A Ston~ishing Oysters in Bay of Mali Ston

A Ston~ishing Oysters in Bay of Mali Ston

We drive for an hour and stop just near Ston at a small village on an Adriatic bay that is dedicated to harvesting oysters. On account of its clean hydrological waters, this bay was declared a Special Natural Reserve and hosts the largest oyster cultivation farms in the Adriatic. Oyster farming here dates back to the Roman Empire and now there are approximately 50 licensed oyster farms in this area. Bobbing on the water we see hundreds if not thousands of black buoys each of which we learn has strings hanging to them with dangling oysters attached. 



We are met by one of two brothers who together manage an oyster and mussel farm that has been in their family for three generations.  One brother takes us by boat out to where the other brother is working on a floating platform scrubbing mussels. 




It is an amazing and rather unbelievable site.  After 2-3 years of oysters maturing on the strings from the size of a pinprick to about 2 inches width, each oyster must be glued by hand to another oyster onto the string. It takes 4 years to produce an edible oyster. 

Oysters size of rice 

  

3 year old oysters

If the oysters are not glued together in pairs across the strings they will fall off the string onto the sea floor and be eaten by the fish. In addition to this gluing procedure there are also huge nets surrounding the rows of oyster beds to keep the fish out of these areas so that the oysters are not eaten.  I am reminded of nets put over cherry trees to keep the crows from the eating the crop.

We arrive at a small, idyllic island that brothers own that has a stone barbecue and quaint picnic table in the shade. The setting is unbelievably magical and I can’t imagine a more peaceful and heavenly place to eat oysters.  

The brother pulling a string of dangling oysters from the Adriatic Sea, shucks these extremely large oysters easily, puts some lemon on them and demonstrates how to wash down the slippery goodness. He hands us each an oyster to taste ~ has heaven arrived?

 He sends us to the picnic table and serves us home made grappa first, followed by home made red wine, home made bread, and home made olive oil made by his father. Each of us is presented with a plate of 6 oysters.  

Can you imagine anything more incredible?  The brother tells us that they supply 80-100,000 oysters a year to a restaurant in Dubrovnik and proudly tells us that in 1996 they got the gold medal for oysters.  He also tells us that his father says it is necessary for healthy eating to have 3 oysters a day because of their aphrodisiac and medicinal features.  John is already asking for 2 or maybe 3 more to his original 6. Do you think you can overdose on oysters?

I have not eaten many oysters in my life but I find that I cannot let them slither down as suggested by Seth and John but must bite these fresh creatures and kill them before I can swallow them.  I think they are tastier when I chew them at least once and my teeth cut them easily.  

A Ston~ ishing Mussels

However, our meal is not finished. Next we are served an enormous frying pan of mussels.  I have watched him cook these mussels in fresh water (no sea water he says) and he tells me the importance of this recipe that has been passed down for generations. First you boil the mussels for 5 minutes and while you are doing that in another pan you are frying onions and garlic in home made olive oil (the very expensive kind or they won’t be as good he says). Then you add the mussels, white wine and parsley and voila! 

I cannot tell you how many mussels we ate.. but we still couldn’t quite finish them all. 

Absolutely delicious and I wonder if we can replicate this on Vashon by our waterfront using our barbecue?  Perhaps we need to build a bigger barbecue and put in an outhouse! I think it could work….

We hate to leave this magical place but need to be on time for the public ferry from Drevnik ferry port to cross the channel to reach Hvar Island. Once on the island we have a scenic 2-hour drive to Stari Grad town, the oldest town in Croatia, a former Greek colony, once the capital of Hvar and a UNESCO protected site.

Three more oysters 

Dubrovnik ~ Libertas

Dubrovnik ~ Libertas

View from Wall of Old Town Dubrovnik 

We leave Vienna by plane for Croatia, a country of 4.4 million mostly Catholic people, where we will meet our son Seth and his girlfriend Laura who are arriving from Chicago. We are excited to share this trip with them.  Arriving in Dubrovnik and shortly at the Bellevue Hotel I am completely awestruck by the view from our room. 

View from our Balcony 

This view is beyond my expectation with numerous islands, green-blue water, kyak groups and tour boats coming into Dubrovnik.  The Dalmatian coastline has 1082 islands, with only Norway having more islands.  However, John immediately is on a mission to find a sim card for his I-pad so he can access maps more easily. Unfortunately, we discover that in Croatia everything closes down on Saturday at noon until Monday morning. We stop to change our money into kunas (1 kuna = 15 cents) as Euros are mostly not accepted here.  Later back at our hotel we meet up with Seth and Laura and have drinks on our adjoining balconies enjoying the views and sunset. Afterwards we eat at a Bosnian restaurant named Taj Mahal.  The food is delicious and distinctly not Indian.  We wonder why the restaurant has this Indian name in Croatia?

A Very Brief and Mostly Accurate History of the Slavic States

This relatively small area encompassing the former Yugoslavia has a long and contentious history.  In this multi-ethnic region there are Serbs (who are largely orthodox Christians), Croats (who are largely Catholic ) and Bosniaks (who are largely Muslim).  These cultural and religious differences have led to an explosive history.  World War I erupted after a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Ferdinand I (of the Hapsburg empire) in Sarajevo.  At the end of World War I, the southern Slavic states formed a monarchist confederation of sorts called Yugoslavia. During World War II, much of the area was either controlled directly by Hitler’s Germany (ie Serbia) or under control of sympathetic puppet governments (ie Croatia) although a small area was controlled by Italy’s Mussolini .  Following World War II, as much of eastern Europe became direct puppets of the USSR, these ethnically and religiously diverse states (Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia and  Bosnia-Herzogovina) strengthened their alliance and Yugoslavia was held together by a strongman, Tito, who maintained a great deal of independence from the USSR and effectively played off Russia vs. the US.  Life was pretty good until he died in 1980 and then things began falling apart with the various regions wanting independence from the central Yugoslavian government.    Some regions seceded peacefully (ie Slovenia) while others, such as Croatia, had prolonged bloody wars of liberation against the Yugoslav army which was largely composed of Serbians.  The wars primarily affected Croatia and Bosnia-Herzogovina.  The Serbs committed war crimes including ethnic cleansing in some areas against the Croats and Bosniaks and several Serbs including Slobodan Milošević of Serbia, Radovan Karadžić of Bosian-Herzogovina were charged with was crimes.   

Battle History of Old Town or Game of Thrones

The next morning we enjoy breakfast on the deck gazing at the rugged coastline scenery. 

We meet Ivanna our lovely tour guide who is originally from Bosnia. She tells us how the city-state of Dubrovnik (town of 40,000 people now) has fought for or bought its freedom and independence since the Middle Ages from Venice, Hungry, the Ottomans and the Vatican.  The notion of liberates was still being fought as recently as 1991 when Yugoslavia was reshuffling itself eventually into what are now 6-7 independent countries (Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia  and Kosovo, which is disputed).   Ivanna tells us that the Serb-dominated Yugoslav People’s Army, which was largely Serbian, surprisingly and brutally attacked and bombed Dubrovnik residents in 1991.  While the Croatian Army was outnumbered and less organized the citizens did not flee and together with the army fought for 8 months for their freedom. Thus the word liberates is found everywhere. Unfortunately 2/3 of the historic buildings in Old Town were damaged. Due to international support this area has been renovated with speed and it would be hard to tell there had been destruction here except for some places where they have left reminders of bullet holes on the walls.  Only the bright, new orange roof tiles everywhere gives away its newness.  Clearly Dubovnik seems back to normal but the people are forever changed. Interesting that the Game of Thrones is partly filmed in this place which has had a long history of battles.

Strolling Old Town

We enter Pile Gate and stroll through the Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, filled of course with hordes of tourists. As many as 7 tour boats can dock here at a time releasing 10,000 tourists in Old Town at one time.  Perhaps if tourists were asked to dress as merchants, sailors and travelers of 16^th century we could reconstruct what this looked like when it was a busy maritime power with the 3^rd largest navy in the Mediterranean and had an active ship building and salt trading business.  

Dubovnik is a paradise town  (referred to as the Pearl of the Adriatica) and despite the many tourists still seems quite charming with its traffic-free and wide promenade called Stradun Stroll in the center of town and cobbled marble streets and baroque buildings.  It feels a bit like a large shopping mall except that all the shops have the same lovely uniform architectural style which hides all the trinkets sold inside the stores leaving an uncluttered, peaceful feeling. 

I wish our Queen Anne community in Seattle had done something similar when it developed upper Queen Anne which is now a mish mash of uninteresting architecture and narrow streets too busy with cars. 

All around the Old Town is an amazing City Wall a mile long built in the 15^th century and added to for four centuries afterwards.  We visit some of the museums, Rector’s Palace outside only and the Franciscan Monastery and pharmacy which is still active today. 

Rectory 

We see a beautiful church (whose patron saint is Armenian), 

a Serbian Orthodox church and several museums but mostly elect to wander through the narrow back streets which are delightful and peaceful. 

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Franciscan Monastery

We are shown the door of the first orphanage which was run by Franciscan nuns.  

Window behind Ivanna where babies are left 

Apparently the servants of the nobles at times became pregnant and their babies were dropped off here and later adopted by the same family as part of the noble’s family.  

We discover that the top floor of these 4 story homes contain the bathroom and kitchen because it provided more light and views.  We thoroughly enjoy this relaxed tour.  Surprisingly our guide tells us for the first but not last time that in many ways the former Yugoslavia under Tito was a better place to live and that the war has brought about corruption, smaller pensions and much unemployment.

Cable Car up Mt Srd 

After we leave our tour guide we take the cable car to the top of Mt Srd where there is a Napoleonic fortress. The view of the city and ocean from here is breathtaking with all the new orange rooftops reminding us of the fairly recent war. 

Afterwards we have lunch in one of the side streets below the Old Wall.

 

Back at the hotel I spend the afternoon swimming and on the beach.  John naps, swims and reads while Seth and Laura jump from a huge rock like darts into the Adriatic. Thankfully they re-emerge.

Sunset Strolling the Wall

Around 6:30 pm we stroll the mile and a half city wall, which encloses the Old City.  From this height we can look down at a sea of orange rooftops on one side and the sea on the other side. 

Laura and I snap hundreds of pictures thinking each one is will be better than the last one. I am surprised there are not many tourists and at this time of day with the sun setting the views are breathtaking. 

We peak into courtyards of hanging laundry and many cats but don’t see children.  Church bells ring every 15 minutes. I wonder if I would like to live here but learn that most of the locals have left Old Town and live outside the city.

 

Drinks on the Rocks 

Drinks on the Rocks 

Seth suggests we have pre-dinner drinks are at Buza (meaning hole in the wall).  We do actually enter a hole in the Wall to find one of the most incredible bars I have seen. It is perched on a cliff side over the sea. As the sun sets we watch cruise ships leave town as most do by 6 pm and arriving kayakers. Seth tells me that our guide book says that this is where Bill Gates has drinks when he comes to Dubrovnik. I don’t see him here but we do enjoy our drinks “on the rocks”.

Dinner afterwards is at Domino’s ~ this place does not serve pizza but was recommended to me by a Norwegian friend who loved the Peka, a national Croatian dish that he had here.  

Unfortunately, they are not making peka this night. But since it is a steak house we order lamb and steak preceded by escargots. Laura and I thought we were sharing one entre but instead were served the Domino’s meat special that included 8 pieces of steak ~ clearly enough meat for our whole table and more. Not sure how we made that mistake. We think about taking the left over steaks for the cats we have seen earlier. Or, what about the poor people?  We both don’t like to have leftovers.