Adriatic Eyes

by Joshua Studebaker (United States of America)

Making a local connection Croatia

The sky was empty, as was the bay but for a few boats – the Peljeŝac Channel, with morning-dark mountains on the far shore. Dawn approached. The bells rang out from the limestone cathedral of Sveti Marka, the heart within the red-roofed warren of Korĉula Old Town below. I left my coffee at the window of our 'sobe'. I walked down by the harbor, where our taxi-boat would later be waiting, and I walked by the Marco Polo Museum, where yesterday a girl, with eyes like the Adriatic, had helped us. I entered the Old Town under the Veliki Revelin Tower. The lost-in-time medieval streets beckoned my idle-heavy strolls. I kept my focus on the Zakerjan promenade, atop the eastern city walls. Shaded cafés ran its line. A few sleepy-eyed workers scraped chairs into place; a few others swept the cobblestones clean. I sat down. I was at peace, like the old cannons down from me, on the Kula Svih Svetih, overlooking the sea. The morning light, from the offing, hunted down the cool blues on the waters. A boat was tied. There were rose-red flowers on the wall. A lady came up to me. “Good morning. The kitchen isn’t open yet. But I can bring you a coffee.” I said that would be nice. But she should bring two. Behind her, upon a morning stroll, was the girl from the museum. She caught my smile. I caught hers. “You bought a map yesterday, an old-timey one.” “I like maps. I like how they help me see things.” Her name was Lucija. She was studying history and archeology at the university in Zadar. She insisted that I’d visit that town; I’d be making my way back up the Dalmatian coast. I insisted on Korĉula now. “Korĉula was once a Greek colony,” she said. “They named it after the ‘black’ pines here, like the ones that are shading us now, though that part of the name has actually been dropped.” She meandered through stories of long ago, the arrival of the Slavs, the Venetian Golden Age, Marco Polo, if he was really born here. “The 1571 battle against the Ottomans - the locals were heroes. They banded together; they repelled the plunderers.” I asked her about the churches and the towers and the squares. She meandered again, this time within the styles of the Venetian Renaissance. “And the streets behind us, they branch from the center like veins of a leaf. In the summer, the sun can be harsh. In the winter, the winds – the 'Bura' – can be cold. But in those streets, you are sheltered.” She brought up Lumbarda, a village down the shoreline – I was heading there later – I had to ask more. “You must go to the Winery Grk. I worked there when I was younger, in the harvests. The winery, maybe it’s selfish taking the Grk name.” “Why?” “Grk is renowned; it’s also Lumbarda’s indigenous variety. It’s selfish, because there’re other wineries there. Grk means bitter in Croatian, but Grk, the name of the grape, might be of Greek origin, really. They don’t know. Folk etymologies can mess things up. Take the name Lumbarda – Does it have any connection to Lombardy? Probably, but they can’t say for sure.” It was pleasant; we talked on, yet the opening hours of the museum drew near. She said goodbye. ************ Upon midday we packed into the small taxi-boat. The sun was stark, and the sea was see-through. We skimmed past the islets and the pine tree shores. From Lumbarda we climbed a long stairway until it fell back down and hit a road lined by an old wall of stone. No big sign lured us to our destination; no tourists stood in our way. It was only us and the sun-washed vineyards. In the shade at the Winery Grk we sipped on its wine, not all was Grk. It was a relaxing break, this island-hopping. I thought about the cultural confluence of the Illyrians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Venetians, the South Slavs, all in this one place. The green-blue sea shimmered where it could be seen. I thought about the girl with the Adriatic eyes.