Old-town alleys meander through romantic Croatia

Narrow “streets” lined with honey-coloured stone buildings, colourful shutters, laundry draped overhead, potted flowers, iron coach lanterns – meandering along the romantic old-town alleys of towns and cities across Europe never gets old, and Croatia’s are particularly charming.

Each Croatian city, town and village we visited had old-town alleys – that is, narrow passages running amongst the crowded buildings of the old core of the settlement. Some had been built by Romans, others during medieval times and modified even into modern times by the multitudes of invaders that have left their marks on Croatia: Venetians, Ottomans, Austrians, Hungarians, French, Serbs and more.

With arms raised, I could touch both sides of some alleys, which, incredibly, were official streets with names. The cobblestones could be rough or worn dangerously smooth. They led higgledy-piggledy under arches, into hidden courtyards, up staircases with no railings, and even onto city walls.

While the old-town alleys had many common factors, they were all a little different as well. Here’s what we discovered while Bill and I explored with our daughter Rachel and her partner, Zach; my sister Cynthia and her husband, Jim.

Dubrovnik

Old-town Dubrovnik is completely encircled by tall stout stone walls, built in the 13^th century and reinforced in the 15^th to repel Ottoman invaders. Tourists pay 35 euros to walk the walls – expensive, to be sure, but I was happy to support their maintenance.

The city walls themselves are alleys of sorts, as they lead two kilometres around the Old Town’s perimeter, up and down stairs and steep ramps, into towers and past lookouts. The views are dramatic – not only out to the sparkling turquoise waters of the Adriatic Sea dotted with green islands, but also down into hidden gardens, secluded terraces, and old alleys. From above, we spied into people’s everyday lives (the drying laundry and children’s toys left on pocket-sized lawns) as well as layers of history (bright new terra-cotta tiles marked where roofs had been repaired after the 1991-1992 siege of Dubrovnik by Serbian forces). I imagined how the former craftsmen had worked in the narrow ground-floor shops and lived above.

Later, we discovered souvenir sellers in little alcoves along the alleys and pockmarked walls from 1991 bullets. We ate dinners in alleys lined with restaurant terraces, their awnings covering the entire alley width. We danced to a piano-and-bass jazz combo in an alley just outside the apartment we had rented near the Cathedral.

Our landlord, Roberto De Lorenzo, described living through the siege, with no electricity or water for nearly a year. He pointed to the old-fashioned wood stove – installed in the kitchen during a renovation in the late 1700s. (A stone wall in the apartment is from the 1400s.) Behind one of the little stove doors are ashes he left there as a reminder.

“The stove was last used in 1991 for cooking during the siege,” he said.

Dubrovnik is often criticized for being crowded with tourists, but Roberto explained that the city has been a crossroads for visitors for thousands of years. Tourism is nothing new.

“Tourism is not ruining things,” he said. “We wouldn’t be here without you. Walls and monuments are well kept due to income from tickets. What preserves the past is your interest in them.”

At the powerful War Photo Museum in an alley, we saw photos of the siege – fires and smoke from the bombs dropped on Dubrovnik. Incredibly, the old walls helped protect citizens in 1991-1992, well within my lifetime. The walls are not archaic, not a leftover from centuries ago. Sadly, they still serve their function.

Sipan

The village of Sudurad on the small island of Sipan, just a short ferry ride from Dubrovnik, has just a few old-town alleys – delightfully rural compared with their city cousins.  

In one alley we traversed several times a day, we chatted with Franno, who ran a little wine shop in his family home, where he was born and which was also his grandfather’s home. (He used to work on ships, and even travelled through the Great Lakes in Canada from Montreal to Thunder Bay.)

Franno pointed to the lintel over his door – dated July 1, 1470 – 553 years old. A stone tower further up the alley was built in 1540, likely to protect the island from pirates, and other houses dated from the 1700s. He fought in the Croatian army during the siege. Sipan was not occupied, but the people had to take small fast boats at night to get supplies from Dubrovnik.

The same alley ran past a tiny church with a large covered porch. We peered through the window at a fresco over the altar showing St. George slaying a dragon. The alley turned into a waterfront path leading us to a stone beach and delightfully warm seawater, even at the end of September. Heading away from the village, we passed fig trees, olive groves and vineyards, where we stopped for a wine tasting. Kitty-cats greeted us and walked alongside us for a while. We loved Sipan’s low-key, relaxing vibe.    

Split

The city of Split’s old-town alleys are unique since they were built within an old palace – Diocletian’s Palace. Diocletian, a Roman emperor who built his enormous palace as a waterfront retirement home, was famous for torturing Christians. After the Roman Empire fell, people began moving into the palace, tearing down walls and building others throughout medieval and modern times to create what we explored.

Four enormous gateway-doors led into the labyrinthine palace, where the alleys guided us past shops and restaurants, guard towers, pocket courtyards, fountains and a black granite sphinx that presided over the central square called the Peristil. (Diocletian brought 13 souvenir sphinxes home from Egypt.) We listened to the tight harmonies of an a capella klapa music trio. And we explored the palace cellars, where medieval citizens had dumped centuries worth of garbage that later gave delight to 20^th-century archeologists.

Down a crooked lane, we found the adorably tiny Church of St. Martin, built in the 9^th century into a cavity in the wall above the Gold Door to the palace. The church, overseen by Dominican nuns, was abandoned for a time when the nuns died from the plague, but was rediscovered in 1890 and renovated. A cherubic white-clad nun gathered one euro from each of us to enter. When my brother-in-law Jim jokingly said he had no money left, she seriously tried to give it back to him.

The tiny apartment we rented was within the palace walls. We tried to imagine the challenges that came with living there full-time, amongst those old-town alleys. Although cars surprisingly drive down some of them, they can’t navigate them all and certainly trucks can’t reach every door. We saw plenty of people rattling loaded handcarts over the cobbles. But how does furniture get delivered? How do you get a mattress or a fridge or a couch up those tightly wound staircases? Lugging heavy loads of groceries or cat litter must be tiring.   

Plitvice Lakes National Park

Okay, Plitvice Lakes National Park has wooden boardwalks rather than stone alleys, but they functioned in a similar way, leading us to stunning sights. We followed the rustic boardwalks across, beside, over and even under thousands of waterfalls, from the tiny to the tall.

The limestone cliffs dripped with greenery fed by the running water. A tinge of gold and orange leaves made me a tad homesick for the fall colours of eastern Canada. Crystal clear teal water let us see hundreds of fish.  

Calcium carbonate makes Plitvice the magical place it is. As water flows over the limestone, calcium carbonate precipitates out and then gets deposited on the lake bottoms and sides, eventually forming travertine barriers and dams and waterfalls.

The boardwalks curved and climbed, up and down ramps and stairs, taking us past all the curtains of falling water, as it rushed and foamed and misted and burbled down inclines and over cliff edges. It’s sublime.     

Motovun

A Venetian winged-lion sculpture over a town gate welcomed us to Motovun – one of the most popular hill towns in Croatia’s Istrian Peninsula, far in the northwest close to Italy. Venice ruled this part of Croatia on and off for centuries, and the official languages are Croatian and Italian.

A small guidebook I bought in a shop told me that when the lion holds a closed book, that structure was built during wartime; when the book is open the structure was built during peaceful times.

However, the lion was the only welcome we felt in this ancient town perched atop a steep hill. The sweeping views were lovely, but the pretty old-town alleys and cobblestones led us to grumpy locals and shops that felt like tourist grabs.

I lured Bill into the sad little museum with the promise of engineering-related information. The highlights were learning that race-car driver Mario Andretti was born in Motovun; that a Motovun citizen (Josef Ressel) revolutionized the design of the propeller; and that oak from the surrounding Motovun Forest was used to construct the Rialto Bridge foundations in Venice.

(The Motovun Forest yielded another treasure – delicious truffles. We went truffle hunting… but more on that in a later story.)

Groznjan

Many artists live in the Istrian hill-town village of Groznjan (see top photo) and it shows. The old-town alleys were artfully draped in wisteria and other vines, while potted plants, colourful shutters and doors, and artwork of all types were placed fetchingly. We immediately fell in love with this charming village.

There weren’t any tourist sights per se – it’s just a gorgeous place to wander and get lost. We ducked into shops selling pottery, jewelry, paintings, olive-wood bowls and cutting boards, and olive-oil and truffle products.

A café sign on a leafy terrace read “No coffee. The woman who makes it is pregnant.” When we had parked at the edge of the car-free zone, the parking payment machine was broken; a yellow-vested attendant soon appeared and hand-wrote a ticket to display on our dashboard. We appreciated Groznjan’s relaxed, friendly vibe.

Rovinj

While exploring the Istrian Peninsula, we stayed in picturesque Rovinj, where the old-town alleys are enclosed by 7^th-century walls that follow the rocky shoreline. The old town used to be an island and is now a small peninsula, just like Dubrovnik.

Three of Rovinj’s original seven town gates remain, inviting explorers into the enchanting alleys overseen by more Venetian winged lions. The alleys led us past churches, an old well, statues, a town clock, shops and cafés tucked into tiny rooms, monuments, and fountains. Like other Istrian towns, the hill is topped with a church and a bell tower – separated, as in the Venetian style. At St. Euphemia’s Church we learned her gruesome legend.

At age 15, Euphemia fell victim to one of Diocletian’s anti-Christian purges after she refused to worship a Roman god. She was tortured on a wheel, then thrown to the lions, but they miraculously refused to attack her. She died from her wounds anyhow in 303 AD near today’s Istanbul.

But her story didn’t end there. In 800 AD, her marble tomb came floating into Rovinj’s bay but no one could drag it onto land. Long-dead Euphemia told a small boy to harness his two young calves to haul her tomb from the water and up to the hilltop. It worked! Another miracle!

We circled her tomb, glad we weren’t there on Sept. 16 to see the annual viewing of her remains. Instead, we craned our necks to see the rotating copper statue of her atop the bell tower; if she faces out to sea, it’ll be good weather; if she faces the land, it’s bad.

Pula

The Romans – who ruled the Istrian Peninsula before the Venetians got their hands on it – left a clear mark on Pula. The city’s splendid amphitheatre is one of the best-preserved anywhere. We wandered around the outside, taking photos with the sparkling Adriatic shining through the limestone arches. I tried to imagine the grisly gladiator battles and poor Christians like Euphemia dying in arenas like this. But the day was too gloriously sunny and peaceful for my imagination’s success.

Then we dove into the old-town alleys and found more Roman treasures: a forum (market square), a temple dedicated to Augustus, city gates, and a mosaic-tile floor discovered by Pulians in the aftermath of Second World War bombs.

On a cobbled street near a Roman triumphal arch, we found writer James Joyce sitting at a Café Uliks table marked ‘Reserved.’ He had taught English and worked on Dubliners for just six months in Pula, but the locals seem proud of their connection. ‘Uliks’ is Croation for Ulysses – Joyce’s greatest novel.

Zagreb

Our apartment looked out onto the capital city’s main Jelacic Square and made me feel like we were in a Jason Bourne spy film – where he throws bad guys over the circular-stair railings to land in the shabby hallways below, then ducks out into the streets and dodges trams to get away. Zagreb’s Lower Town felt very east European. Many beautiful buildings and churches still need repair after the 2021 earthquake.

Down a cobbled lane, we found and rode the short 66-metre funicular (best deal ever – just 66 cents!) to the Upper Town and discovered what remains of the medieval quarter. Alleys led us past a 13^th-century watchtower where a noonday cannon is fired every day and towards St. Mark’s Church with its colourful tiled roof illustrating the coats of arms for Croatia and Zagreb. About 200 gas lanterns are still lit every evening by a lamplighter.

An alley also led us past a plaque honouring Nikola Tesla, who in 1892 had urged Zagreb to build a power station using AC (alternating current). The city council rejected his idea (not mentioned on the plaque) so Tesla went to the United States where his ideas met with more success. Tesla was born in what’s now Croatia but was of Serbian heritage, so both countries claim him as theirs.

We later visited the Nikola Tesla Museum of Technology – an homage to geeks and engineering of all sorts: transportation, energy efficiency and renewables, mining, firefighting, agriculture and more. The highlight was a demonstration lab with models to illustrate Tesla’s discoveries: rotating magnets that can power an engine, wireless transmission of electromagnetic vibrations, turbines, and a remote-controlled boat. His work led to the development of AC power, radio, telecommunications and more.

Indeed, a highlight of Zagreb was all the wacky museums: collections dedicated to hangovers (includes drinks plus drunk driving and drunk walking simulators), typhlology (the study of blindness), mushrooms, torture, illusions, cannabis, and hunting.

We found two intriguing museums off the cobbled alleys in the Upper Town. At the Museum of Naïve Art, we discovered surprisingly wonderful paintings and sculpture. “Naïve” means untrained – not amateur or folk art, as we’d expected.

Across the alley was the funny and emotional Museum of Broken Relationships. The collection of objects represents not only love stories gone wrong but also parent-child, sibling, friend, and other failed relationships. A mother folded a thousand tiny paper cranes while recovering from her baby’s death. A bride-to-be donated her wedding gown after the groom was killed in a terrorist attack the week before the wedding. A pizza lover had to give it up after being diagnosed with gluten and casein intolerance. “I wish it weren’t so, but I do much better without you,” the person wrote in a “Dear Pizza” letter.

We descended back to the Lower Town along a narrow street into an arched gateway that resembled a house, but it was the Stone Gate. Inside, passersby knelt at the shrine to the Virgin Mary. Plaques engraved with “Hvala” (Thank you) adorned the walls.

Romantic, mysterious, hidden, delightful – Croatia’s old-town alleys, along with city walls and boardwalks, were the thread that we followed, like a trail of breadcrumbs that helped us uncover charming scenes, stunning vistas, and monuments to this country’s vast and complicated history.

We visited Croatia in September-October 2023. Find out where we are right now by visiting our ‘Where’s Kathryn?’ page.