OLD CITY OF DUBROVNIK / concert and roadtrip

I just came back from a 3 day tour with Seine and Denis Katanec, one of my favorite Croatian singer-songwriters. We hit the road on Friday and came back a couple of hours ago. The places we visited and played were Banja Luka and Tomislavgrad (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Dubrovnik (Croatia). It was a total of 1100 kilometres from Zagreb to Dubrovnik (via Banja Luka and Tomislavgrad) and back. The trip and the gigs were a blast and this was definitely one of my favorite tours up to date. So here's a short report before the roadtrip movie (shot by our @marinauzelac) is ready for publishing!

(a canyon following the river Vrbas on the way from Banja Luka to Tomislavgrad)

DAY 1 - Zagreb - Banja Luka

Banja Luka is one of the largest cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I've been there a couple of times before attending (and playing) Demofest, one of the largest music festivals for emerging bands in the region, so it was not such a new place for me. Although Banja Luka is big, it's not a big turist attraction and there's not much to see except for the Old City castle called Kastel. We played this really tiny bar called Žiža and it was one of those intimate gigs we're not really used to. The place can hold up to 50 people and I guess we had around 35 that night but it turned out to be great. We met a lot of nice people (as we usually do), had a great show, had a great afterparty and left Banja Luka with positive feelings.

(this is a picture of the view of the Kastel from the Vrbas river I found online)

(and this is how Kastel looks like when Demofest is taking place)

(this is the only photo of Denis' gig I have in Žiža)

(and this... well... you all know what this is...)

DAY 2 - Banja Luka - Tomislavgrad

Tomislavgrad is a small town in the Herzegovina part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The ride from Banja Luka to Tomislavgrad took us thru many small villages in the country, most of them half abandoned and half destroyed from the war. Although the people are somewhat poor and the villages hold not much more than 50 people, the landscape and the nature is breathtaking. It was raining or snowing or both most of the time so I couldn't really take pictures from the car. You'll just have to believe me. Anyway, the place we played was outside of Tomislavgrad and it's a bar called Škafić. The owner has the bar within his house (he lives upstairs and works downstairs) and when we came in, we couldn't really believe such a thing exists in such a small town in Herzegovina. The bar plays great music (Cave, Waits etc.) and it was absolutely packed by the time we started our show. The people that were attending were all locals and for a moment we thought they wouldn't really dig the music but they did and it turned out to be a great show. It also turned out most of the poeple play an instrument or sing so we ended up having a crazy afterparty, jamming with the people until early in the morning. It was absolutely crazy. I don't have any photos of the place because it was very dark inside but I have a photo of a guy's car parked in fornt of the place with a bumper that fell down and I think that photo describes the vibe of the place the best.

DAY 3 - Tomislavgrad - Dubrovnik

The next morning was very hungover but we had to press on. We said goodbye to the good people that organised the show and let us stay at their place and headed for Dubrovnik. The drive from Tomislavgrad to Dubrovnik is 3 and a half hours long at best and the route we took was pretty heavy. The best route was across the mountains of Herzegovina and the roads there are pretty worn out. We drove across countless mountains in the middle of nowhere and half of the time we didn't really know if we were lost or not. At times we couldn't really believe people live in the villages on top of those mountains and we couldn't really grasp the idea that anyone can actually handle the harsh environment and nature surrounding those small villages. At one point we came to a border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia and the guy couldn't let us thru because it was a border for local people only. We had to turn around and head for Neum to cross the border there. Dubrovnik is located on the very south end of Croatia's coast (the only place further than Dubrovnik is Cavtat) and there's a specific border problem when you are heading to Dubrovnik. Neum is a town in Bosnia and Herzegovina located on the Adriatic coast. The Bosnian coast is about 20 km long so you have to cross the border form Croatia to Bosnia, drive 20 km inside Bosnia and then cross the border again into Croatia. It's weird but it's true.

(you can see here where the border ends and then starts again and where they are planning to build a bridge around it so people wouldn't have to cross the border in and out. It's all political and ugly and I don't really know a lot about it but it's the situation right now.)

Before I start to describe Dubrovnik, here are a few fun facts just to describe how historical and magical Dubrovnik is:

a) it's a place where Game of Thrones is filmed
b) most of the Old City was built between the 13th and the 16th Century.
c) it was a separated republic called Dubrovačka Republika for a few centuries.
d) it was the first country in the world to end slavery.
e) it was the first country in the world to introduce the concept of quarantine for the ill.
f) it was the first country in the world to recognize the USA as a country.
g) the entire Old City is under the protection of UNESCO, level 1.

Anyway, when we came it was nightfall and it was raining. They told us the venue is in the very centre of the Old City (which is cool) and that we cannot access it with our van (which was less cool) because no cars can go past the city walls.

(here's our first glimpse of the city walls and us carrying the equipment by foot)

Our venue was the Marin Držić theatre. It's a beautiful theatre in the centre of the city, right by the Church of St. Vlaho (St. Vlaho is the patron saint of Dubrovnik).

It was Sunday, it was raining, we were tired so we played the gig, hit the hotel and decided to wake up early so we could go see the town before we head back home. We stayed at a kickass hotel just outside of the city, had a good night sleep, woke up, had a quick breakfast & coffee and hit the town. We were all super excited to finally see this city everyone is talking about because even though it's in Croatia and we are from Croatia, it's so expensive and far away most people don't get the chance to go and visit. So, now I'm going to shut up and just let you enjoy the pictures I've managed to take with my phone.

That's pretty much all I've got in my phone. There is, of course, a lot more to see in Dubrovnik (and we didn't have enough time to walk on top of the walls) but I wanted to enjoy the rest for myself rather than staring into my phone and taking picutres. My conclusion is: if you can go and visit it, do it. It's a magical, breathtaking place. You feel transported back into the 15th Century and the architecture is just pure art. We walked around for about and hour and a hlaf and then we headed back home. The trip home was a real reality check. We were heading back to Zagreb, back to our weekly jobs and errands, back to the continent and back to reality. It was grey, it was cold and we hit heavy snow but we kind of managed to make it a laughing matter. I'll end this post with a picture of a break we took along the way. We stopped for coffee and since smoking is forbidden inside the bar, we decided the terrace is a place to be.