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Outside Magazine, July 2005

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Destinations: Croatia
Balkan Surprise (cont.)


	SIREN SONG: A statue in a 16th-century garden on the island of Vis (Joshua Paul)

THOUGH NOT COMMONLY recognized by economists as an index of affluence, sunglasses seem to me as able a barometer as any of a city's relative prosperity. Strolling the streets of Zagreb, Croatia's stately capital of 800,000 people, on a sunny Saturday morning, wearing normal prescription eyeglasses, I felt naked, exposed as a foreigner. Drawn toward a dull roar of eager conversation, yapping lap dogs, and laughing children, I wound up on Tkalciceva, the wide pedestrian thoroughfare between Kaptol and Gradec, the two ancient hills that flank the city's historic center. The outdoor café tables were filled with the sort of earnest capitalists, hip young people, and occasional slick-haired gangstrepreneur who constitute the new bourgeoisie of many post-communist cities, and at every table, evidence of the city's resurgent postwar fortunes sat astride their noses. These promenading locals viewed their lives through Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, and Prada lenses.

It's not just sunglasses: The BMWs, Audis, and Benzes, the cell phones, the iPods, and the new office blocks all bespoke a city on the rise. But

The outdoor café tables were filled with the sort of earnest capitalists, hip young people, and occasional slick-haired gangstrepreneur who constitute the new bourgeoisie of many post-communist cities.

even as I toured modern-art galleries, partied at swank clubs to records spun by Italian DJs, flipped through the Croatian translation of Bill Clinton's autobiography (Moj Zivot) at a local bookstore, and drank coffee with Croatian students eager to correct my misconceptions about their nation, the past was never far off. Colliding with all this newness, the city's grand buildings, wide boulevards, exquisite churches, and fine museums imbue it with the dignified feel of Vienna and the lost grandeur of Mitteleuropa.

That such cosmopolitan urbanity both exists in Croatia and mingles freely with the country's pastoral charm does not surprise Croatians; what surprises them is how slow the rest of the world has been to catch on. While the continuing reliance on small-scale fishing and agriculture is everywhere visible, any Croatian schoolchild can tell you that his country is the birthplace of various Roman emperors, inventor Nikola Tesla, the modern necktie, and the mechanical pencil. Lately, it has been their sporting heroes who have brought Croatia back to the world's attention, from Janica Kostelic tearing up the World Cup skiing circuit to Ivan Ljubicic leading a team of tennis upstarts in taking down the U.S. Davis Cup team this past winter.

And recently, eager males the world over have been heard uttering the same phrase: "I hear the women in Croatia are hot." Indeed.

Famed for its charming, set-piece beauty, Dubrovnik seemed an appropriate backdrop for testing this rumor. This seaside city of 30,000 people punctuates the coast and is centered around a historic walled core that's been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.



	The northern end of Dubrovnik's city walls, facing the Adriatic Sea (Joshua Paul)

Its car-free corridors and imposingly uniform stone buildings serve as reminders of the maritime-derived wealth amassed between the 15th and 17th centuries. Though besieged and shelled by Serb forces in 1991, the proud city has reclaimed its former role as a magnet for the chic and glamorous.

One night last fall, an English friend and I fell in with the crowd promenading along the Stradun, a pedestrianized artery occupying what was once a channel separating the island of Laus from the mainland. We eventually migrated to a narrow, cobbled alleyway, an archaic space crammed with smartly dressed young people, the overflow from several dimly lit bars. Choosing one at random, we squeezed into the small entryway just inside the door, only to be ambushed by an impenetrable wall of hotness—in front of us, packed like sardines in a can, was a sea of leggy, sharp-featured women whose glowing eyes sized up our disheveled exteriors and dismissed us in the same nanosecond. It is likely that these women spoke perfect English. Unfortunately, we never found out: Having embarrassed ourselves by doing everything short of rubbing our eyes in disbelief, we beat a retreat to the alley and ordered beers from a passing waiter.

"Wow. Stunning," said my friend, Howard, after we'd exited the unnamed bar and caught our breath. Later, in our numerous retellings of the incident, it would become known as "the Honeypot."

When I returned to Dubrovnik four months later, the seasonal crowds had mostly gone, and, with them, the nightlife. When I tried once again to locate the bar of plenty, I could not. But there were still gleaming BMWs alongside ailing Yugos, ancient rowboats berthed next to million-dollar yachts in the marina. And I did meet Esme, a soft-spoken middle-aged woman who rented me a beautiful studio apartment just off the Stradun for $15 a night. On my last evening, as I stood high above the city on top of the ruins of a fort built by Napoleon and watched the sun set over the red-tiled roofs and the Adriatic beyond, I didn't really miss the Honeypot.

But if I go back to Dubrovnik, I might try to find it again.

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