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Lungomare
"When I was tiny, the county fair came through town. Our parents took us, and got tickets for the rides, even though I was scared to death of all of them. Edward was the one who convinced me to go on the merry-go-round.... Even when I started to get dizzy or thought I might throw up, the circle would come around again and there he was. After a while, I stopped thinking about the horse being magic, or even how terrified I was, and instead, I made a game out of looking for Edward. I think that's what family feels like. A ride that takes you back to the same place over and over." - Jodi Picoult (Lone Wolf)
Thursday morning Iris set out a breakfast spread of Turkish coffee, bread with honey and butter and fig and quince jam, which Alan told me Jozica made with the fruit she grew herself. Of course she did. Besides growing her own tomatoes, potatoes, beans, spinach, lettuce, radishes and green onions, Jozica also had in her garden a plum tree, a cherry tree and a grapevine draped across the back fence.
"People back home don't have time for a vegetable garden like this," I explained, slathering my second slice of bread with homemade jam. "We work too much."
"Most people here don't have time either," Alan clarified. "This is not normal, but Jozica is special." This I had to agree with.
Later in the morning, Iris and Alan packed the kids in the car and took me on an outing to Krk Island (I swear at some point in history someone stole all these people's vowels), where they brought me down into Biserujka Cave. The name is derived from the Croatian word 'biser', which means 'pearl'. Legend has it that pirate smugglers hid a treasure of pearls somewhere in the cave before its official founding over a hundred years ago. Although tourism in the area has developed over the past century, the first settlements date back to prehistory, to the Illyrian people of the Middle Bronze Age, between the 15th and 14th centuries B.C. The mosaic of Greek, Roman, Slavic, Avar, Austrian and other occupations, besides producing the rich cultural heritage of modern Croatia, also inspired the enduring tradition of hunting for buried treasure.
Small as it is, it isn't difficult to imagine just how old Biserujka Cave might be, perhaps once home to the now-extinct cave lion whose remains were found near Dramalj. Each millimetre of the hundreds of stalactites and stalagmites, which crowd the cave row-upon-row like shark's teeth, takes thirty years to form. Some have met in the middle between floor and ceiling and are as big around as tree trunks.
The island of Krk, viewed from the air, is a labyrinth of drystone walls built to dissect the fields of families joined by marriage in the Middle Ages. Sewn into the patchwork of vineyards and sheep pastures are the remains of fortresses, monasteries, churches and castles, some dating back thousands of years and preserving stone carvings in Glagolitic script, a runic-like Slavic alphabet dating back to the 9th century. The rocky coast warrants the cultivation of excellent honey, olives, figs and wine and the cold Adriatic wind, called 'Bura', is perfect for drying the legs of prosciutto which hang from the ceilings of local konobas, or Old-World wine taverns.
We stopped in one such tavern in the old village of Vrbnik, on the east coast of Krk. Intimate and cave-like, the stone walls of the kanoba were lined with wine barrels and bottles of the specialty local olive oil, and the floors and picnic-table-like seating were made entirely of wood. I was happy to sit back and relax while Alan asked the waitress in Croatian if she could bring us a sampler platter of house favourites. Local knows best. We ended up with a positively pornographic spread of olives, sheep's milk cheese, bread, marinated and salt-cured sardines and homemade prosciutto sliced so thin you could read a newspaper through it. We washed this all down with glasses of white wine from the vineyard down the road and, at the end, a shot of strong rakija distilled from figs.
"The rakija you had yesterday was for children," Alan chuckled when I coughed just from smelling my serving. "This is the real stuff." It went down like paint varnish. The prosciutto, however, was the best I'd ever tasted, with a depth of flavour so savoury it was almost too much to take.
David and Jakov fell asleep in the car after that. Fighting an insistent rakija haze, I had to resist nodding off myself despite the breath-taking scenery. "There is more to see on Krk," Iris assured me, then motioned to David and Jakov, "but is too much for them." I wished I could express how much I appreciated them taking me at all. I knew how ambitious even the simplest of day trips were with two young children, and with me to take care of it had to be like having a third. I couldn't possibly thank them enough.
Apparently my hotel came with room service, too. Before bed that night Iris' mother brought me a basket of bread, honey, butter, some cheese and instant coffee for the morning. Their cousin Silvija was coming to pick me up early so I could go with her on an errand to Rijeka, and I didn't want to have to disturb Alan and Iris for breakfast.
I told Silvija in the car on the way to town that I wanted to do something nice for my host family before I left, since they were being so generous with their food and money, not to mention time and energy. The economy in Croatia had been awful since the war. These people really didn't have a lot, and yet they never seemed to stop giving. I was eager to pay them back, but wasn't sure what was appropriate. Normally I might cook a big meal to say thank you, but I didn't know the ingredients or the recipes, and would probably do a crap job compared to Jozica.
Although by no means a metropolis, Rijeka is a bigger city than Crikvenica, with better shopping and a lovely central square lined with hotels and cafes. Crikvenica has more of a small-town feel, where everybody knows everybody else and gossip is the best source of entertainment, something like Amherstburg is compared to Windsor.
I accompanied Silvija to a printshop so she could develop some photos, and then to the travel agency where she was planning a trip to the Caribbean with her husband. When we got back in the car, Silvija's eight-month-old son, Ivano was starting to fuss.
"Can you do me favour?" She asked, digging in his diaper bag. "Can you give him food? He is hungry."
"Absolutely!" I took the jar of pureed carrots and plastic spoon she handed me. I may not have been able to cook for them, but babies I could do.
I began to rethink the offer, however, once my seatbelt was unbuckled and I was bent over the centre console doing my best not to poke Ivano in the eye or shove the spoon down his throat as Silvija wound through blind mountain curves, stick-shifting around hairpin corners with no guardrails. Did I mention we'd also gone to Rijeka to visit her friend, who was in the hospital with a broken leg from a car accident?
Silvija dropped me off back in Crikvenica - slightly shaken but otherwise no worse for wear - just as Jozica was preparing lunch. I was starving, having had breakfast painfully early so I could go into Rijeka, but the big midday meal wouldn't be ready for at least another hour. While I waited, I sat at the table with David, watching him flip through a children's science book on weather patterns. Iris told me he was upset when I wasn't with them that morning, and had begged to know when I would be coming back. It seemed the little charmer had developed something of a crush on me.
"Talk to him," Alan encouraged. "Under four years old their language skills are like a sponge. He will understand just from hearing your voice."
So I scooted my chair closer and leaned over his book, pointing to pictures of volcanoes and lightning and asking in English what they were called. David sounded out the Croatian names and I parroted him, working hard to get the pronunciations right. And so, like a child, I received my first real Croatian language lesson from a picture book and a three-year-old.
Lunch was another special banquet that screamed for a photo op had I not felt too awkward about taking pictures of the food - soup made from homemade beef and vegetable stock with egg-white dumplings, green salad from the garden, a fresh-baked bread basket, a casserole of mashed potatoes, cabbage and carrots (also, of course, from the garden) and the main feature: fresh sardines caught that morning, lightly breaded and pan-fried until crispy, served with a drizzle of local olive oil. Fresh, fresh, fresh.
Having only had canned sardines back home, I expected them to have a strong, anchovy-like taste. I watched Iris expertly pinch the belly of one of the little fish until it split and then peel out the tiny skeleton from head to tail as if undoing a zipper, and copied. To my amazement the sardines didn't taste fishy at all. The flavour was so mild it could have been chicken, but far more tender and retaining essences of sea brine and salt from the seasonings Jozica had coated them in.
"Where did you get these!?" I was dying to know, thinking they might be the best fish I'd ever eaten in my life.
"From the fisherman," Alan shrugged, as though this should have been childishly obvious.
I'd asked at Alan and Iris' cousins' house where I should go for good authentic Croatian food, and had been told Jozica made the best Croatian food in town. Given my experience, I couldn't help but believe it. I was eating better than any tourist had a hope of in a restaurant. Every meal was one I'd never had before, and would likely never have again. All of us at the table, including little David, continued picking up the tiny fish by the tail and dropping them onto our plates until their was nothing left in front of us but neat little piles of hair-like bones.
In the afternoon I drove with Alan and Iris to Opatija, another nearby town on the waterfront. Like Rijeka, this one had more shopping and restaurants than Crikvenica, and was geared more toward tourists, especially the elderly. Because it was situated in the shadow of a mountain, Alan explained, the weather was mild and the nights were cooler in the summer with the sun setting behind the ridge. With its wealth of outdoor patios, palm trees and tiki bars, it reminded me of the snowbird beaches in Florida. The region's main hospital was also based here, since the combination of clean mountain air, salty sea breeze and gentle climate was thought to have exclusive healing qualities. Positioned right on the sun-bathed beach, I thought staying there must seem more like being on vacation than being in the hospital.
We walked for a while along what Iris said was called a 'lungomare' - which in Italian means a road or path along the seaside - until David started to bounce impatiently at his father's side, tugging on his hand and babbling something in Croatian. "He wants ice," Iris laughed. "Now."
Ice? I understood when we stopped in front of Alan's favourite gelateria from childhood. "Oh, ice cream!"
Alan got a double scoop of chocolate and a kiddy cone of strawberry for David, his favourite. "I'm not sure if you're just shy or if you really do eat like a bird," Alan remarked when I ordered a baby scoop of cherry. He'd also made a comment when I had only four sardines at lunch while everyone else put away at least seven or eight.
"Oh," I grinned, sheepish, "I...uh...um..." I wrestled with a choice of excuses for a long minute before finally admitting the truth. The one feature of my new accommodations I wasn't the biggest fan of was the full-length mirror in the bathroom. I was noticing some...changes. Having had my first opportunity in a while to do laundry at Jozica's house, I'd been able to put on jeans I hadn't worn in a couple of weeks because they were dirty, only to find them uncomfortably tight. It also hurt to walk. I was getting a rash on my inner thighs, because, it took me a while to figure out, they were touching, causing my pants to chafe.
I'd been eating too much while I was away because, I explained to Alan, I wanted to try everything. I was kidding myself if I didn't think this was going to catch up with me sooner or later. Maybe now, surrounded by health and wellness centres, homemade food and the natural benefits of sun and clean air and water so clear you could pick out a crab among the pebbles twenty feet from the surface, it was the perfect time for a much-needed respite. Leaving the lawless intensity of Italian cities for the peace and quiet of Jozica's house in rural Croatia felt like a homecoming, a chance to sit still for a little while and let myself be cared for. A literal breath of fresh air, it was a lungomare for body and soul. This particular treasure hunt, for me, for now, was over.
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