First stop Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.
The tiled roof of St. Mark’s Church with the coats of arms of Zagreb and the former kingdom of Croatia-Dalmatia-Slavonia.
Like many buildings in Zagreb, it’s still uninhabitable after the 2020 earthquake.

In the center of Zagreb there is a lively nightlife.

Ljubljana, the quiet and relaxing capital of Slovenia.

The most interesting place to go in the evening is, definitely, Metelkova City Autonomous Cultural Center, a squat created inside former barracks. It’s the main meeting point for Slovenian alternative artists. They have embellished it with graffiti and works of art.
Where there is Anarchy, there is Beauty.

EZLN basket.

Lake Bled, surrounded by green hills and a castle, is one of the most pleasant places in Slovenia. In the middle there is an islet with a church.

Fisherwoman by Lake Bled. In the background, the church on the islet.

- Magic mirror on the crossroads, who’s the fairest one of all?
- For sure not you, Dekaro.
- Fuck off.

The central square of Koper. From here I begin to travel in Istria, going south.
In general, Istria has plenty of towns with Venetian architecture, overlooking the sea. Sometimes you can see also Roman ruins and Austro-Hungarian buildings.
A pleasant surprise is that they understand Italian more than English. As for me, I learned only one word of the abstruse Slavic languages: “pivo”. And that’s enough for me.

View of Piran.

Venetian architecture in the central square of Piran.

Church and bell tower in Izola. Like Koper, it was an island until a couple of centuries ago.

Again in Croatia, in Poreč.
A stunning Byzantine mosaic in the Euphrasian Basilica, founded as early as the 4th century.

Rovinj, one of the most beautiful cities in Istria.

Roman columns in Rovinj.

Roman triumphal arch, at the entrance to the old town of Pula.

The Roman amphitheater of Pula.

A cat walks along the cobbled streets of Krk, the main town of the same-name island.

The clock in the Krk’s square.

Rijeka, Fiume in Italian, a city famous in Italian history due to the so-called “Impresa di Fiume” (‘Endeavour of Fiume’), when a variegated group of fighters, led by the Italian poet and writer Gabriele D’Annunzio, occupied it from September 1919 to December 1920 in an attempt to annex it to Italy (it was disputed by the nascent Yugoslav state).
Even today, historians are divided on the evaluation of those 15 months, also because in the following years, fascism glorified that venture. However, if we really want to apply a political etiquette, it is perhaps the anarcho-syndicalism. In fact, the “Carta del Carnaro”, the constitution given to the city during the occupation, was drafted by the anarcho-syndicalist Alceste De Ambris and proclaimed direct democracy, decentralization of power, collective sovereignty of all citizens without distinction of sex, race, language, class and religion, hospitality for anyone wishing to live in Rijeka, and so on. Not surprising, the only foreign state that recognized the “Regency of Carnaro” was the Soviet Union.
But apart from the constitution, it was the experience lived by the citizens of Rijeka who resembles anarchism, with exceptional freedom for the time, thanks also to the large influx of young people, intellectuals and artists that reached the city.
Perhaps this was one of the main reasons that in the end, paradoxically, it was the Italian army that had the international task to ”free” the city with cannon fire.

For those my age, it’s hard to hold back tears of emotion in front of the memorabilia at the Peek & Poke Computer Museum.
In this photo, you can see the Commodore 64 with the Football video game and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum with rubbery keys. There was also the legendary VIC-20, my first computer when I was 12, and the Commodore 128, my second computer (the latter is actually also on display in my little house in Benevento, former Maleventum).

Market in Rijeka.

Cat overlooking via Medulica at night.

Night thunderstorm.
 

The Grand Canal in Trieste, Italy.
As far as I remember it’s the first time that an Italian city appears in Dekaro Diario! (it could be a symptom of senile fatigue coming. ). But let’s not exaggerate: Trieste became definitively Italian only in 1954.
Jokes apart, Trieste is a wonderful city, where you can stroll among majestic buildings of the Habsburg Empire, houses of wealthy merchants, and churches, also Orthodox.

Icon of the Madonna on a street wall.

And that is the poet and writer I mentioned before: D’Annunzio, sat next to a girl, pretending to read solemnly. He was in fact an astute womanizer.

Backlight from “Unità d’Italia” square.

Happily back to Malta, in the apartment where I live now, with an amazing sea view! In the evening, I sit on the balcony, watching the sunsets, always unique. The ideal place to have a little drink and meditate on the impermanence of existence.

In the meanwhile, Dekaro Diario turned 10! It was in fact 2012 when I started it, on the occasion of a long trip to South and Central America. Therefore, I believe that it’s time to conclude this blog. I will make one last episode at the end of the year, it will be Oman, and we say goodbye. Maybe I will do another kind of blog in the future, before the inevitable departure, but I don’t know yet. We’ll see.

The initial plan included also Albania, where I had to arrive by sea from Italy a Friday 17 (June). For Italians that date is the equivalent of the Friday 13, a day of bad luck. And in fact some friends told me that was not the most auspicious day to start a journey, but imagine… a man with a cultural background of enlightenment and rationalism type could only smile with a hint of superiority in front of similar superstitions. Aeeee … happened everything … first of all I did not start my trip that day because I was not able to reach Italy from Malta, where I live since almost three years, for an Italian flight controllers strike announced when some passengers where already sit inside the airplane! OK. Then I took a flight for the next day to Dubrovnik, changing a little bit the initial plan. No more Albania, and from Dubrovnik to Montenegro and then towards Bosnia.

So the next day I flew to Dubrovnik but my backpack didn’t arrive. At the airport assured me that the next morning would come for sure. But it did not. It was spotted in Valencia. So, I had to wait another day. Ok, one more day in Dubrovnik, no problem. The following day the luggage was in Vienna, ready to embark on the Vienna – Dubrovnik and arrive in the early afternoon. In the evening still no news. Marko, the hostel manager of Dubrovnik, a very kind person that from the beginning was helping me with great commitment to track it, after a few phone calls found it again. Now it was in Frankfurt. But for sure, the day after would arrive… At that point, almost like a Buddhist enlightenment I finally realized that at the end in that backpack there were just some shabby shirts, boxer shorts, socks and buying few more in the meanwhile was not so dramatic. So I finally went in Montenegro, but I had to go back after to Dubrovnik just to retrieve my errant backpack, with which I finally reunited after more than six days.
And then, in the return flight… did not arrive! Lost again!!

However, things that can happen. Let’s talk about the journey.
Very very in short, Yugoslavia formed after World War II with the spontaneous union of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, that were before under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to the kingdom of Serbia. Soon after joined also Montenegro. After World War II the kingdom became a socialist republic led by Marshal Tito, who anyway always maintained a strong independence from the Soviet sphere. With the death of Tito’s charismatic figure, in 1980, the problems related to the differences between the various ethnic groups began to grow, together with nationalist sentiments. Eventually, in 1991, Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia declared independence. In 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Shortly after Serbia and Montenegro renamed themselves ‘Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’.
However, within the newly formed nations there were ethnic groups with conflicting interests, in particular the Bosnian Muslims, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats, plus the conflicts between Macedonians and Albanians in Kosovo. So, just few months after, the war broke out, with atrocious crimes carried out by all the parties, including the NATO with the infamous bombing of the civilians of Belgrade on 1999. An action that later the Independent International Commissions sentenced as “illegal but justified”, in the typical schizophrenic and Orwellian language of the Western powers.

The splendid Dubrovnik in Croatia, also called Ragusa. It was for many years an independent maritime republic.

The port by night.

It is possible to walk on the walls that completely encircle the old town.

A little bay by night.

The Bay of Kotor in Montenegro. It is compared to the Norwegian fjords for the bays enveloped by mountains.

Kotor, an amazing town sheltered behind an overhanging rock and surrounded by walls. It was part of the Venetian Republic.

Church in Kotor.

Little street in Kotor.

Perast. It was a loyal city of the Republic of Venice.

In the Bay of Kotor there are two churches built on artificial islands.

The Mostar bridge, in Herzegovina. The original one was a masterpiece of Ottoman architecture of the sixteenth century and was blown up by Croats during the war. Since it was not on the front line there was no strategic need to destroy it, but it was seen a symbol of the enemy’s culture. It was later rebuilt identically, but being a copy has lost some of its charm.

Mostar.

A guy fishing by a bridge in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

Sarajevo is also called the Jerusalem of Europe because in its center there are side by side mosques, Orthodox churches, Catholic churches and a synagogue. Even in difficult times, such as during the Second World War or the recent war in the 90s, the citizens of Sarajevo remained always in solidarity between them, regardless of the religion professed.

Still today many Sarajevo buildings have traces of the bombs thrown from the hills around the city during the siege by the Serbs. At the beginning of the siege the citizens thought it would last a couple of weeks. It lasted nearly four years, from April 1992 to February 1996. The population remained very compact and very few left the city. The food, pretty shoddy, was provided by the UN, which controlled the airport. The water was taken from an underground stream that passes under the town brewery. For the rest it was necessary to make do in all possible ways, but life nonetheless continued and even pubs and theaters were often open.

The main source for these info was Neno, that during the Free Sarajevo Walking Tour told us his childhood memories of the siege.

In that corner at the end of the bridge, under the pink building that is now a museum, it was assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, which led to the First World War. The killer was a Bosnian, Gavrilo Princip, who had joined a Serbian nationalist group pointing to the independence of Bosnia from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its annexation to the Kingdom of Serbia (then in a sense, although by devious and unpredictable ways, the attack achieved its purpose). To punish Serbia, where the assassination was planned, Austria declared them war. But Serbia was an ally of Russia, which entered the war causing in turn the intervention of Germany… and so on… fifteen million dead.

For the Sarajevo citizens is the ugliest building in the city. It was built when the communist architects thought they had to give some colors to their gray buildings, but without altering the ‘barrack’ structure.

In Belgrade, Serbia. The city is full of beautiful wall paintings.

On the bus from Sarajevo to Belgrade I met an Italian guy, Vieri, who is traveling to Thailand doing many traits with his folding bike! You can follow him here: www.facebook.com/BiCicladi/

Inside the museum of Tesla, the Serbian genius whose discoveries in the field of electromagnetism had an extraordinary influence that continues today.
This is the radio controlled boat. The experiment was performed in the US in 1898, and people did not believe it. For some it was a kind of magician trick, for others, on opposite, it was Tesla that was moving the boat thanks to telepathic powers. So, anything except that the strange mechanism handled by Tesla was sending invisible rays read by boat on the lake.
 

The first T-shirt I bought due the lost backpack has the Latin motto of Dubrovnik, in which I also recognize: “Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro”, freedom is not for sale for all the gold in the world.

And finally, a little advice: whatever your trusted scientist may say, do not start a journey on Friday 17th! (or Friday 13th in your case).