Beside the Seaside

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In Which I Don't Jump Off A Very Tall Bridge

August 25, 2008 by Mike

PrimoŠten

I mentioned the war yesterday, didn't I? About how the traces are all too visible today. Here's what a Serb house looks like 15 years after it was abandoned. I have no idea how long things will stay like this. Maybe the in-your-face visibility of it will put a brake on further conflict. You may say I'm a dreamer:

In Nin, the remains of a Roman house have been uncovered. The floor-plan and a colourful mosaic are clearly visible. It's on a suburban street, sitting on a suburban plot just where another suburban house should be. There are suburban houses to the left and right, and across the street the neighbours were pottering in the garden. It looks like someone's done the groundwork, cleared the earth and is in the process of building a new home.. but it's 2000 years old.

There *is* much here that has nothing to do with the war.

(But there was also the first war graffiti I've seen too:)

There *is* much here that has nothing to do with the war. But not all of it is pretty:

She could have resented my stopping the bike to take her picture. Instead, we ended up getting on like a house on fire, although we're very different people: "Arsenal are my team. I *love* them" are words that will never cross *my* lips. This is on Vir, a small island so close to the mainland that I rode across a tiny bridge and included it besidetheseaside. I'm glad I did - to meet this woman and to see what happens to the rubbish collected in the capital, Zagreb, which is transported under contract to this small, remote island 100s of miles away.

No doubt, the contract specifies that the rubbish is buried in landfill, or burned in incinerators.

She spoke no English and very little German. But the Croatian word for "administration" is (approximately) 'administratsia' and we worked out, with no language in common, that the people who run Vir are responsible for this mountain of rubbish defiling the tip of the island. Another word she recognised: Napoli. Because I've seen this before.

Past Zadar town, where the remains of the Roman forum are still being used for commerce -- linens and lace draped across the ancient stones are on display and on sale for the tourists.

Past garish Biograd ("lots of good looking women there").

Past little Drage, which looked like the kinda place a body could stop and call home: idyllic little town on a forested seashore. And only a few minutes from Biograd, where all those good-looking women are.

Past a fancypants bridge at the mouth of the river Krka.. then back again because I thought I should take a picture:

[PICTURE ON THE WAY]

And I'm glad I did. Look again at the last picture: someone's just bungee-jumped off the middle. Loon! The young people who run the jump were gathered beside the bridge waiting for their next victi-- I mean customer. I was innocently asking them about what to look out for on the road south when one of them asked, ever so casually, if I'd ever tried bungee-jumping?

Nice try, mate. "I've got a bad back," I smiled, looking pained. Pained because I was *really* disappointed that I couldn't throw myself off the side of a bridge. And pay someone for the privilege. Who do they take me for.. a New Zealander?

I was forgiven. So much that they let me accompany the next victi-- I mean customer out onto the bridge. Her friends were forced to watch from the riverbank, but I was the Official Temporary Photographer of the Official Photographer. So here's a picture of Boris taking a picture of the victi-- I mean customer:

just before she leapt to her doom:

And that's not all: *here*'s a picture of Boris leading his Brass Band just a few hours later in the main square of PrimoŠten, a well-preserved mediaeval town nestling on an island in a bay of the Adriatic coast just below Šibenik:

Boris, a music teacher as well as photographer and environmentalist who also finds the time to speak better English than I do, had invited me to see the show with the promise of a version of Oye Como Va to boot. I almost danced. That's to say, the music moved me.. but you could hardly call the movement 'dancing'. A good night.

Beside the Seaside

In Which I Don't Jump Off A Very Tall Bridge

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