Joining Bernie's Set

What can a UNESCO world heritage town on the Adriatic have in common with Formula 1 Auto Racing? Well, in the case of Trogir, Croatia, quite a bit. But that was just to get you reading, Byron. 

I'm going through the photos I took on a too-short visit to the island town last spring, identifying the fascinating bits of historical architecture and tracking our passage on YouTube along streets following the original Roman layout, squeezing through lanes and alleys inside the 13th/14th century city walls and just being a damn nuisance as we gaggles of tourists must be. I'm  sharing the enthusiasm of countless other visitors who have posted video walks on YouTube, checking my travel journal entry for April 28th and researching each of the astonishing historic structures I snapped.

Our charming and well-informed guide Vanja, native of nearby Split, told us a story about Bernie Ecclestone, director of F1 Racing for decades,  and a link to one of the splendid Venetian Gothic buildings on the seafront. Seems Eccelstone's first wife hailed from Trogir, so the secret was out, and it was only a matter of time before the international yachting set tied up along the Old Town waterfront.

According to Vanja, this structure was once eyed as the possible location for a posh club, and local opposition did what it does. The building persists as the distinguished home of an elementary school.

Appropriately, the day we visited there was a car show underway on the waterfront. But my attention was on the fifteenth century Venetian Kamerlengo Castle looming above it, so I have no details. Uncanny this. The fellow in pink shirt admiring the red Alfa Romeo could be my late love - this image brings back our agreed-upon divided attentions in such situations.

 

As we turn away from the waterfront promenade and breech the encircling walls the Old Town yields up its secrets.

Trogir Old Town, little impacted by modern development,  is well-known for several ancient buildings, so let's start with St. Lawrence Cathedral. It was built over several centuries as were many of the great churches we visit, so it shows the evolutuion of  styles from Romanesque to Gothic. 

We hovered for too-short a time in front of  Master Radovan's miraculous West Portal (completed mostly by himself in 1240.) It's encrusted with impossibly rich Romanesque carving.  Wikipedia (yes, I donate) provides lots more detail and this Christian Iconography site yields details of the features we squinted at from behind the barriers. The carvings provided graphic instruction in worldly perils and the hope of salvation, scriptural lore for the unbooked faithful.

About face and just try to take in the facade detail of the  Venetian Gothic Grand Cipiko Palace opposite. The only sites I find on my search are tour company ads - which attest to its value as a tourist site, but don't give me much information. 

The plaque describes "an ensemble of Romanesque buildings that was remodelled in the early Renaissance around 1457." They skim over the fact that Venice conquered little Trogir (which had long been the object of invader envy since its early days as a Greek trading town established in the 3rd cenury BC) in 1450.

 Not surprisingly, the remodelling was firmly in the Venetian style, and doubtless the previous owners had lost this palace, and everything else, to the invaders. 

I love travel but the arm-chair travel that follows, when I revisit photos, watch documentaries and follow jerky video tours, read and research and put together memories in photos and words is one of the best ways I know to spend winter.

Now I'm going to take a break from all the reading and looking and such with and savour some moments along the lanes and alleys inside this delightful partly walled medieval town.

South Gate

return to the mainland