Croatia

 

After leaving Hungary, we continued sailing down the Danube to Croatia. We docked in Vulkovar, which is a typical Croatian town, and were treated to a vocal concert of classical Christian music at St. Mary’s Church. These photos show the church, the vocalist, and a Vulkovar street.

From there, the excursion bus took us to the city of Osuek, where we took a walking tour of an old citadel. It has not been used for military purposes for centuries, however, and is not what you expect a fortress to be. It was never on a hill, and most of the wall is gone. In fact, it was converted into a neighborhood many years ago (in the 1800s?). The photo at the top of this post shows part of the original fortress, and the two below show Holy Trinity Square, in the center of the citadel, and parts of the remaining wall.

Croatia was occupied many times, but its buildings didn’t suffer much until it declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Although it won that fight four years later, its building suffered significant damage. Most of them have been restored, but there are still evidences of that war. The next two photos show bullet holes in the side of a building and a train station that was destroyed.

The last stop on our bus excursion was for cakes and drinks in a local family home, after which we were shown around a small petting zoo that the family keeps as a hobby and to show school children. Apparently the zoning laws allow farm animals within city limits but limit the number of each kind (e.g., five pigs, ten goats, etc.). The next picture shows the front of the home we visited. The entrance is on the side because, at the time the house was built, you paid taxes for every opening onto the street. Although people wanted windows for light, having a door there wasn’t as important.

Later that day, we listened to a Tamburica Band on board ship. A tamburica is a stringed instrument that comes in several sizes with different string counts, resulting in a variety of complementary sounds, and each of the instruments in the photo below is considered a tamburica. Even the large one that looks like a bass was plucked, not bowed.

Next week’s blog post will follow us to Serbia.