Dubrovnik

Last night at dinner as we peppered, ok, bombarded, our guides with questions about the war, one of them got quite emotional and excused herself from the table. Today I had some small sense of what she was feeling as we toured Dubrovnik as it was in its glory and saw so much that the city has preserved "Lest we Forget" to use their phrase.

Our hotel is right on the water with entry into the Adriatic and a saltwater pool with an amazing view. The city is about a 10 minute walk so that means we always have a magnificent view of the walls. After breakfast on the terrace over looking the sea as we watched hotel staff empty, clean and refill the pool (so much for any hope the water would warm up!) while eating, we met our guide. She is actually a retired guide who teaches the new guides but also does VIP tours. She knows our hiking guide from many years ago so he convinces her to come give tours for the six US company tours he guides each year. As we walked into town, she explained about the Dubrovnik Republic in the middle of the empires we learned about earlier in the week and how they were both diplomatically skilled and wealthy enough and just plain lucky to survive in history. They also were remarkable liberal in their thinking for the time - especially when one realizes they were surrounded by the Ottomans, Austrian-Hungarians, and medieval Venetians - not societies known for liberal thought. The walled city was impregnable for the life of the republic, although the French built a fort overlooking the city when Napoleon's army came to rule here. She told us how the city established quarantine areas to prevent ships from bringing in diseases and how the Republic was ruled by a Senate which elected leaders for one year at a time-early term limits. A sign over one government building warns state rulers to leave the personal interests behind and protect the public. We all had laughs at that phrase, picking on Croatian, American and Australian politicians who could benefit from such a message.

We walked through the main street which has one end narrower than the other creating an optical illusion to make it feel longer than it is; saw the Croatian equivalent of the Spanish steps and visited a Benedictian monestary which contains one of Europe's oldest pharmacies. The monastery also houses relics from many saints each tiny fragment preserved in a gold and silver, foot or arm - an early rather useless prosthetic device. The monastery also had many old books from those printed on early Gutenberg presses to handwritten ones with color and decorations to rival those well known in northern Europe.

Our guide also spoke to us of the siege of Dubrovnik in the fall of 1991/winter of 1992. She lived outside of town when the hostilities started and moved in with older relatives behind the walls. She told us now it started with all communication being cut off as television and radio towers were taken down by the Serbs and Montenegrans. The citizens were not able to get information, electricity or water for periods of time during the siege which lasted for 9 months. Food came in by flotilla protected by a couple dozen small war boats - all that the Croatian army had to try to save the citizens of such an old and beautiful city. Each entrance into the town has a big sign with a map that showed all the houses which were hit and the different levels of damage. Now you cannot tell the city was subject to a brutal attack and such horrible deprivation - the only real sign visible on the red roofs which make up all the roofs in the city. The roofs are made of concrete and clay and are made to last 300 years but as you look at the buildings you can tell that many of the houses have much newer roofs. Those are the houses who had roof damage from the shelling and while the bright red is beautiful, it also serves as visible reminder of the war.

Near one of the gates is a small museum-really one room in a building with archives that houses a memorial to honor all the Dubrovnik Defenders as they are called. The room has flags and photographs. Some look like seasoned soldiers but some look like the teenage boys they were.

When we finished the tour, I headed up to the cable car, largely because there was a cruise ship in the harbor and too many people being ferried ashore. I figured, correctly, that they would not have time to climb the mountain. The scenery is brilliant, you can see all the walls round the city and miles of surrounding water and islands.

You also have a powerful reminder of the war - the other side of the cable car docking station looks out on the battlefield from the siege. You can see the destruction of the trees in the land held by the Serbs. The Defenders took over the old French fort of Napoleon. The fort was highly damaged by the war and you can tell that tourist dollars have not yet been used for repairs as you can easily imagine the fort and the cold wet walls as part of a battle site. The fort now houses a war museum that explains what happened in detail. Parts of the museum dealing with the shock of the Croatians that Dubrovnik could be attached reminded me of 9-11 but I was faced with the realization that my city was attacked for one day, their city was attacked for more than a year. We also had world support in the aftermath, the world was bigger on words than actions for Dubrovnik. 20 years later they are still rebuilding but we are still rebuilding a decade on and our damage was much more isolated. Altogether a very though provoking tour.

As I returned to town enough of the cruise ship inhabitants had left the town to give me a shot to brave the wall walk. This is not for the faint hearted as once you start the climb, you can only walk one way and there are very few places to get down off the wall. The views are spectacular and you realize why Dubrovik was indestructible until the war machine of the 20th century.

Tomorrow, three of us are headed to Bosnia, another country which suffered under the Homeland Wars.