In my life, Vrsar first appeared from the loudspeaker, in the form of a rhyme from Đoka Balašević's poetry collection: At the station in Pula, under the hot summer sun/ I was waiting for the bus and playing the guitar/ Then she sat down next to me and asked if it was bothering me/ and I know Is there a good hotel in Rovinj or Vrsar?
Vrsar paradise
Then I wondered if I too would ever get to know that Vrsar that rhymes with the guitar and in which Katrin from Dijon plays Đok from Novi Sad. When I got married in the summer of 1984 in that Istrian town by the sea, it didn't seem mesmerizing at all. More sleepy. It is located between the more famous destinations, Rovinj and Poreč. People who didn't want or couldn't afford a fancy beach in the neighborhood came here, or those who valued peace. At the hotel reception Belvedere, who looked very powerful for someone who had never slept in a seaside hotel before, started apologizing to my girlfriend and me. The hotel is full, nothing of a double room. But if we agreed... Long story short, they gave us a much more expensive bungalow on a slope above the sea. From the perspective of a cub who, since childhood, roamed around trade union camps in Boka or under tents in Makarska, the summer of that year in Vrsar seemed like a luxury only seen in the provincial cinema until then. In Vrsar, I realized that heaven exists, that it is close and that ordinary mortals like me can taste it. And all because my girlfriend studied tourism, so she knew how to find the best at the lowest price.
Gola Koversada
My girlfriend made sure that the idyll was not too sugar-coated. It was Sunday and at the hotel reception they told us that the only open pharmacy is a few kilometers down the coast - when we come across the entrance to Koversada we should ask there. That name meant nothing to me. The walk along the shore under the pine branches was pleasant. At the gate, which had a kind of porter's office, we asked for a pharmacy, the man directed us, just the right way. I noticed something was wrong. A middle-aged couple who passed us was completely naked. I saw a girl. She knew the answer - it's a nudist zone, the most famous in Yugoslavia.
I won't describe my own confusion - you don't know where to look. The people waiting in the pharmacy were naked. And the apothecaries in white coats, fully civilized. There was something infinitely funny about it. I don't remember, but I guess most people didn't shave their private parts back then. Probably the nudist beach was also an endless exhibition of underarm and crotch studs. All this was accompanied by a Babylonian commotion - tongues mingled over bare skin making a joyous sound collage.
Strangely, I also felt uneasy about the fact that we were the only ones dressed. A naked man on the street is a sensation, but so is a man in clothes in the middle of a nudist camp. I felt "like a stern in Tehran" as they would say in Bosnia. Good thing we picked up the medicine quickly and left. Of course, we talked about whether we too could be that free. Our heart wavered, cheering for the music from the decade of the "flower children" and the unconscious but strong urge of the patriarchal Balkans. I think the latter prevailed.
Vrsar 2018.
Returning to Vrsar after so much time for a September vacation was fraught with risk. In the ninth month in Istria, it can rain for days. But we were lucky - that cold girl who is looking for a cure in a nudist camp and I went to Vrsar together again - only now deep into the new millennium. Golden, sunny days are, as our kind hostess said, a real gift at the end of summer in Istria.
That Sunday brought a few surprises. Three and a half decades ago, we registered that there was Vrsar on the hill, but we did not go there. We had half board, so our life took place between the beach, the hotel restaurant and the bungalow. We would walk along the coast without going into restaurants and that would be it.
Already on the first day, we tried to find a hotel and a bungalow from the old, happy days. The hotel is closed for renovation. I felt like caressing his blue hair. The bungalows weren't where we left them either. They are probably renovated, lost in a row of typical tourist houses. We also walked to Koversada. Everything looked a little worn, but clean and tidy.
We decided that enough memories were enough and turned to the charms of today's Vrsar.
Lookout under the canopy
This time we were located close to the old town on the hill. That brought a completely different view of Vrsar. Already on the second morning, we didn't go straight down to the coast, but turned into Rade Končara Street, which winds through the upper town. The bell tower of St. Martin curved to the right. The hill is actually the original place where the settlement was established. Only later did Vrsar stretch along the coast as a tourist destination. The alleys around are quiet, unless a group of Bavarians or Dutchmen decide to roar through them making a noise they never do at home.
That September morning, we stumbled upon a place that deserves a more detailed description: a huge canopy of deciduous trees, a stone table and benches under it, and bar stools around it. We approach the fence that separates that natural terrace from the slope and the roofs that step down towards the sea. And then a series of islands - green bubbles on the blue surface of the water. They say there are 18 of them and they have names like Salamun and Orlandin. It didn't occur to me to count them. I just looked at them in love.
Needless to say, we spent the next two hours there, in the shade, with coffee and pastries. And that we didn't feel like going anywhere because it's clear that we found the beauty we were looking for.
Ladonja and people eating lotus
The tree that gives us deep 'lad' is called Ladonja. Literary Croatian has the name "black koprivić" for that tree, and Serbian "košćela". This specimen that was given to us is truly sumptuous. I read on the board for tourists what ladonjes are in Istria - they are places where deliberations were held, criminals were judged, where people gathered to talk, to make a deal or arrange a marriage. Ladonja is the Istrian name for the agora, sometimes there was no room for everyone who wanted to be in its shade.
Somewhere on the coast of North Africa, Odysseus met lotus-eaters - people who eat and offer lotus fruits to others. Two of Odysseus' companions liked those fruits and the peaceful "lotus-eating people" so much that they did not want to go any further. Odysseus had to drag them to the ship by force.
This ancient Greek "lotus" is associated by many with the fruit of the košćel, because the ladonja really produces sweet and edible fruits and is a very widespread Mediterranean tree.
My dear had to drag me to the beach almost by force. If she hadn't done that, I would have been sitting under Ladonja from Vrsar until today.
At the source
It's a great place to think about everyone who once lived here. Histri, a Venetian-Illyrian tribe, to whom Istria owes its name, were the first to create cities here. Until the Romans came (some Romans always come) and conquered Istria. The last Histarian king Epulon defended himself fanatically. His warriors killed their own wives and children to show the enemy what they were ready for. When there was no way out - Epulon killed himself. Afterwards, history unfolded like a famous film about various masters - the Franks, Byzantium, Venice, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Yugoslavia...
In Roman chronicles, the place is called Ursaria, Ursarium, Vrsarium, Orsaria, from which the Italian and Croatian names of the place - Orsera and Vrsar - can be derived. It is assumed that the pre-Mediterranean word for source - ur - entered the root of the name of the place because sailors stopped by this coast all the way to the entrance to the Lim Bay, where Vrsar was located, to get water.
In 1945, the town of a thousand or two souls was almost empty because the Italians fled, and people from Brač and Dalmatia settled there.
The first of the Histri tribe
The second stay in Vrsar only added to the old memory of paradise. The beaches are concrete slabs from which you descend into the sea at the well-maintained entrances. Evergreen trees above the benches with a view of the open sea and islands are abundant. On the advice of the landlady, we did not go to the fancy bars in the port, but declared a folk tavern as the canteen Sardines where Istrian wine and grilled sardines have a decent price and great taste.
Of course, we returned under Ladonja to be embraced by its shade while we looked, and we could not see the sea dotted with otters.
It seems that the advertising slogan of the city is correct - Orsera ispira (Vrsar inspires) - so I wrote something about the moments under Ladonja the night before leaving:
through the eyes of the first one from the Histri tribe, you can look at the bay and the islands, the brooches on the blue surface, but you can't catch his thought, maybe it wasn't even just admiration that makes the tongue sluggish, maybe something like a prayer to the water deity or a curse since there is no further, you look with those eyes but the thought escapes in salt, the first meanings are dissolved, the meaning of being alone is revealed, on a bright day, you are silent like many before you, while the sea speaks
Bonus video: