one day, at Sveti Vid's day (one of the many holy days in roman catholic Croatia) we walked up the mountainridge between us and the Adriatic Sea.
walking up the mountain on a hot sunny day, climbing about 500 meters, took us a couple of hours of hard swetting work.
there hardly is a path, only what seems to have been a path, and even that "path" is rather a passage through bushes, over rocks, as it actually was the walk goats from the village used to make, till the "goats union" decided about ten years ago that where people started to use cars it was unacceptable to keep goats walking.
so these footpathes (or should I say "clawpathes") slowly disappeared in nature, as only once in a year they're used by pelgrims and I to walk to the tiny white chapel on top of the ridge, where a priest stood waiting in the open air, valley on the left and deep down on the other side even more deep the blue sea.
not being a churchgoing believer I stayed a bit aside, while a crowd of about hundred joined in his service, singing and listening to his good words.
and even the priest showed to be all human, as once finishing his "job", he took of his official clothing to join in a marvelous picnic, as each of the crowd had taken some drinks and food to this gathering.
fried chicked, roasted courgettes filled with melting cheese, home made dry ham, local cheese, good bread and of course, white and red wine from everybody's own wineyard, and even worse, the strong rakia and local derivates, with herbs, walnuts, cherries managed to get to the top of the mountain.
holy shit, no booze for me please, some small bites, a tiny bit of wine, a gallon of fresh water, that's all I needed, as going up was already heavy, but going down was double as long and twice as heavy, as I knew because I like to study detailled maps in advance.
a strong advice to hikers/walkers in croatian summersun is to at least take one liter of water, of possible even two, some sweet stuff, and a little handtowel, to soak and hang over head, neck or shoulders to cool a bit when things get hot and water is far away.
returning after an extremely nice social event, we walked the ridge, wide, rough and full of herbs for alcoholic picnics to come, slowly descending along a little mountainrefuge, following a rocky canyon filled with giant boulders and broken trees.
recently we had a massive rainfall during the night of about 150 liters per meter, creating a lot of problems, sliding hillsides, blocked roads and clearly visible here, a thundering stream of water gushing down to leave a chaos of rocks and wood.
all together going up and getting down again took an impressive five hours walk (ex. picnic), with somewhere in the walk the moment that I took this picture (click to enlarge), where deep down in the centre lies our own little hidden paradise, right to that white house.
anyway, great day, fine people, marvelous view, fantastic experience.
hvala na Sveti Vid *)
*) thanks to Saint Vitus, who died 15 of juni 313 AC under the rule of Diocletianus, who's palace is still a major monument to visit in the old Roman town of Split.
