Stuff it, we’re off North, Pakoštane, Dalmatia

Zagan the motorhome’s on the sloping field of the Autocamp Nordsee a short walk from the town of Pakoštane on the Dalmatian coast between Šibenik and Zadar (N43.90454 E15.51575). It’s cost us 140Kn for a night here, about €18, which includes the use of a dog-shower! It’s a German-owned and run site, and we’re sharing the field with habitations ranging from a never-moving-again-caravan to a gleaming Concorde motorhome.

Zagan at AutoCamp Nordsee, Pakoštane

The route here was a roundabout one, as we bounced off closed and missing-in-action campsites around Šibenik, finally deciding stuff it. We’re not waiting around for the ACSI book any more (we have a receipt to prove we’ve bought it and the card from 2015 – that should do)! Freedom caressed us, oooh yeah baby. Decision made, and like the last rope being released from a straining hot air balloon, we drifted upwards, climbing the map north.

Crossing a bridge north of Šibenik

The weather’s just cracking, 20-odd degrees and virgin-blue skies. Through this wonder of warmth and light we cruised along the toll-free A road north, having made a vague plan to head for a campsite at Nin, north of Zadar. A campsite we’d already stayed at before as it happens, shock, horror! But never fear, we didn’t make it. The sight of Croatia largest freshwater lake, Vrana, glimmering green to our right, had us off the main road and hunting about for somewhere to stay on it.

Us failing to find somewhere to stay on Lake Vrana

After more failure to find anywhere open to stay, we spotted a sign for here and remembered we’d checked it out earlier on. It looked OK on the write-up, so in we came, remembering the encouragement on the ACSI advert: “the roads to the site are a little tight, but you will make it”.

The roads did seem a little tight, until I saw the Concorde and a huge fifth wheeler parked up here!

Rolling in, we failed again. No sign of the chap to check in. Unlike Solaris, where you couldn’t even approach the entrance barrier until they’d taken both of our driving licenses, here we just drove in and parked up. Eventually the owner appeared, a few hours later, asking if we still needed help changing the oil. Our quizzical looks answered him, and he realised we’re different Brits to those who stayed a day or two back, and wanted help finding a garage. Nice fella.

The rest of the day went wandering the stone beach, peering out at the string of intriguing islands to the west, and poking around the town. At this point, I’m feeling he urge to deviate towards the past, as there’s a fascinating story painted on the walls in the town, like the cover to a book. If you’re not interested in war and the like, start skipping until you see this: STOP SKIPPING NOW!

The paintings relate to the Croatian War of Independence in the early 90’s, called the Homeland War here. I’ll start this all with a caveat: understanding the Balkans, and how the various factions interact across these lands, must be a life’s work. I’ve read Balkan Ghosts, twice, and still haven’t much of an idea what it was all about, a potent, sometimes sickening mix of ethnic and religious tensions, damaged pride over lost lands and cold-blooded large-scale violence. So please treat all of the coming stuff with a large pinch of salt.

Quick bit of history: when Yugoslavia fell apart, Slovenia and Croatia declared independence of the wider union. Serbia wasn’t keen on this, perhaps as both countries were generating lots of wonga in tourist readies, and used the Yugoslav army to prevent them heading off into the sunset. Slovenia had seen this coming, and quickly replaced all of the army command structure in their country with Slovenians, which meant not much fighting for them. No such clever moves for Croatia though; they headed for all-out war.

Which went a little like this: the Serbs living in Croatia decided they didn’t want to be part of an independent Croatia (looking up the Ustaše, I could understand why, although I’m taking no sides here). Instead they sided with Serbia to try and capture all of Croatia, getting within a few miles of where I’m sitting, before being held in check and land-mining the entire border, lovely. At this point they declared all of the captured part of Croatia to be a new republic, the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK).

If you look at the first of the two paintings above, you see a man instrumental in crushing the RSK, and therefore a Croatian hero – (Ex) General Ante Gotovina. The words are a welcome home for him as he lived here with his Grandmother during his childhood. His story is just incredible, but in summary: he left Croatia before the war and fought for the French Foreign Legion, gaining battle experience. When war kicked off, he came back here and was quickly promoted to General, and let loose on the RSK, pushing them out of Croatia and effectively winning the war.

After the war, however, there was an international calling to account over various atrocities committed during Gotovina’s offensives. At which point he legged it, and was (allegedly) helped to escape and stay hidden by the Croatian government. Some time later, when Croatia was pushing for EU membership, he was magically ‘found’, living in the Canary Islands, and brought to trial, where he was eventually found guilty of a whole range of very bad things. Now, given the fact he was a Croatian hero, the folks here weren’t too chuffed about this, to the point EU membership might not be a go-er after all. Guess what? All charges are dropped, he’s cleared of all that bad stuff (what bad stuff?), and the General’s free to go. Huh? What on Earth just happened there? If there’s no mysterious international shenanigans going on, I’m a monkey’s uncle.

The second painting is dated during the time of the war of Sibenik (where we just came from), I’m guessing, a celebration of the fact this area was on the front line, along the new (temporary as it turned out) border with the RSK, so their defeat is all the sweeter here. The Homeland War is consigned to history, but if the stories in Balkan Ghosts are anything to go by, it’ll be just another thing to rally around and fight over at some point in the future.

STOP SKIPPING NOW!

All is peaceful here these days. Sunshine, half-open cafes and boats waiting to be rented by us tourists. The town’s pretty much asleep at the moment, despite the glorious weather, but give it a week or three and I imagine it’s shake itself awake. We’re pulling the guidebooks out now to get some planning done, so just a few photos from today:

Cheers, Jay