POSTCARDS FROM DALMATIA

the table Sunday night he fell enough to maybe cut some or say cigars the name uh mr. Fogg on a story about a boy yaja para la me boy I saw Connie two more when they managed to fall vomitoria but ciborium apparel army boy Misaka little boy [Music] [Applause] [Music] summertime and throughout Europe the masses around the moon refugees from offices factories farms from families friends and neighbors perhaps from themselves tourists one of the most remarkable phenomena of this remarkable century throughout Europe the pleasure palaces and playgrounds await the annual invasion the SS yard run sails from Venice bound for Rica on the coast of Yugoslavia with the human cargo of temporally displaced persons from 20 different nations people of all ages glasses and backgrounds people who like to maintain a tenuous postal link of the life they are fleeing and circling the globe with chains of picture postcards fear surely they don't seem three days ago I was walking down the dirty old ice street with you in the pouring rain and now I'm sailing down the Adriatic like a lord on his private yacht well more or less I wish you were here shell but does your mum wouldn't let you come I'll have to do with sightseeing on my own and there'll be sights worth seen believe you me I've got the beady eyes on one or two already ha ha My dear Veronica as I pin these hasty lines our ship approaches the harbor of Rijeka a port of some consequence but for all their to clean and attractive tongue when I knew it 25 years ago it was called fuming but then everything was so different 25 years ago I shall make my first stop at a little resort along the coast that used to be called abbott sia but is now called a patina oh well a rose by any other name it still has the same pretty little Harbor and beyond it a rather it Audion front like a Vulcan Bournemouth or Eastbourne instead however of those awful rows of wooden beach huts smelling of men's socks that litter our own coasts operty ax has the most original bathing station like a big pier sideways onto the sea I shall not of course bathe myself but my age I cannot custom myself to the almost total exposure which now seems inseparable from a dip in the sea I shall find a comfortable hotel and get my seemed as it were before exploring further I sleeve the Sun and sea to the young [Music] southwards from operty Andrea for almost 400 miles the coastline of Yugoslavia is defended from the open sea by an army of offshore islands many of them narrow spheres of land 20 30 or more miles long the islands of people by fishermen the waters with a hundred varieties of fish honey lobsters crawfish crabs scampi's uber taxi pole or rad marina and Barbuda in the summer the tourists arrive and fishing for food becomes fishing trips for sports dear Peter I said I drop your line and here it is I wish you're here oh boy I'm having a whale of a time two days ago I landed up in these Dalmatian Islands and before anywhere I was I don't got with these two local lads Jekyll and Hyde well that's the nearest I can get to pronouncing the real names since they're not books or any fishing hours enough practically grown fins yet like Jekyll and Hyde they're men of few words which is just as well as I wouldn't understand them if they weren't but we get along famously with twenty English words ten and signs five weeks do coughs and his knees it's the simple life all right though that's the life for me [Music] [Applause] [Music] some stay in the islands for the fishing others pass through cruising down the island channels on route for more exotic pleasures stopping here and there to sample the local curiosities and snaps up the evidence of a holiday that was different darling Nigel I still think not a peep not coming with me but I can almost forgive you now I'm having such a blissful time yesterday Alice and I discovered the most exclusive little restaurant in all Yugoslavia a quaint little stone box in the edge of the scenes hundreds of miles from nowhere the landlord looked like the Jolly Roger himself but he prepared the most fabulous fish Suffa I've ever tasted if he said himself having the kingsroad he'd make a fortune when local yokels are so full of local color it just isn't true there's one old boy who sits in the Sun all day mending nets whose nets I didn't like to ask but they can't be his he's a hundred and four if he's a day he has the most divine face carved straight out of the Living Rock did Island wicked when you're a hundred and four [Music] many of these wandering masses particularly the migrants from the north are merely pursuing the Sun a chase that ends and the pursuers complete surrender to his prey hyah Dickie boy shall I tell you a secret I've never had it so good and you can say that again dad in this delectable cosmopolitan playground I've become a man of the world a sophisticated connoisseur of a wide variety of national and international types from my new details of figure and costume I can identify any of the specimens laid out for my inspection with the assurance of an expert this the sheep cheek of the French that the clean lines of the Swede here the opulence of the West German there the Rosebud reticence of our own national product as relaxation from these arduous studies I have been investigating a new method of traveling to work on the water properly handled will relieve the roads and railways of no end of rush-hour jam as soon as I've mastered the finer points you just watch me go man go country that you feel is truly Balkan this is a problem scape for brigands and feuds for partisans and commander wars this river bathes the wounds of Greeks Romans Turks and Slavs during the long birth pangs of Europe today in cool mountain water that once refreshed a weary Legion an idle boy dares the rocks and currents to win a smile of admiration from the passing typist a thousand miles from her office realizing for a fortnight the dream of 50 weeks squatting in the Sun a Brahms bigger boy invites the stranger to spend a night or two in the most modern tourist temple in Chiba Nick for those who like to rub a little culture into their suntan shiver dick is worth the visit my dear Veronica as you know a holiday would not be the same for me without a cathedral or two to potter around and this one in schipper nick is well worth visiting they began building it in 1431 and took over a hundred years to finish by then the poor citizens were so nearly bankrupt they could not afford statues for the Nisha's around the main door they'd finished the lion gate earlier so that does have some rather amusing statues of Adam and Eve make the crowd ashamed of themselves poor things perhaps it's as well medieval sculpture can be regretfully frank sometimes [Music] I was delighted by the freeze of heads around the apse they're all different and each one reminds me of someone at home [Music] I shall brush up on my modern sculpture when I go to split and visit the home have even miss trovich he died only recently in the United States but he gave his home in a state to the nation as a permanent Museum to his sculpting's of course he was internationally famous and very very rich before he died but he never forgot his homeland I do admire a man like that another local boy who made good was the Roman Emperor Diocletian who built himself an enormous palace near his birthplace and after 20 years of imperial power abdicated and retired to his homeland centuries later the palace became a refuge and a stronghold against the Slavs who invaded them colonized Dalmatia the palace is still inhabited some 300 homes within the palace walls the great tunnel port which grew up around the palace is now called split once it was the center of the world today it's a target for thousands of tourists who've never heard of Diocletian dear show Here I am in a place called split sounds silly I know but it's really a special place for sightseeing my feet ache like nobody's business they say the ancient Greeks lived here and the ancient Romans and the ancient Slavs and the ancient Venetians and I don't know who else but there was all ancient and they all built ruins which you can see today and very nice they are - some of these old boys but proper artists like which makes you think since they didn't have no real education in those days this statue is all over the flippin place I wonder if they do me in my leopard skin swimming trunks that reminds me ok I'm gonna call my feet off in their bathing beach they've got a very nice one just down the road from here so long [Music] dear Peter I know you like roughing it on holiday and living off the land so why not come to split next year they have a motor camp for people like you all you need is your wagon attempt camp beds folding chairs collapsible tables plastic plates pocket knives paper sheets drip-dry shirts for wireless and a bottle opener then you'll be quite comfortable old gypsy since the site provides lavatories light running water and even a sink to pyrius pods in myself i'll stick to the hotel's however people travel to dow misha when they get there they find the most enjoyable way to travel is by boots for to visit the islands you must travel by boat take a boat from splits and visit bar as self contained an island paradise as any modern cruiser could desire the centuries it was under the sway of Venice and the winged lions the emblem of that once great power I've seen everywhere but now the only invaders are the tourists and they are more than welcome come to bar in winter our price only for rainy days no charge at all the snow fog of frost and in the summer an added spice for the tourists bar stages a drama festival in small but beautiful theatre Hilton sixteen hundred and twelve and one of the oldest working theaters in Europe and bar also one of the best beaches of the Adriatic some sea and sand infallible yours my dear old dick if there's anything nicer than being where I am it's being where I am thinking of you stuck at home I expect it's raining isn't it the weather here is marvelous and I'm enjoying myself immensely with a party of Belgium's without hospital jeans they just are luckily the men in the party spend most of their time skin diving and underwater fishing they say the water on these islands is ideal for it good luck for them I say for it women free to entertain me and improve my French [Music] darling Nigel Here I am again eating my way down the Adriatica my heart bleeds for fling your way around the Home Counties on a cricketing holiday well I'm here on a hotel terrace and bar on a warm Mediterranean evening with the blue blue sea gurgling away on the rocks below that stuffy old thing playing cricket when you could have been here with me this case is just made for immense with a capital r om palace is alright as a companion but I'm too young to need a companion well darling if I can't have romance I can still eat drink and be mini tomorrow alas we leave this gorgeous spot and return to spit in a wonderful supercar thing called a hydroplane alright again from Dubrovnik [Music] Dubrovnik lies towards the southern end of a Dalmatian coast once it was a mighty port called Ragusa and it ships trading in all the treasures of the Mediterranean were known after their home port as Argus's for centuries Ragusa rivaled Venice until a great earthquake almost destroyed the city in 1667 today only fishing boats and excursion launches into the harbor originally Dubrovnik was two towns one lesson the other Slav but in the 13th century they merged behind a common city wall despite the earthquake many of the old gates and defenses still stand and everyday citizens and tourists alike climbed the steps to stroll on the Sun on the ramparts these defenses served Dubrovnik well during the long struggles for power in the Mediterranean and for over 800 years it remained in effect of free and independent city-state dubrovnik has a patron saint Saint Blaise who in the 10th century appeared to one of the city elders in the dream and warned the city of an imminent attack by the Venetians the attack was defeated and some blaze has been a popular hero ever since his effigy adorns many of the historic buildings and Dubrovnik is rich in those My dear Veronica undoubtedly Dubrovnik is the high spot of my holiday seldom if ever before have I been able to do so much really informative sightseeing in such a small area this city has some beautiful antiquities and yet has a gay and vigorous atmosphere but then walk around the cloisters of the Franciscan monastery and you're in another world there's a charming terrace street linking the old twin cities and this is the main promenade where everyone meets everyone else now do you think it's a pity the harbor no longer houses any of the great Argus's of the past I should have kept one at least but I'm told that the British seized the last one during the war with Napoleon it seems so unlike us but I'm sure we must have had a very good reason of course the town has long had grown the old walls and nowadays there are modern bathing beaches tourists but I'll leave them to the young things today I shall make an to see the historic villages in the canal of Valley dear show today I went to a little village called Charlie peep and saw the Virgin's honest studied every Sunday all the unmarried girls dress up to the nines and parade the main street with their mums sort of advert like to let the boys knows left and up to proper treat - how would you like your mum to wake you up and down the ice street every Sunday a chap told me the girls here are the tallest best lookers in the old country and in the old days that wicked old Lords came here to pick themselves a nice little girlfriend like what a lark a South of Dubrovnik a narrow strait between rocky cliffs leads into the Gulf of Qatar along the shores of this Inland Sea a great community of sailors grew up who formed the most ancient union of seafarers the guild of baka sailors navigators from here steer the Venetian gallons at the great Battle of Lepanto then here Tsar Peter the Great enrolled his sailors to form the Russian Navy today the men of perast cotta and dobro to tarry villages and tourists from one coastal town to another and on the journey south from katoa a group of the villages is sure to start up a folk song not to please the tourists but appease themselves or down here folk songs are still the natural songs of the people [Music] dear Peter I'll bet you've never heard a Serbian skiffle group I am all the way from co-author budva on a little coastal steamer like a day excursion boat this place both of us got something it's a little old Wharf town hanging over the sea it has a pocket-sized Cathedral that goes back a thousand years and a whopping bigger chair with all the big knobs Eustace there before the war the hotel's modern norfert go outside it's like you've gone back 500 years I like it here from budva the beach stretches south for six miles to an even smaller city spitty Stefan a miniature Kingdom perched on a rock in the sea with the long narrow causeway linking it to the shore ten years ago it was a dying town with a hundred inhabitants scratching apart existence now that piracy no longer pays but the tourists have saved it the Yugoslavian government with an eye on foreign currency sent one of its best architects to Sveti Stefan the cottages were restored as tourist villas the terrace is enlarged and the modern hotel built and the tourists came and came again his fetish Stefan sits serene upon the blue translucency smiling at the strangers who have saved this life darling Nigel this is the nearest heaven I'll ever get I fear what it would be if only you were here you just don't know what you're missing next year I insist I absolutely insist that we come here together [Music] oenomaus evil can be not believe opportunity [Music] [Music] [Music]