Travel with Indigo

All told, I spent nearly four months wandering around Croatia from one end to the other, visiting every part but the far northeast known as Slavonia, not to be confused with the country of Slovenia. I drove along its entire coastline and voyaged along most of it, visited many of its alluring islands along the famed Dalmatian Coast, toured by car around the Istrian Peninsula and spent a few memorable days in the surprisingly delightful capital of Zagreb. It easily makes my list of the best countries in the world to visit.

Upon departing the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro, we traveled a short distance up the Balkans coast to the picture perfect village of Cavtat, similar in appearance to Carmel of sixty years ago. There, I met up with Kitty from whom I had been apart for far too long. It was wonderful to see her again and welcome her aboard for a month’s long cruise. The crew too was happy to see her after a long absence.

Our favorite part of Cavtat, apart from the village itself, is the adjacent sea front park with a shoreline pedestrian walk skirting the rocky shore and shaded by a dense forest of pines. About a mile or so long with park benches thoughtfully placed in shady spots along the way, it makes a perfect place for idle strolls.

Half way along its length, there is a rude facsimile of a tiki bar, a makeshift affair with six seats under the shade of its thatched roof. Its owner had for years sought permission from the town to build the place but never could get an answer, yes, no, or maybe, so he just built it anyway and has been there six years now doing just fine, thank you. You have to admire the man’s spirit. Just do it.

It was along the seaside walk that I first became aware of a most unusual feature of Croatian beaches. Few of them are made of pebbles like those in Budva, and fewer still are made of sand. Most of the beaches in Croatia are heaps of naturally formed slabs of rock, great and small, on which people lie about in relaxed pose, without benefit of soft padding between them and the rock. It was quite ordinary to see people of all ages stretched out supine in the sun, their head resting, if that is the right word here, on bare, hard rock. On first sight of this, I thought of seals sunning themselves.

The other fact of Croatian, indeed Balkan, life that became apparent in Cavtat and repeatedly during my long stay is the thoughtless disregard of bathers there for the delicate sensibilities of visitors from more Puritanical minded countries, like the U.S. for example. I can say with confident assurance that there is not a man over the age of his teens that does not wear on public beaches what we in the West call a speedo, invariably black. He wears this bathing attire without regard to his age or to the regrettable condition of his sagging physique. To take an example, I saw many men in their 70s and 80s wearing these unfortunate garments, men whose glutious maximus had long ago gone minimus.

Nor did I see a single woman, regardless of age, that did not wear a bikini. I am the first to say that this bit of swimwear, when worn by an attractive lissome young woman, is one of Nature’s finest blessings, a gift from the gods. Those worn by tall, leggy Serbian women are most especially so. A bikini worn, however, by an older and more voluptuously proportioned woman, usually fails in its attempt to enclose all the flesh that its wearer has attempted to cram into it, thus offending Nature and innocent passersby.

More egregious still is a practice that I myself witnessed, an upsetting experience that still calls up nightmares. I refer to the habit of women in these parts to remove their tops in public in the same carefree manner with which they remove a hairpin. Now removal of tops by those lissome young women is one thing, a cause for celebration. But when a woman of advanced years whose torso resembles the base of a melted candle removes her top and parades around in public, she scars men for life.

Setting aside my attempts at humor on the subject, I actually came to admire the casual disregard of these people for the opinion of others on the very personal subject of their physiques. They seem to be saying that here is my body, flawed as it may be, and I do not much care what you might think of it. I will display it as suits my comfort, not as suits your inhibitions. It is an attitude I saw also in Brazil and admired it there too. [Note to wife: no dear, I do not intend to wear a speedo, in public or otherwise.]

This casual disregard for the conventional standards of Western prudery has its origins in the Soviet era. Citizens behind the Iron Curtain learned that Western ideals of public deportment had their origin in Puritan religiosity and as such were denials of the true nature of man, the nature that only atheist Communism properly celebrated. Accordingly, it was not only acceptable for people to display themselves as Nature intended but they were encouraged to do so.

For that reason, Croatia today abounds in what are known there as naturist camps, the last vestiges of Communism and a harmless rebuke of Western censoriousness. Nowhere else on earth are there more of these or are they more enthusiastically attended. Scandinavians, Germans, Austrians and Slavs from all over Europe flock to Croatia in summer to lark about in the buff. Naturists claim that strolling around in the altogether, or sky clad, is disinhibiting in a breezy, free-swinging sense, claims I have no cause to dispute.

Here, I have a confession to make. I considered joining in the frivolity, going so far as to get directions to the camp nearest my hotel. I also received instructions from the concierge on nudist camp etiquette, an area of social encounter offering endless opportunity for hapless faux pas. I thought to myself, if not here, where, and if not now, when? At the last minute, though, I abandoned the idea when a single word popped to mind: sunburn. Of the many afflictions a man wishes not to befall his most treasured appendage, scorching easily makes the list. I will just leave it at that.