Pero and his bike

nedjelja, 22.12.2019.

With a girlfriend to the sea, again! The August 14th and 15th

You can come back on the previous part of this travelogue here.

The August 14th

If you don't want to read, skip the text and see the images of this day here.

It was (again) a sleeping to remember!
With the same epithet I was expecting a dream last night, but which caught me unprepared, so I fell asleep very quickly. I slept well, firmly and comfortably. We woke up satisfied and rested. Today and tomorrow we are on vacation, it means only the sun and the sea, but without bikes. It all was coming together very slowly, lightly and carefully, without a grain of imperative that something must be done, or that it must be done quickly.
We pitched the tent under the tall trees (Lombardy poplar) so that we were in the shade all day long. That shade, with the maestral wind which was blowing from the sea, twenty steps away, made it that it was not hot at any time of the day - just pleasantly warm.

Lombardy poplar trees in the camp

Our tent is the one on the left, so when we go straight between the tent and the car…

...we find ourselves on the beach trail

The beach was pebbly and sandy, wide enough so that it is not too crowded. The blue sea, which shyly receded on the sandy beaches, was slightly absent, but this did not bother to my companion, who is an even bigger fan of swimming in the sea than me.
The beach of the camp

When the sun was going west, reducing the radiation of the heat, somewhere after 6 pm, we decided to take a walk through the town. The campsite is located at the exit from the Omiš town towards the Split town so that we got only twenty minutes of a walk to the centre of Omiš.
In this light walk, step by step, we came to a great new church that we learned was somehow my namesake. It was the church of St. Peter and Paul. It was closed at the moment, but we found out when Mass was tomorrow, at Our Lady of the Assumption.
The new church in the Omiš town

Portal of the church

The altar of the church

When we got to the town, this new part on the west side of Cetina, we saw some crowd, a lot of people caught our attention. When we, also drowned in the crowd, we realized that we had become part of the spectators, even fans, of the local derby of "balote" (some kind of bowling). I hardly know the rules of this game, but I understood that these who played were not beginners, on the contrary! We stayed longer than expected because, with the quality of the game, the comments from the viewers were equally interesting.


The attraction of this small town on the Adriatic is undoubtedly a masterpiece of nature in the form of the mouth of the Cetina River. I spoke about it yesterday when we were at the entrance to the town . Now, when we are rested, the rocks, that have reluctantly moved away for the river to flowed to the sea, take on a second impression. Although, like yesterday, they were arouse awe, this time it was with less fear and more respect. I don't know about others, but every time I am amazing at something like this. With admiration, there is an unavoidable sense in me of my insignificance, my smallness, to the extent that, out of this awe, I try to breathe quietly, let alone speak.
Looking from the right bank across the road, above those a few houses that have miraculously found the space between the river and the rock to place somehow , on the rock lies, apparently, the main fort that once upon a time, together with it which we saw yesterday, were controlling the entrance to the then town.
View to the other side of the river Cetina

The main fort above the town

The people, obviously tourists, that I saw at the fortress were very important to me. So, there was an entrance somehow, it was my conclusion, and right behind it the decision that I would become one of these tourists tomorrow.
The following is an easy hike over the bridge. Although easy, it was much higher speed than the traffic in both directions on the bridge. Just behind the bridge, on the left bank of the river, is a traffic light, which allows pedestrians to cross the Adriatic main road, of which this bridge is a part. It is for not to beleve, but even today, all traffic on the Adriatic Highway passes through the center of Omiš. But it won't be for long, as a detour around the city is under construction. When done, it will be interesting to ride it, since most of it will go through tunnels and also over the bridge over the river Cetina. Speaking of that detour, here's a image where will be the detour bridge under, taken the next day.
By the upper tunnel will be passed the future detour

In addition to the main street, which is still an integral part of the Adriatic main road, there is a parallel street on the north side of the town, which is a true Dalmatian old street. It has been paved with stone slabs a few centuries ago, so it is already polished to its maximum smoothness. In the evening there is a crowd of tourists on it. It is clear that it has long been granted the status of a pedestrian zone, so it is a pleasure at least to walk through, if nothing else will be consumed from food, drink, souvenirs and other offers.
Old part of the Omiš town

Crowd in the old part of Omiš

Here is also an old local church, even an open one, so we entered both out of tourist curiosity and a pilgrimage initiative. Both reasons were more than sufficient to keep us in an interesting and comfortable environment for longer than expected. After all why not, so let’s not rush! And when one is in no hurry, everything looks nicer.
Old church in the old part of Omiš…

... and its altar

It is amazing that at the moment when nothing is worth producing in Croatia, and when I hear constant efforts to close some factories along the Adriatic coast and turn it into something touristy, in the center of Omiš is an old pasta factory that still works. Not only that, the building itself is a beauty of industrial architecture.
Cetinka Pasta Factory

In the end, we toured the seafront where sailboats rested, I guess, from today's cruise with tourists. As a special attraction of one of them,I watch the patient siren above the bow.
Sailboats

One sailboat is guarded by a siren

The August 15th

If you don't want to read, skip the text and see the images of this day here.

The main feature of this day is the fort above the town. If it wasn't for it, there would be almost nothing to write about this day.
After a Mass at the church of my name, my companion decided to stick to the shade and the sea, so I set out to explore the views from the fort by myself.
The sun was warming very well, just as it should in mid-August, so the climbing the high stairs of the fortress well quickens the breath and intensifies the heartbeat. The entrance is symbolic of 15 kuna (2€) which, as I later became convinced, is worth every part of it. The truth is, to reach that realization, I had to take a good breath in climbing the stairs which were too high. The images below are from the entrance upwards, filmed with a looking back.








Now that I have climbed to the fort by the stairs, I start the story about the gorge through which the river Cetina flows.




No matter how hard I try, I cannot understand the way of thinking, the emotional state of indifference and disinterest of anyone who would be left without impression by the canyon at images above. And again, I don't find words to describe a scene whose only a fraction of the overall impression you see in those shots. So, I only hope that the truth is that one picture worth like a thousand words.
But, one visit is worth like a thousand pictures! I was realizing that while watching the canyon from over the fort.
Once upon a time, someone came up with the idea, still effective today, to build a hotel on a cliff above the canyon. I did not check how much would cost me enjoying in waking up with the view of the rocks above the water.




The bridge, the only one for now, but not for long, which here connect the banks of the Cetina river seems like a grey line, truth, a little bold, which with its greyness connects the grey rocks on both sides of the river.


From this position, you can see the more or less flat ground on which the newer part of the city is located, together with the new church of my namesake on the right bank of the river.
Looking further from the bridge, I follow the last meters that the river passes peacefully and with dignity in anticipation of a solemn moment of connecting with the peace of the sea.
The Cetina River flows…

... towards the sea (on the left at the image is the city beach)

When my soul got drunk of that moment of trembling, for as long as it could bear it, I carried it, slowly and delicately, gently and carefully, so as not to disturb the flicker, to the entrance to the fort. There it would, in the abundant shade of the bougainvillaea, calm, hush, gather, silence and return to its place, storing all the possible elements of that trembling. Each time when this town, its river and its canyon, will be mentioned, it will re-enact the melody of a scene now indelibly recorded.
That the choice of the shade of that flower was the right choice was shown to me by the simple soul of a child, who, like mine, needed to calm its trembling. But, it's for a child's soul something every day and nothing out of the ordinary. It is only when a person grows up that the idea of the daily need for the trembling of the soul will be suppressed, declared unworthy and nuisance. As a substitute for that, he sets himself the imperatives of calmness, control, rationality and immersion in the murky waters of mediocrity. And it gradually sinks into the greyness of feelings of unfulfillment and unhappiness much greater than the greyness of the rocks of this canyon.
And all he had to do was to keep the child inside himself.
And something can be learned from children too

On my way back to the camp, I still had traces of that restlessness in my soul. While I was crossing the bridge, it greeted me, once again, the canyon, setting itself up with the sun in the most beautiful pose that it could, wishing to enter in eternity with the shot of my camera. You may tell what you want, but I know that he did it out of warm gratitude to me that I dedicating to it for a few moments from the years of my life when I was up at the fort.
But, I didn't have to!
Cetina River Canyon viewed from the bridge over it

It took me about fifteen minutes of easy walking to the camp to slowly and gently lower myself to the ground, that is, to the asphalt. It was about 2 pm Sunday, so no one was on the street. Even the traffic had somehow reduced, subsided, as if it were 2 am.
I walked b< the footpath where I saw the notice for the dog owners that it was their duty to clean up what the dog had left after it has done what it has done.


I probably spent the rest of the afternoon in nothing, but I don't remember it at this time as I write these lines. It will be that the trembling of the soul was still going on and completely overshadowed the events that had taken place the rest of the day. Or it wasn't worth mentioning. It is this Dalmatian daze which, like a contagion, engulfs the body and soul of a hot summer afternoon, so, one tends to just sit (or better yet, lie down) without thinking.
But because when the sun approaches the horizon at the end of the day, the restlessness that appears in the soul and prompts the body to search for someone and something. So we, this time with bicycles, went for a relaxed, casual and easy ride around the city. If there are no uphill, the bike is the perfect vehicle for doing so, because, with almost no effort (a habit which left from afternoon), plenty can be toured.
So, we stopped for a part of the time watching a live water polo match. Watching them try their best to sink in each other, I wonder how much seawater is consumed per person.
The water polo in live

The Sinking action

There is also a huge sandy beach with the town beach status. It is wide enough to have sandy surfaces and for those who like lying on the sand while being abundantly sunlit by the rays of the sun. There are also small, stunted conifer trees (which I do not know how they are surviving in this sandy desert), for those who love sand, but also shade.
Sandy areas are still abundant for various activities, such as beach volleyball. In a word, who loves sandy beaches, Earthly Paradise.
On the town beach

You can view the continuation of this travelogue here.

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