The Ham Nomads

17 Apr 2015. <HR> Fažar, & Veli Brijun, & Porec, Istria —

Today, Brijuni — or, more specifically, Veli Brijun. The day was a little damp at times, but still good for the trip out to the island!

But first, more importantly, we were able to get into contact with the boys and their families back in Oz, and Cathy and David Jones, by phone before we left the campsite. Glad to know they're all still there!

We got to the town of Fažar in plenty of time to catch the boat at 11.30. The trip across takes only about 10-15 minutes, and you land near a couple of hotels that apparently are only open in July and August! A bit of a waste!

We were met by our guide — did we mention that this was a guided tour — and were loaded onto a little white tourist train (they run about four of them) for a one-hour ride around the island. This was the island where Tito used to get away to, and where he held numerous meetings with various heads of state, and basically where he was instrumental in setting up the Organisation of Non-Aligned Countries. Tito was an authoritarian ruler, but there is still a lot of respect for him here. It was only after his death at the age of 88 that the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia began to break up — and not gently! We've all heard of the wars in this area, mainly because the Serbian core of Yugoslavia could not (or would not) understand that the other ethnic groups wanted their own independence.

The island tour was interesting, with a couple of little surprises. We pulled up at one point at a little bar in the middle of 'Safari', a hodge-podge collection of animals from this area and around the world. One of them was a local breed of goat, with a long beard and huge horns. We were a little alarmed as we watched him worm his way through the somewhat inadequate fence, but it was when we figured that he was just coming over to the bar for his regular treat of apples that we realised it was a put-up job!

There are still villas there, restricted to members of the Croatian government and their guests, and a military presence to keep them secure, so the whole island is not yest available to tourists — but this may change with time. As it is, until the death of Tito in 1980, the whole island was a no-go area!

After we left the train, we went to look at a little church on the island, now a museum, set up by the Knights Templar in the 13th century. In it are replicas of frescoes and carvings from around the region — the originals are either still in place or are in museums in Zagreb. There is a copy of the Baška Tablet, the largest stone known with a glagolitic inscription. The glagolitic alphabet was used in Croatia for the time it was developed by the brothers St Cyril and Methodius around 1100 years ago right up to the beginning of the 20th century. It is also in part an ancestor of the current Cyrillic alphabet used by Slavic peoples (although this later development also draws on the Roman and the Hebrew). We explored this museum, then had a lunch break.

replica Baška Tablet

replica "Dance of Death" fresco

Following lunch, we walked round through the old stone quarry that has provided the materials for most of the buildings here. In there is a memorial to Dr Robert Koch, who was invited here in 1900-01 to work on ridding the island of malaria. He recognised the vector, the Anopheles mosquito, and by controlling that rid the island of the disease (after which it became a holiday resort for the rich and famous). Dr Koch was later awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on tuberculosis.

We were then let loose in a museum set up to honour Tito and his presence here.

There used to be a zoo here, where all the animals presented to Tito were once housed — but as they have slowly died off, they have been stuffed and put on display in this museum. A sadder display you couldn't imagine, unless you consider the last elephant left on the island, whose partner died at least ten years ago, and so she lifes on in solitude in a small pen! The upstairs part of the museum is a photographic display featuring Tito on Brijun — it gives another side to what we heard of Tito back in Oz.

Then we were taken up to the 'Mediterranean Garden', which is anything but! There were peonies in full bloom, lilacs, banksias, and magnolias — and there was a rather pretty violet-coloured local orchid. Anyway, we enjoyed the wander around. There is one plant on the island, not far from the Mediterranean Garden, which is rather renowned — an olive tree, over 1700 years old, that still produces a copious number of olives each year.

Also nearby is an Ethnographic Museum, and attached to this building is an example of the stone shepherds' huts that are somewhat of a trademark But the one thing we went over to the island to see, we weren't taken across to — there is a large Roman villa that has been excavated slowly over the past decades. But we only got to see this from a distance. We found out later that we could have left the tour any time after the train, so long as we got back on a boat off the island by 5.30pm. So, if anyone goes to Veli Brijun and wants to see the Roman villa, be advised to do it under your own steam!

We left the island and drove northwards, finding a good stopping of the Istrian region. point by the road just outside Poreč — we were regaled all night with bird song, and the blossoms nearby were delightful. A little rain overnight was pattering on our rooftop.

Distance driven — today, 50 miles ( 81 km ); to date, 18,163 miles ( 29,231 km )