I called on our first day in Belgrade only to find out that we would be gone the entire week. However, the two consolation interviews, which turned into a 4.5 hour intellectual marathon, were extremely helpful.

The second interview was with the institution’s V.P., who is a western educated Bulgarian. We spent about two hours talking about my thesis specific questions, and another 1.5 talking about Balkan history. He, like many people who are erudite in their knowledge of the region, insists that you cannot understand any of the modern Balkan problems without viewing it through the lens of history. Unlike one of my earlier interviewees, this guy had no concerns over anonymity, though he made much more inflammatory statements. When I asked about the EU suspending candidacy talks with Serbia and what could motivate reform given this withdrawal, he responded very directly, “What Serbia needs is a second bombing campaign…and after that probably a third. I believe that is the only way they will ever wake up and realize that it is 2006 and that fighting over some hill because something happened 600 years ago is ridiculous.” To me, that was a shocking statement, given his position, the location of his office, and the fact that there five Serbian intelligence agencies. However, I’m sure he understands the delicacies of his situation better than I.

We will be returning in July, at which time I have two more interviews with staff members there. Tomorrow we are headed somewhere west and closer to Germany. I’m getting tired of Belgrade and especially tired of our “hostel”.

Final notes on Sarajevo

From reading my earlier post on Sarajevo you may have come to the conclusion that it is a moving yet depressing place. While it is emotionally stirring, it is not depressing. If anything, it is a testament to the human spirit which is capable of warmth and generosity even in the aftermath of supreme tragedy.

Unlike other places we have visited in the Balkans people open, friendly, and rarely suspicious. Even in Croatia, westerners attract a lot of cautious gawking. In Sarajevo (and for that matter all the places we stopped in Bosnia) foreigners are only casually noticed. I got the feeling that whether you walked down the street in an Armani suit, t-shirt and shorts, or a kimono, no one would give you a second look.

On our last full day in Sarajevo, we visited the 800 meter tunnel that the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina constructed to save the city’s population when it was under siege by the Serb army and denied protection by the UN. Through this tiny tunnel passed all the electricity, petroleum, food, and weapons that the citizens had to survive. The UN controlled the airport, but only provided food and would turn back anyone who they caught crossing into free Bosnia. One of the tunnels former users said, “We lived every moment with the fear of being killed, but all the UN cared about was whether we were well-fed when we died.” About 11,000 people died in the siege of Sarajevo.

Dear Readers,

Sorry posting has been so light. We have had trouble getting to and settling into Germany. However, I have been writing posts for the last week and I should finally be able to post them today. Keep reading!

This is a picture of me standing in the exact spot that Gavrilo Princip did on June 28, 1914 as he shot and killed Austro-Hungarian Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia. This event was the flash point that began the First World War. Amazing!

We have posted some pics that were previously missing aslo. Enjoy!

We are off to Belgrade tomorrow morning.

…Into Bosnia

“I hate the corpses of empires, they stink as nothing else. They stink so badly that I cannot believe that even in life they were healthy.” - Rebecca West in her 1940 masterpiece Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia.

The first real signs of war damage we saw today began about 30 miles outside of the Bosnian town of Mostar, just after we passed the first mosque. Most of the buildings showed a light peppering of small arms fire, with the occasional unlucky one mortared to rubble. There were cemeteries on either side of the street, one side Muslim, one Croat-Catholic. The back of the cemeteries were lined with several generations of tombs that demonstrate the natural proportions of life’s progression; just a handful of dead from each decade. But the natural course abruptly shattered by many more rows of newer crypts. Even as our bus passed by there were many people, on both sides, out paying their respects. The cemeteries were chocked full of flowers and wreaths, and on the Catholic side, Croatian flags flew defiantly over the dead.

In Mostar, the destruction was much more pronounced. Here every building bore the scars of bullets, though some had haphazardly plastered over the bullet holes. In some places the entire apartment building remained functioning except for the odd apartment punched out by artillery fire. At this point, Erica gave, what is thus far, my favorite quote of the trip, “Why…are there holes in the buildings?” she asked, obviously afraid she knew the answer. It wasn’t funny at the time because I was myself in a state of mild shock; I had seen recent pictures of Mostar, showing what appeared to be a recovered city. I still don’t know how the photographer was so selective.

Fortunately, the next hour of the drive erased a lot of the unpleasantness of Mostar. The road between Mostar and Sarajevo has to be one of the most beautiful highways in the world. I wasn’t prepared for how dramatic the terrain would be; it’s like a mix of Yosemite and Rockies with a turquoise river snaking through it.

Entering Sarajevo brought us back to reality. For the next 45 minutes, my mind was occupied with digesting the shock Sarajevo’s ugliness. Really, I don’t think I have ever seen so many utilitarian buildings in such a state ruin, anywhere. Not Kiev, not Tegucigalpa, nowhere. Simply the worst architecture of communism in its furthest phase of ruin. That’s before factoring in the bullet holes.

What I expected at the bus station was something similar to what we got in Dubrovnik; a bunch of old ladies and pensioners trying to sell us a room. There was only one. She was trying to sell us on a hostel, which I didn’t know even existed in Sarajevo, despite all my research before hand. Sounded shady, but we had no other choice but to check it out. She then proceeded to lead us on the Balkan version of the Baton Death March, which I think Erica might write about further.

As the Death March wore on into the old town, Sarajevo actually became very beautiful. Surprisingly beautiful. We got a private room….which is well…well it probably deserves a post to itself. Anyway, we were starved and all that had sustained me through the course of the Death March was the promise of the local specialties of lamb, boiled potatoes, and Turkish coffee. I was not disappointed, we further violated our budget and splurged (actually, given the exchange rate it was only about $32) for a 4 course meal. It was the best meal I have had in months. We all have occasional cravings, but, in my experience, they are rarely fully satisfied. When they are, it’s a special moment in your life time, like Haley’s Comet or a UT national championship. Call me shallow, but right now, there are few experiences better timed in my life than that lamb and spinach dish.

The “proprietor”, as he refered to himself, had and autographed picture of Bill Clinton and had saved copy of mass email (which he couldn’t read) from the Clinton Foundation announcing the opening of his presidential library. When he found out we were American he put American and U.S.A.F. flags on our table. Clinton is pretty popular around here for green-lighting air strikes on the Serbs and for brokering the Dayton Peace Accords. I’m not a Clinton hater, but his administration could have done a lot more a lot sooner to fix things here. And no, this is not a hindsight-is-20-20 situation. But I’ll blog about that later.

It’s Sarajevo’s beauty (and its potential for beauty) contrasted with its history that makes it such a tragic landscape. The saddest moment I experienced today was walking around the historic downtown. Throughout Sarajevo, sniper victims (who were many) are memorialized by a red splotch of paint where they were slain. I saw a few on the way in, but they didn’t especially move me. Later in the day I found one that did. Walking around the corner of one of the Christian churches downtown, I saw one of the unmistakable circles of paint next to some young teenagers loitering around. What struck me were the obvious circumstances of this death; the circle was located just behind a pillar which should have provided some cover from most of the surrounding area. I scanned the area for where the shot could have come from and quickly realized there was only one possibility; from an apartment building 400 meters away, someone had put a bullet through what little this person could not hide behind the pillar, and that was enough.

After playing this anonymous victim’s last moments through my head we walked a block to an internet café. Inside all the computers were full of teenagers playing videogames. Almost all were of the First-Person-Shooter variety and the first one I saw was looking down a sniper scope at one of his opponents. I’ll say for the record that I don’t buy into the criticisms of violent video games and their effects on kids. But still, something about the juxtaposition of that reality and that fiction made me very uncomfortable.

Out of Eden...

Travel adventures, like the rest of life, are rollercoaster rides of emotion. After three great days in Dubrovnik, I guess we should have seen the inevitable descent coming. We woke up early to catch the 8:00 bus to Sarajevo (actually, we woke up to catch a bus to catch our bus). The day started out with some minor annoyances; namely an unexplained bubbly rash on the back of my hands and the worst allergies I’ve had in years. Checking out at 6:30 AM was complicated by the fact that we were staying in a room belonging to a pizzeria and we could only exit through their doors, which we had to lock on the way out. We exited, locked the outer door of the pizzeria, and I went through a mental checklist of possible forgotten items, lest we orphan them when I dropped the key in the mail slot. When I was positive everything was go, I released the keychain into the slot and pulled back my left hand to reveal bare skin usually covered by a, now conspicuously absent, platinum wedding ring…

Any description I might attempt could do no justice to how I felt. If you really require a visual portrayal of my despair I suggest this: Pour a bottle of ink on a blank page, place a small dying small animal in the ink and let it writhe around. Then repeat for five pages. At least that’s what it’s going to look like in my autobiography. Maybe the PETA boycott will make headlines and boost sales…

We really didn’t know what to do. I knew it hadn’t fallen into the mail slot and I was pretty sure it wasn’t in the room…”How sure are you?” Mmmm…well, mostly sure. Our immediate solution was to write a note explaining the loss, include our address, and attach 20 Kuna for postage. As we walked to the bus stop (the bus to catch our bus) I began to feel even worse about the situation. When we reached the bus stop I realized that I didn’t even know the name of the place we had stayed at. After a couple minutes of nervous nauseous indecision, I decided to run back to the pizza place to see if anyone might have come in early. After a few minutes of sitting outside the pizza place, I decided that we were just going to have to miss the bus. Further obliterating our budget with another night in Dubrovnik and messing up my interview schedule were just going to have to be the price of my idiocy. I slowly slogged my way out of the old city and back up the hill to the bus stop where Erica was at. She had been really quite and calm about the whole thing so far, but I was playing it safe and avoiding eye contact all the same.

It turns out that my wife, having a cooler head and better sense than I, went through all my luggage while I was gone and found the ring in the toe of one of my shoes. No, I haven’t the slightest idea how it got there, and I’m not going to try to explain it. Kind of like the time I ended up in Mississippi while driving to Florida, I’m going to have to add this to the list of my indefensibly stupid misadventures. Nonetheless, I want my 20 Kuna back.

Changes to the Comments section...

I have removed the membership requirement for commenting, so it should be easier for all of you to leave comments now. If we get inundated with spam I'll have to switch it back.

We are in Sarajevo now but will not be able to post something until tomorrow. It's going to be a good one, so tune in.

Technical difficulties...

Posting photos is not working too well right now. I may emial them to Barrett and see if he has better luck posting state-side.

Some Notes on Croatia and Dubrovnik

On the long bus ride to Dubrovnik I had time to make a couple of observation about the current state of Croatia. For one, I am impressed with the infrastructural development going on here. Once again, I am inclined from my experience to compare this case with that of Ukraine. Both in Croatia and last summer in Ukraine I have seen a lot of construction going on. In Ukraine the construction is only relevant to the wealthiest consumers and often at the expense of the lower economic strata; public parks have been razed to put up luxury apartments. I also received the impression that all the building was slow, inefficient, and hopelessly corrupt, true to its communist lineage. In Croatia however, the majority of the construction I have seen has been in middle class locations. There is also a higher attention to public infrastructure; the Zagreb neighborhood in which we were staying was receiving new sidewalks while we were there. They were installed with shocking speed. Crews were working from 6 AM until 7 or 8 at night and making progress that would put most American crews to shame.

Another important area of progress is obvious in Croatia’s law enforcement. Unlike the scowling ex-Red Army extortionist that typifies the Ukrainian law enforcement official, Croatian police are generally young, smiling, professionally dressed, and progressively courteous. Unlike their Ukrainian counterparts, you don’t have to avoid making eye contact with them. In Ukraine, if I was the victim of some crime, I would never consider going to the local police station – first stop, American Embassy. But here the rule of law, though not developed to Western standards, seems trustworthy. In my interview the other day I learned that Croatia has no division of its courts and there are currently 2.21 million unresolved cases, so there is certainly room for improvement. At least there is a place to start, further east, in places like Ukraine, they have much more dire need than judicial reform.

Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik is a medieval castle version of Venice. Thought Dubrovnik cannot compete with Venice on the playing field of culture, it is founded on some aesthetic qualities which Venice lacks. A 2,000 ft mountain curls dramatically down to the city’s back gate, while the city wall itself is built around a steep hill that slumps into the Adriatic. The effect this has, aside from stair climbing exhaustion, is a series of vistas that Venice is poorly geographically endowed to match. Unlike Venice, Dubrovnik is monotone; the entire city remains true to its bleached stone block foundation. This would look bland if it were not encased by the greens of surrounding mountains and the deep clear blues of the Adriatic.

Dubrovnik was once a very powerful force in history. It was known worldwide as the gateway port to the East, where goods could be shipped over land to Constantinople. Dubrovnik, unlike the rest of the Dalmatian Coast, never succumbed to the Venetian expansion. Through shrewd diplomacy, it also (and improbably) held both the Hungarians and Ottomans at bay. Staunchly Catholic, Dubrovnik held key alliances with Spain which sustained it in many dark hours of history.

Given Dubrovnik’s history of independence and physical isolation from the rest of Croatia, I was surprised at the level of Croat nationalism on display; Croat flags are on most buildings, t-shirts, hats, cars, etc.,. However, Dubrovnik has been the victim of fairly recent trauma which is responsible for these visible sentiments. In the 1990’s conflict, Dubrovnik was shelled by Serbian and Montenegrin artillery and the city was blockaded for a number of months. As a result, roughly 100 residents lost their lives. Certain portions of the city have not been reconstructed, I assume intentionally, as a living reminder of Serbian aggression. In light of these facts, I think the level of Croatian nationalism on display is really just an expression of anti-Serb and Montenegrin sentiment, but they don’t really make a flag for that.

My best description of Dubrovnik today is a Greek version of Venice. I say Greek because that was the ethnicity of the original settlers. Despite the recent the superficial Croat nationalism, Greek faces and mannerisms shine through. It has been a nice place to relax and regroup before heading into Bosnia.