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Knin - Split Part One
If you don't want to read, skip the text and see the images of this journey here.
Instead of an introduction
I warn you that follows an introspection of the condition in my head that preceded this ride. If you are not interested in it, feel free to skip and go to "Day Zero".
I don't know what kind of desires, wills, delights, hopes, anxieties, sorrows and everything else that is vaguely called thoughts are in other people's heads. To be honest, I don’t even know completely what all of this is in my head, but I’m trying to figure it out, at least a little bit. When I'm doing it, little of it becomes clearer. Rather it will be that with the arrival of new thoughts everything gets even more blurred, so everything starts all over again.
Since I was young, when I was a boy, I’ve heard from the older ones around me that everything is simple when you’re young and that I’ll see what it’s like when you get older.
Well, it's been three years since I've entered the seventh decade of my life. It's getting harder and harder for me to sort out this mess that's going on in my head. Nothing is simple, easy and fast, no matter how it may seem. It is as if I am in a period when desires flash like a flame with their appearance and pamper my soul, giving it new meaning, serenity and liveliness. But not long after, they start to begin to fade. In the end, it becomes a small flame, like a match when lit. Eventually, that flame becomes a weak smoke as a memory of a deceased wish which had not taken on clearer outlines in its short life.
How and what is the cause that in youth these desires success to shine with a great flame, and last a long, long time, until they are fulfilled by realization? Through my life, did I lose something that helped me make my wishes come true? Or maybe I got something that makes that realization of wishes difficult, confusing and hindering?
It seems to me that rather is the latter!
As I getting older, I lost faith, determination, and optimism, and I got fear, doubt, and shame.
Fear and doubt hold back, paralyze, and after the desire is extinguished, shame appears. That shame of the worst kind, the shame of oneself to oneself. The shame from which is hardest to escape, the shame that stings painfully indicating what a man comes down to when he is overwhelmed by fear and doubt.
Why I chose this particular this tour I don't know completely myself. In that murky sea of everything in my mind, the images of the places that await me on this journey were occasionally clarified to me. Some of those places I have already visited, so out of some melancholy, nostalgia or something else, a desire to visit it again has appeared. Some other places I have never had the opportunity to visit, so that was, for a start, a sufficient reason to visit them.
All this, I have already said, was foggy in my head, until I began to listen in detail to the stories and look at the pictures of the Knin Fortress. So, more or less, finally, a concrete vision of the answer to the question of where and how I shall ride has crystallized.
So the desire is born! Will this one lasts just as long as the flame of a match too?
As soon as that desire appeared, immediately, the two of them, fear and doubt, started to work. Too bad I couldn’t write down those various predictions of theirs, there would be an excellent script for horror movies that would, I’m sure, become real blockbusters.
From the first, and then every next second, my creative and black chronicle-enriched imagination created events, so intricate, complex and elaborate that I don’t know how filmmakers would cram them into as little time as one film lasts. It shocked me that there was no end to the creation of that fictitious horror! It is as if the previously imagined scene becomes the creator of a new, even more cruel, even more eerie, even scarier. Only a strong shaking of the head, only a return to reality with that "Oh God, where does it go!", only a deep sigh with the movement of the body for some concrete activity could interrupt this creatively black process of my imagination.
All this confused and burdened me. I had to find something that would at least make a balance so that I could stand on my feet with difficulty and effort, but still safely and stably.
I found that something is hope.
With hope, one can live nicely for a while.
Given that the day of the decision, when it should finally and concretely start the ride, I was creating beautiful, bright, and even pink, hypothetical images of my imagination of the ride. However, as the day of the concrete riding was approaching, the idealized image alternated with the already mentioned horror predictions.
Another objective, but very influential fact got involved - the weather, more precisely the sun.
If it wasn't raining, and after the rain, a bora followed, then it was very hot, so that mental game in my head, like "I shall go, I shall not go", came down to the latter until the end of August, when the final decision had to be made.
If I give up and send everything to hell, I will be left with the security and peace of my home, but bitterly, too bitterly spiced with the shame towards myself.
The problem arises when the hope, disappears, goes out, unfulfilled.
I'm not entirely sure (at this age I'm not even sure of anything), but it seems to me that the bitterness of that shame forced me to a kind of revolt, which drove me, encouraged me, pushed me even into the final decision: "I GO !!
I quickly started with concrete, material, technical, organizational and other preparations and activities, almost in a panic, not allowing myself even a second to think "Should I go or not?" in desperate fear of giving up, and what would follow after that.
The day zero
Before the concrete story one more note. I filmed everything interesting to me with two technical aids. First is my longtime companion - the Olympus C750 camera, still interesting to me primarily because of the 10X optical zoom. The second is the "smart" cell phone Samsung A7, whose special value is in the form of two lenses, the second of which is small focal length, ie ultra-wide, suitable for shooting in narrow city streets.
You will recognize the camera images by the 4: 3 format which I show in the image below
While the cell phone is doing 16: 9 format images, which I show in the image below
Here, let it be known if that is important to someone.
And so one afternoon, at the end of August, I asked my the most beautiful, best, etc life companion to take me, together with the equipment and a bicycle, by car from Požega to Nova Gradiška.
There I will take the train to Zagreb. And not only did she transfer me, but she also helped me put the bike, along with the saddlebags, in the wagon. More precisely, she accepted him in the wagon while I lifted the bike towards her. When, after the bike, I got in the car, I spent a second of her precious time to give her a kiss for goodbye. After such a warm greeting, she quickly got out of the wagon where she was "greeted" by an objection from the train dispatcher that she could not just jump out of the wagon like that, what if he gave the signal and the train started,
what if she fell under the train, what if ... I don't know if she listened to him, but she didn't look him. She looked at me, who was at the window of the wagon. She looked at me with a discreet, barely noticeable, but warm smile leftover from the "incident" in the wagon that stole, for a train dispatcher, that crucial second.
I had a little more than two hours to get to Zagreb, so I stayed to keep a company to my bike in the space intended for him. There were also seats, small but enough for me to have a comfortable trip.
A little more than an hour and a half, which I had in Zagreb before the train left for Split, I spent a light ride to the main square to see how it looks dressed in the festive attire of a warm summer evening.
After the square, I drove a few hundred meters to Tkalčićeva Street, where I drank a draft beer in the "Mali medo (Little bear)" pub. There I evoked memories when in this pub with my son, along with this kind of liquid, I discussed everyone and everything. Since I live in the belief that I have done my parenting role well, this enjoyment of the cold, sparkling liquid was heightened by the pleasant memories of ending one of my life periods.
Tkalčičeva is a street in the old part of the town, so it is pleasant to look at old, but still beautifully decorated buildings, such as this one, for example, across the table where I was sitting.
That reality is more imaginative than the most imaginative imagination, and that we don’t need to worry, because what we care about doesn’t usually happen, the train situation convinced me. In those horror predictions of mine, I was convinced that the train would be empty, that I would be alone, not only in the compartment but in the whole wagon, that someone would rob me while I slept, that the robber would beat me. ...., and instead all of that - a crowd. It was not man by man, but there was nothing from sleeping in a lying position.
Confused by the unexpected, I reconciled with it and sat down in the compartment by the door. The train left at 11 pm and arrives in Knin at 4.30 am. This was followed by a nap in a sitting position where I woke up a hundred times. Thus, during one of those hundreds of awakenings, I saw the inscription "Vrhovine" in the deaf Lika night.
Remembering the long-ago bike ride through that place, I was sorry it was night and that I wouldn’t repeat something I liked then.
I let my thoughts float indefinitely and fell asleep again.
At 3.30 am I was awakened by a young man sitting next to me because he was going out in Gračac.
And that would be all about sleeping this night.
After Gračac I went to the bike, put saddlebags on it and spent time trying to see something in the dark through the window. After a few tunnels. I spotted a road along the railroad. So, we climbed at Malovan, the pass between Gračac and Knin, which was for riding in some extended version of this journey. However, I postponed cycling on it for some other time.
The day first
You can see the map of the first day of the journey here.
Unexpectedly for the Croatian Railways, the train arrived in Knin just in time, at 4.30 am.
Now I had to wait for dawn, so over two hours. A glimmer of hope for pleasant anticipation of sunlight was given to me by the waiting room door, which was new, real PVC joinery. But the hope did not even come true. The locked door extinguished it, and the extinguished hope turned to a longing look at the comfortable seats in the closed waiting room.
All I had to do was satisfy with the seats outside on the platform (bottom shot was taken from the train, three days later, on my way back from Split to Zagreb).
The train I came on was still standing on the platform. The locomotive rumbled loudly, and around it, as well as around the train, the station staff moved, each with work responsibilities known to them. Watching it all together, I forgot for a moment that it was still the dead of night. I became aware of this when the train continued its journey towards Split, and the station staff crept into their chambers in the station building - I was left alone with dead silence. At first, as far as the air temperature was concerned, it was bearable for me.
Then a quiet breeze began to blow lightly which was insidiously cold. I was getting cold, so I put on all the possible clothes I had in my saddlebags, including my cap and gloves. It's a shame, it's still summer, some of will tell, which I tried to convince myself, but I had no success in that. I was left to gather like a dog in the windstorm and patiently endure the insidious breeze.
The station building, along with the entire station, sank into a deaf, dark, and chilled silence. It's as if it has looked like this for hundreds of years and as if it will look like this for at least that long. In a word, as if time had stopped.
In fear of shivering, I huddled in the seat, I tried to nap by thinking as unrelated thoughts as possible, in intention to fall asleep, and with it, the hands-on the station clock would move surprisingly quickly.
It moved, but not overly surprising. In a way, the sleep torment I experienced on the train was repeated. I close my eyes, I sail away with my thoughts, I open my eyes - 5 minutes have passed. I close them again, hold them for a moment or two, open them - 20 minutes have passed. And so alternately.
The darkness around me gradually faded. A thin curvy line somewhere up between the darkness and the sky hinted at the massif of the mountain and the sun behind it that I so eagerly awaited. Needless to say, with the advent of dawn, that breeze intensified. The coldest part of the day followed in front of me.
I tried to ignore that fact as I watched the mountain in front of the station more and more amazed at its size as the light of the coming day grew stronger and stronger. I was in front of the highest mountain in Croatia - Dinara.
Everything passes, including this, in many ways strange night. Sometime about when the cold was getting closer to the endurance limit,
I decided to get up, get on my bike in hopes that physical activity would warm me up. But before warming up, there was additional cooling due to the wind while driving, so I drove not very far, only to the street in front of the station building. I saw a cafe where I noticed a couple of people drinking morning coffee through a large glass, although at the door was a notice that said they had only been working since 7 am. I looked at my watch - ten to seven. Shyly through the open door, I asked the waitress at the bar if they were working?
A short affirmative answer, just a short word YES, warmed me like a blazing fireplace. I parked my bike so I could keep an eye on it, walked into the cafe, sat down at the table, and ordered tea. On request "What kind?" I answered whichever, just that it is hot, a little irritated by the unnecessary delay of meeting with the hot liquid.
Holding a warm cup in my cold hands and sipping a pleasantly hot liquid, I was aware that the nightmare of this night was behind me, that I had endured all possible hardships and troubles and that there could be nothing in front of me but something beautiful and pleasant, something that would give multiple meaning to my suffering.
And it was like that!
Warmed and revived, I went back to my bike and bought breakfast at a nearby bakery. After that, I went back to that seat on the platform, which was sunny, and therefore it looked to me somehow looking far nicer, warmer and more acceptable than before an hour or two while I waited for the sun in the morning.
Nice! I warmed up with tea, refreshed myself with breakfast and now follows the real start of the ride.
(Now I just realized how much I wrote, and I haven't started riding yet).
As a true fan of the railway from a young age, first follows a few words of the railway station where I have been waiting for the sun for three hours, although it seems to me that I have changed three planets. There is an amazing drastic difference between the impression of an unknown place being reached in the dead of night, and the impression later, when that same place is lavishly bathed in the abundant rays of the sun!
Concerning the above picture, when I turned myself to the right by ninety degrees, I saw this famous Knin fortress up on the hill, which was straight in front of me.
To the right in the picture above, an 11-061 steam locomotive is parked, which remembers better days.
Such a miserably neglected it speaks of the state in which more or less all the world's railways are today, including the Croatian Railways. Also, perhaps, it speaks about the general state of mind of today.
By the way, it was produced in GANZ-MAVAG plants in Hungary and was often seen on Ex-Yu lines. Here is a picture from 1966 from the railway station in the Križevci town. This locomotive on the left in the picture below is the one I’m talking about right now.
(Source: https://www.zeleznice.in.rs/forum/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=304&start=80)
When I went out on the street, the station building looked like this.
I suppose you've had enough of the Knin railway station, so it's high time for me to move on. This time towards the fortress. With the help of a local, I easily found the way to the fort. The road was steep and narrow, but also paved, so there is no problem for cars. It wasn't for me either, except that I, breathless, still relented and continued on foot.
In front of some kind of entrance to the fortress, there was a larger extension so that even the laziest ones can drive their tin pets till of the entrance itself. Luckily for me, because loneliness suited me, there were not people this sunny morning.
I passed, together with the bicycle, this "tunnel" under the house in the picture above, looking for a pay desk where I would pay for the entrance in the fortress. But I didn't find anything. In general, no one anywhere, and the entrance to the fortress was wide open. Oh, either way, I shrugged resignedly and entered the fortress.
Going through the (again) “tunnel,” I turned to see what it looked like on the other side.
According to Wikipedia, the oldest part of the fortress, Kaštel Knin was built in the second half of the 9th century. Over the centuries, it was conquered, demolished and built by Hungarians, Turks, Venetians, French and Austrians. The fortress is located in the southern part of the hill Spas and is located 100 meters above the town of Knin.
It is 470 meters long and 110 meters wide at its widest part. The defensive walls that surround it in the length of almost 2 kilometres are in some places up to 20 meters high. It is located at 345 meters above sea level.
Knin Fortress can be divided into five parts: upper Town (Gornji grad - Kaštel Knin), Middle Town (Srednji grad - Garišta), Down Town (Donji grad), Bandjera (Kaštel Lab) and Belveder station. Each of these parts of the fortress can also be considered an independent fortified town.
There is more on Wikipedia, but I wouldn't bother you with that now. Who is interested should go to https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kninska_tvr%C4%91ava
I would rather share my impressions with you. And there are plenty of them!
First, the microclimate.
An hour later, I will connect individual impressions of the climate of this area into one concrete whole and conclude that it is an original of its kind. I suppose because of the mountain environment, during a night cold air descends in the valley, where the town is (like that quiet, but also insidious breeze that I felt very well this morning at the station). However, the town and its surroundings are quite far to the south. There are no real large forests, mostly karst and stone are here. There is no refreshing breeze mainly, so as soon as the sun appears, it immediately becomes warm, very warm.
I noticed this myself when I arrived at the fortress, how noticeable is the big difference in temperature between the shade, which kept the freshness from last night, and the sunny part which the sun already warms well, regardless of the position of the clock hands.
The second is that abundant sunshine that makes everything, from the smallest part to the general scene, is lavishly lit, on the border of the surreal, almost fairy-tale.
And third, I was alone in that lavishly lit, warm, fairytale environment. Which didn't bother me at all, on the contrary!
I indulged in the pleasure of lazily walking around the fortress, watching, smelling, listening, recording. In doing so, I always tried to keep an eye on my bike. Yes, there is no one, but still ...
With the following images, I try to show you the ambience of the fortress where I watched, smelled ... etc, etc.
But what impressed me far more than the fortress itself, with all due respect to it, is the view from it.
So let me start from the view to the north.
You notice, I suppose, some kind of a road that gradually climbs along the slope of the hill shown on the left side of the image above. That is not a road. That is the railway to Gračac and Gospić, which I arrived in Knin by train last night, in the dead of night.
As I write these lines, I have a road map of Croatia in front of me, and if I read it correctly, the highest peak of the mountain in the picture above is Orlovica, 1201 meters altitude.
After I moved the camera a little to the right I filmed the following
The valley in which the town of Knin is located has a name, you would never guess - The Knin's valley (Kninsko polje). The picture above shows its northern part. There is a passage between the two hills. This passage continues further north in the form of a narrow valley in Butišnica stream murmurs. To keep the stream from getting bored, there is a road and a railway next to it. Unfortunately, since politicians cannot agree, trains, known as the Una Railway, have not been used by trains for more than 20 years. And if they drove, then they would get to Zagreb much faster through Martin Brod, Bihać, and Sunja than via Gračac and Gospić.
But the road is still in use. It leads to Grahovo, Drvar and other places in Bosnia. For me, this road is a kind of silent suffering of my soul, because for years I have been planning a ride along with the Una, which, via Drvar and Grahovo, and this valley of the Butišnica stream, I would end up in this town where I was currently.
So far, that ride is just a wish, but one day ...
The scene shown in the picture below is one of the most impressive to me.
If we start from the lower part, we see the Knin railway station. Considering that Knin is a big railway hub because from it the railway goes on 4 sides, the station is really big. About the station later, let's take a look slowly upwards, where you can see the scattered suburbs of the town. And finally, when we get to the upper part of the picture where we see the impressive Dinara mountain with the eponymous peak 1830 m altitude.
While I was observing that mountainous environment around the town, it became a little clear to me where that insidious, cold breeze came from, which questioned my mental abilities in the early morning of this day.
Moving the lens of my camera further to the right, straight down, below me, as if on a tray, I have the already mentioned station.
Maybe I didn't choose the right timing, because all these above pictures from the fortress would surely have looked better if I had taken them in the late afternoon when the sun was on the other side. But this time I had an interesting flash of sunlight from the rail, ran straight into the lens of my camera.
Again I moved with the lens to the right following the railroad on it's way to the south. I noticed that after to call it the Central Station, just a hundred meters away was some other, let's call it the Freight Station.
Trains that do not stay long in Knin, continue their journey south on the far right track, by crossing the river Krka with a lattice bridge which is shown in the picture above.
Continuing that turn to my right, I came to a view to the south where I saw my near future in the form of a climbing road trying to pass between two hills.
For a moment, that future seemed sinister to me because, planning this trip by looking at maps, images on the net, and Google Earth, I didn’t notice such a climb. Well, who knows how many times, the saying that says "one picture as a thousand words, and one visit as a thousand pictures" proved to be true.
Well, to reach that ascent, I would need to cross the river Krka. I will do this over the bridge in the picture below.
After I made three-quarters of a circle around myself taking these pictures above, I realized that the fortress is located on a kind of cape, a cliff that is surrounded on the south side by the river Krka.
Continuing this rotation around me, I finally filmed the canyon of the river Krka.
One of those four railway routes from Knin is to Benkovac and Zadar. The first ten kilometres it goes through this canyon with a larger number of tunnels. One of them the sharp eye of a careful observer can spot in the picture above.
Although I lowered the camera after shooting the above shot, my gaze remained on the scene. More precisely, it continued to make the next round, slowly, patiently, wanting not to miss a single detail of this area. I lost track of myself, of the place, of the time, of anything. All that remained was observation and absorption. Even the blink of an eye seemed to me like a pointless and futile waste of time, so much needed at this moment to absorb all this around me.
And then I was startled by asking myself, “What am I doing !? Well, I haven’t even set out on a journey yet, and here I’m wasting time so lavishly.
Heavy-hearted, with one leaden sigh, I finally started, picked up my bike, and left this building. From now on, Knin will never be what it has been till this day. From today every time I hear that name of this town, I will pause for a moment with raised eyebrows and move in a flash in my rich memory of this fort.
That's how I thought that I experienced the main thing from this town.
What a delusion!
In my plans for this trip before leaving this town I need to visit something else - the Krčić waterfall. It was located on the eastern edge of Kninsko polje, some 4 km from the town centre.
After descending into the town, first through the town itself, and then through the suburbs, and finally, after crossing the north-south main road, I took a noticeably narrower road to the east.
Not far from where I took the image above, I come to a small intersection. If I turn right on it, I will reach the foot of the waterfall, but if I continue straight, after the ascent the waterfall will be somewhere down to my right.
I will go around both options, but first I continued straight, with a slight ascent. I filmed the road in front of me, but since the sun was also in front of me (because the road leads to the east) the image is “blurred” due to too much sunlight which was shinning toward the camera.
That's why, after a few tens of meters of riding, I turned around and filmed the same road again, but this time with the sun behind me, so the lighting is as it should be.
Krčić Waterfall should be left down in that darkness. I didn’t see it from the road, which makes sense to me given the terrain and the darkness. True, I didn't hear it, which is a little strange to me, but I attribute it to the damping of the vegetation, and the way the water flows. Later it will turn out that I was very effectively deceived, real autosuggestion, a man believes in what he wants to believe, but about that later.
After a couple of dozen meters of riding, I turned around and filmed the same road again, but this time with the sun behind me, so the lighting is as it should be.
I completely forgot about the lack of noise that a waterfall should make. The reason for it was that I have been overwhelmed by the enthusiasm for this narrow road and the environment in which it passed. At one place in its construction, the builders had an almost vertical rock in front of them. They found a place for the road by compromising between that vertical rock and a larger sub-wall.
The complete absence of traffic, with the abundance of light that the sun, along with the heat radiated, and with quiet, allowed me moments of complete intoxication with the sight. I scanned the view from the vertical rock and the sparse vegetation on it, to the narrow but still paved road, without traffic and therefore ideal for enjoying pedalling. Then over a stone-walled bumper, which gives passengers on the road a sense of security by separating from the abyss, and finally to a larger sub-wall, neatly, even nicely walled with stone blocks.
It has been more than 200 years since diligent hands carved and stacked those stone blocks. Namely, this road from Knin to Kievo was a part of the road that connected the Illyrian provinces during Napoleon's rule in this area.
The desire to ride through this cycling paradise quickly passed me by when I reached the end of the asphalt. Also, the canyon of vertical cliffs, through which I had just passed, was reduced to a gentle valley. So I went back.
I had a desire, I had it, to shoot a waterfall from this road, here from a high level. But the greenery and the terrain itself did not allow me to do so, at least it seemed so to me. Therefore, instead of a waterfall, I filmed only the access path to it, which is barely seen in the picture below. That was due to the contrast between abundant sunshine and thick shade.
I went back to that intersection, and I turned left toward the path that, leads to the waterfall, leastways I lived in that belief. The trail was arranged like a promenade. Paved with stone slabs that weren’t very comfortable to ride a bike on, to put it mildly.
The whole time I was confused by the silence, or rather the murmur of the water. For a waterfall, I somehow expected a louder sound.
And then I came in front of the waterfall, more precisely in front of the place where it was supposed to be.
Confused, I stared at the sight of a waterfall that is gone. It amazed me with what degree of conviction I ignored the lack of sound of a waterfall as I drove upstairs on the Napoleon Road. I trusted to the gathered information and my desire for its existence more than what my ears kept convincing me off.
There is no waterfall, it has dried up!
Later, much later, after returning home, I found on the internet a little more detail and learned that it was "normal" for the waterfall to happen over the summer, what happened to it now - to dry up.
The initial confusion quickly turned into disappointment, but I quickly interrupted its further transformation into dejection. I reconciled myself with missing of the waterfall and thus tried to "compensate" for its absence. But before that, let me illustrate to you what I expected so much.
I found this:
But I expected this:
( The above image borrowed from http://klajo-blog.com/slap-krcic/)
The creek, which murmured along the trail, provided me the much-needed straw of salvation of my dignity which was blurred by the absence of the controversial waterfall. That straw appeared in the form of an intriguing curiosity shaped into, at first glance, illogicality - where did the creek was coming from if the waterfall dried up !? So I continued to walk slowly along the creek, opposite its flow, curiously observing it and its surroundings, in anticipation of the answer to the question - where did it coming from!
I crossed the bridge first. I couldn't push the bike further along the bumpy promenade, so I left it to guard the bridge by leaning it against the fence.
Before that, I took a view from the bridge on both sides. Upstream of the bridge, I didn't catch by my camera anything than water because the abundance of sunlight bounced off the surface of the clear crystal water, so the camera sensor didn't see anything else.
Unlike the scene above, this one downstream bathed abundantly in sunlight, although the creek itself seemed cultivated calm.
So, in that upstream promenade, I first passed a small lake, and behind it a series of cascades that the water was skipping, with profusely foaming.
And finally, I found the answer to the question of where that creek came from - out of the rock!
I came to its wellspring.
And then I realized!
I was ashamed, the most embarrassing one - shame on myself! How is it that me, an "European and intellectual", did not connect two and two all this time during planning this trip, during today's tour of the fortress, and during the tour of the town and this place - that I was at the wellspring of the river Krka!
However I left the shame later, it was suppressed by the scene unfolding in front of me. The crystal, clear, transparent liquid was slowly, cautiously, even lazily coming out from under the rock. After that, it quietly and slowly was dragging itself into the light of this morning, sleepy ever since the dream spent in the darkness of the rocky insides. And only when it woke up to the end, faster or better, running merrily, it continued to skip the stone cascades.
While I was staring at the scene, my body moved and took a few steps in the direction of the sparkling cascades. It was as if it separated from me (me !? who am I !?) and went its way without even considering what my eyes were watching at.
I could only begin to wonder where this dichotomy in me came from, but that embryo failed to develop into something concrete. It turned out that, at least sometimes, I should listen to what is hidden in myself. And that hidden of mine, a little while ago while I was searching for the wellspring, was noticed the scene to which it now brings me back. And that scene was noteworthy and respectable.
It was a small lake in which the awakened water stopped after skipping the cascades to rest once more, wake up, gather strength for the journey and after that, it slowly moves towards the Adriatic.
The rock across from me is vertical and high enough. So I, along with the virginally clear water in front of me, found myself in the shade. In that shade, it still was the freshness from the last night, untouched by today's sunlight. All around me is the freshness of the air, the absence of anything else, both people and animals, the only thing left is the smell of clean water. All that, and most of all that smell of water, began to transfer me in a flash to some other times and some other scenes of my life.
Scene one: I am a boy, 6-7 years old, winter, snow, frost outside, and I am in a warm and cosy room. Mother enters the apartment briskly with that “Brrr! How cold is outside! ” and brings in the laundry that was outside to dry. It didn't dry out, so it looked like dried cod. But it brought with itself the scent of coldness, freshness and purity, just like my nose feels now from this water.
Scene Two: The year 1985, I cycled, along with my brother, the canyon of the Tara River. At the place where the road was closest to the river, just a few meters away, the brother suggested swimming in the river. He did take a bath, even swim, but I went into the water and realizing how cold the water was, got out quickly. As I stepped out of the icy water and I smelled the scent of coldness, freshness and purity, just like my nose feels now from this water.
Scene three: In 2014, with the most beautiful, the best, the most lovely ... and the rest of the best, my life companion, I cycled around Herzegovina and we pause at the source of the river Buna in Blagaj. For a long time, I stood there by the water enchanted and my spirit transferred to another time and another place, while the abundance of clean water, just coming out from under a huge vertical rock, brought me the smell of cold, freshness and purity, just as my nostrils feel now from this water.
Scene four .....
And then I was startled, even flinched, almost in fear that someone would watch me and then scolded “So what am I doing !? Time passes and I am still in Knin !? ”
No one was watching me except myself. I admitted to myself that he was right and that it was time to move on. It is a pity, it is a great pity to leave this place which so vividly and strikingly shows me the beautiful, even the most beautiful moments of my life.
Heavy-hearted and leaden legs, I headed for the bike.
As a lover to the ears, who at parting looks back and gives another look to his beloved, I turned and filmed, in my opinion, a masterpiece of the builder of Napoleon Road - that stone sub-wall.
Passing back along the narrow street I came from, I filmed old stone houses, typical of the Dalmatian hinterland.
There are enthusiasts here who keep the tradition of the people who live in this area. I was convinced in it by the house in which the association Naše ognjište (Our hearth) is located.
It was already 10 am, the sun was warming up well, so, remembering what was still waiting for me in today's trip, I tried to convince myself that was enough of Knin touring, and that I should get out of it as soon as possible. And really, I set out to drive harder on the busy town streets giving up on stopping and filming the town itself.
But…
A large, monumental church was built on a large clearing, which was without any buildings, even though it is almost the centre of the town. In size, it looked to me like a cathedral. I just couldn't help but violate my principles which I had just set for myself a moment earlier, so I stopped in front of the church.
According to Wikipedia, with an area of about 780 square meters and 1,100 seats, it is the largest church in Croatia. It was consecrated on August 4, 2015, by the Bishop of Šibenik, Msgr. Ante Ivas.
I watched it amazed at its size. However, I have a more traditional approach to sacral architecture, so modern churches do not impress me too much. Perhaps the reason for this is in my misunderstanding on my part, in not understanding the modern in the church as an institution. After all, I guess I can hide behind my age, and say that when a man turns sixty, he will be more traditional, if not conservative, than modern, if not liberal.
After all, do not discuss the tastes.
The huge bronze door was locked, so it prevented my curiosity will be satisfied, which was eager to see what such a large edifice looked like from the inside. Perhaps because of this, my vanity remained hurt, and as such influenced on my restrained impression of the church.
Again, for who knows how many times, I have reminded myself that I was still in this town and that it would be the ultimate, but ultimate time to get out of it. It must be admitted that my determination was at an enviable level. Breaking through the heavy traffic, I passed the railway station building again, just glancing at it and continuing south.
However, I stopped, it must be said short, just to make an image or two.
For the first time, the reason for this was the Catholic Church, which to my notion seemed “normal”.
This time the door was open, so I filmed the interior of the church.
According to Wikipedia, it was the Church of St. Anthony, which is located in the complex of the old Franciscan monastery. It was built on the site of an old Croatian church. The construction of the church with a bell tower (of 4 bells) began in 1860 and was completed in 1863. Due to the instability of the terrain, the church was thoroughly repaired in 1911.
Only a few tens of meters before, in the same street, there is an Orthodox church, ie the temple of the Most Holy Mother of God.
It was open too, so I took the opportunity to film its interior.
The original church of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God in Knin was built in the second half of the 19th century, in 1866 to be precise. (Source: https://www.tz-knin.hr/hr/istrazi/kulturna-bastina/sakralna-bastina/)
I crossed the river Krka on the bridge which
I filmed from the fortress, and after a hundred meters I started by uphill. It was 9.30 am when I passed the traffic board sign with the crossed name of the Knin. So I finally set off on my journey. But not very fast or enthusiastically. The climb in front of me seemed to be steeper and longer than it looked to me while I watched it from the fort.
I shrugged and accepted reality as it is. And it, that reality, besides the steep uphill, was spiced with heat, great heat. It was as hot as on the coast, only here there is no mistral, so the feeling of heat is even greater.
The uphill was not very long, only a kilometre, but it was quite steep (10%, officially announced by a traffic sign). That length of it, as well as the percentages of ascent, it seems to me, was doubled, so I, already well sweaty, saw with relief the sight of the pass.
After resting on the pass, returning my soul from my nose to where it should be, I set off to enjoy in the descent. Contrary to the ascent, the descent was significantly milder, and the road was straight, so the pleasure of driving downhill somehow lasted for a short time.
Upstairs, not long after the pass, when the greenery allowed me, I filmed the valley to the left of “my” road.
The valley was called the Kosovo valley, if I read the map well, and that mountain on the other side of the valley is Kozjak with the top of Bat 1207 m altitude. A keen eye of a careful observer will notice the railway in the valley in the picture above. In this morning, my train continued along this line towards Drniš on its way to Split.
The general impression of the environment I was driving through was peace, almost desolation. There was traffic, but very little, only a few cars rumbled by. There were houses, but I could barely see people, almost nothing. The land in the valley was meager, poorly cultivated, and the hills around are a mixture of gray stones and extremely sparse vegetation. Therefore it was my general impression of an environment was the place where time stood still, where “God said good night”.
Perhaps the locals themselves had a similar opinion about the environment in which they live. I concluded this based on the name of the place that was in front of me.
The place was called Zvjerinac. The name mean the place where a beasts live. Whether there are beasts in Zvjerinac, and what kind they are, I did not find out. I didn't even see much of the houses, they were scattered around. So somehow the railway station together with some factory (!) located in this desolation looked to me supernatural, even psychedelic.
And the factory is not some nameless, not at all! The name "Knauf" were on the vertical wall of the high hall. It was a famous German company engaged in the production of building materials. Here, gypsum boards are probably produced that are used for drywall construction.
As you can see from the images above, the road was wide with a good asphalt surface, a real main way, so I was surprised by the disproportion between its qualities and the density of traffic on it.
However, in my opinion, it was insidiously hiding one trap.
The asphalt was laid on a stone base. Behind the edge of the asphalt was immediately followed by vertical descent from the asphalt base over the stone blocks. The height of that descent was not significant, about 30 cm, but it was ominously camouflaged with thick grass. I guess it would spill myself nicely, or rather, fall off the bike if it crossed the unprotected edge of the road.
I remembered last year's ride on the Island of Hvar, on whose roads there are no bumpers, and the vertical abyss after the edge of the road used to be a meter or two, or even more. But at least I saw him, unlike this small but hidden abyss.
Then the road began to climb. True it seemed like a slight climb, but due to the heat and lack of wind, it looked steeper to me than it was. I know about this pass, this saddle, I am familiar with it while studying the maps in preparation for this trip. Then I realized that across this pass, along with the road, goes the railway too. I hastily concluded that it is hardly worth paying attention to it. But, whether because of the sun, which heated a lot or because of the wind, which is not there, mostly this climb made me sweat a lot (although I was, more or less sweating since Knin). So I "bit myself to the tongue" because of excessive self-confidence and hasty conclusions. From now on, I am richer for (another) cognition - not to underestimate any pass, no matter how easy it may seem at first glance.
Rebuking myself, while walking on a mild, and not too long ascent, during one of the breaks I turned around and filmed the Kosovo valley from where this road of mine climbs.
Almost at the very pass, we overlapped, me and the railroad, so that it elegantly skipped me by the overpass.
A few dozen yards away, I turned off the road onto some extension to catch my breath and sip the precious cold liquids from the thermos. When I put the thermos back in its place I felt a curious pair of eyes look at me. I realized that I had stopped at the entrance to the yard of the house whose boss was standing in front of it, some 15 yards away from me, and was watching me curiously. Whether I was the cause of his curiosity, so sweaty as I greedily drank the liquid, or it was my bicycle with saddlebags and other equipment, and perhaps a symbiosis of the two, I do not know. Anyway, as soon as our eyes met, I greeted him with "Good afternoon!"
For a long, long, long time, when I cycling, especially through rural and remote areas, whenever I meet someone's gaze, whichever it be curious, resigned or suspicious, at least I nod my head in greeting. If our eyes remain fixed on each other for more than a second, then I add the "Good afternoon!" It is interesting to me that in most cases the face of my new interlocutor changes from a barely noticeable flinch, through an equally barely noticeable smile, to a visible and sincerely kindness.
So it was this time as well. My new interlocutor's eyes widened a degree or two, showing empathy, his lips parted in readiness for conversation, which he began with that classic "Hot, huh !?"
I accepted just as warmly he and openly with "Yes, indeed !!", and continued with the concrete "How far to Drniš?"
"Only 5-6 kilometers!", Again the eyes of that new interlocutor of mine widened for the next level or two, and the increase of empathy was shown with the addition "But, everything is downhill for you!".
With one "Thank you!" I parted with an unexpected interlocutor, whose open eyes and cheerful expression remained in me many times longer than the duration of this strange conversation.
He told me exactly, the road went slightly, but slightly downhill. Already half of those "5-6 km" the first houses of Drniš appeared. Or some village that is practically its suburb (what am I talking about, suburb, as if Drniš is some big town!)
I came across some store, replenished my liquid and food supplies, and set out in search of the town center and then a place for lunch.
I came to some kind of main intersection, at least it looked like it to me, according to it's size.
Right behind that intersection I was watching the town in front of me, its core, and immediately gave up on touring it. The town was on a hill. In this heat, I I did not have so much enthusiasm to climb the steep town streets.
In preparation for this trip, it seemed to me that in Drniš it would be interesting to visit the church of Our Lady of the Rosary, which is located in the town center.
Instead, this time I contented myself with bringing it closer more or less to myself with the help of my camera zoom.
Another thing that would be interesting to see in this town was the old fort on the left edge of town.
I'll talk about that old fort later, and now it' was high time I found a place for lunch. Even today, I don't know how I managed to do that, but suddenly I found myself at the empty bus station in the town of Drniš.
I chose a bench in the shade (on the right side in the picture above) and spread out my lunch table.
Except for a woman who was cheerfully talking to the cashier, no one at the station was from people or vehicles. Time seemed to stand still. Besides the cheerful conversation of the two women, which began who knows when, and it seems that it will end then, the silence was disturbed by a still quiet but refreshing breeze. Leaving my thoughts to wander, I slowly and calmly finished my meal and packed my things. I sat on the bench for a while longer, letting my thoughts wander where they wanted when I wanted to get some sleep.
The dynamic night behind me, together with the heat of this day, did their thing. Oh, my God, what would I give for about 15 minutes of peaceful, relaxed sleep on this bench !?
If it weren't for the marathon chatter of those two women, who show no signs of fatigue for it, I might even dare to lie on this bench. Like this, I would be ashamed to be seen curled up on a bench like the last beggar. So I got up, took the bike and, greeting the bench with another view (I will remember it with sympathy) I continued my journey.
I first crossed the bridge over the river Čikola, which now, in this late summer, has been reduced on one letter Č in the shape of a puddle on a rocky bottom.
After the bridge at the intersection I turned right and headed uphill.
Unlike the one from Knin, I knew about this uphill. I remember it from my childhood, when I had the opportunity to take the train, during the day, to or from Split. The train passed this uphill. Besides, 33 years ago I had the opportunity to go here by bike (see Honeymoon).
Now the road has been widened and paved with new asphalt with equally new lines. A real main road!
There was a serpentine on the ascent, so when I passed it, I filmed the state of modern road construction in the Drniš region.
I was a little confused because riding up this hill was extremely easy and fluttering. Yes, yes, I was riding uphill, I said, not walking! It will be that lunch and rest after it, despite the lack of sleep, strengthened me well.
But it's not just that, there was something else that hasn't been there before - a breeze! Nice, quiet, but also a refreshing breeze!
Now I have finally realized. You know, when a thought, a conclusion is imposed on you like an annoying fly, and you reject it over powerfully and confidently, only to be ashamed when you realized in the end.
Ever since that pass, where I unexpectedly exchanged a few words with an unknown but friendly local, my skin has been, discreetly but persistently, sending signals of a pleasant breeze. At first, I attributed it to the downhill, and then busy with everything else, I kept pushing away that information.
So, by crossing that pass, I came out of the wider Knin valley, which is not reached by the refreshing wind from the south (a bit illogical, refreshing, and from the south). Another insight into the peculiarities of the microclimate of the Knin region.
But let's go back to Drniš town. So after that serpentine, I had a view of the valley below me as if I were in the front row of a theatre.
Shortly before the pass, I stopped and filmed the scene which was in front of me, actually, below me.
First panorama of Drniš (filmed by Olympus camera and merged from two images)
Then a view of the large intersection I came across at the entrance to Drniš (left in the middle), and the mountain Promina with a peak of 1147 meters altitude.
And finally Peter's field (Petrovo polje), actually it's a northwestern part.
Here, too, you can see the mountain Promina above left. Above right stretches a row of houses along the road I drove from Knin about an hour or two ago.
On the other side of the road is a railway line that entered on the pass, after climbing here from Drniš in a much larger serpentine than the road I was driving on.
At the very pass, on the other side of the gorge of the currently dried up Čikola, when the vegetation along the road allowed me, I filmed the Drniš Fortress.
According to the Internet, the Gradina fortress is located in the town of Drniš, at an altitude of 344 m above sea level, above the canyon of the river Čikola. Built on a site of strategic importance. It is presumed that it was part of the system established in the ownership of the large Nelipić family. During the rule of the Ottoman Empire, the Gradina fortress was upgraded for defensive purposes. With the arrival of the Venetians, at the end of the 17th century, its demolition was ordered. However, it was soon rebuilt due to the threat of Turkish incursions, present until 1715. In the 19th century, the fortress lost all function and became a source of building materials for the growing town of Drniš.
Source: https://www.tz-drnis.hr/index.php/hr/sto-posjetiti/srednjovjekovne-utvrde)
Moving the camera a little to the left, I captured the Čikola canyon.
After the pass, the road descends by a slight slope and slight curves, so the ride, with that refreshing breeze, is a real pleasure. While enjoying in it, occasionally, “down there” I spot a railroad track.
The railway didn’t keep me company for long, maybe a mile, so I crossed it at the end. It continued south towards Perković town, and I continued west towards Skradin town.
The road went more or less straight, the traffic was weak, the breeze was still cooling… No interesting details around me, just poor vegetation and gray rocks, so it was gradually becoming bored to me. Still, I didn’t let it to overwhelm me. I struggled with details and little things. For example, when choosing one of the places where I will take a break, the interesting place of the village prevailed, at least for me.
The name of the village in front of me currently transferred me to the Požega region, where I live, to the village of Paka, about 25 km from Požega, but as if it was 25 light years away. For a long time, it was synonymous with the place "where God said good night." But after the asphalt passed through it, suddenly the situation changed - people started buying and renovating country houses, so now the village has gained the status of an oasis of peace where the well-to-do city elite rests from the hectic life in the city.
Or does it just seem to me, when cycling through it?
And now I came in front of the Pako's village (Pakovo selo).
The next thing I found interesting was a traffic sign warning me of the danger of wild boar.
The village of Konjevrate was interesting to me because I with, then fresh, my life partner had lunch there while we were cycling the last day of the ride called "Honeymoon".
In the meantime, a new road has built, but especially for me, the builders left part of the old one (right in the picture below) so that I could evoke pleasant memories.
I planned to turn off this road to the entrance to the Krka National Park, buy a ticket, go down to Skradinski buk (Skradin's waterfalls) by bike, cross the Krka river by a pedestrian bridge, and take the local road to the Skradin town, 4 km away. At least that's how my wife and I did it 33 years ago.
However, in the meantime, some things have changed.
As an ominous hint of an unexpectedly embarrassing situation, the absence of wind appeared, which had been blowing in my face until then and cooling me down nicely. Turning sharply to the right, the situation is drastic changed as I turned my back on the wind. It was only then that I became aware of the preciousness of the breeze that had been blowing in my face so far. I drove, not too fast, the road was more or less flat, but I had the impression that I was in a nylon bag. The sun was warming inexorably, and the heat I was radiating remained around me stubbornly following me. I was in danger of a drastic increase in my temperature, so my automatic, self-contained cooling system intensified sweating to the maximum.
It lasted only a kilometre and a half, but it seemed endless to me, when I, finally saw a large parking lot with cash registers, restaurants and everything else that made up the entrance to the Krka National Park.
First I sat down on a bench in the shade to come to my senses. Then I went to the box office nearby for a ticket. The cashier told me I couldn’t get to the waterfalls by bike, so I agreeing to her that I would make a tour without a bike. The ticket cost me 200 Hrk (26 €) and with it in hand, pushing the bike, I came across a man who lets people through a kind of entrance to the national park.
- "You can't get in with bike!"
- "But..." "
- "You can't get in with the bike, I said!"
- "I would just pass through…"
- "YOU CAN'T GET IN WITH BIKE !!!!"
I stood to the side in the shade, watching the authority, whom I had just annoyed, how he was letting in the other visitors. At a time when there were no people, I asked him if I could leave his bike here and get in on foot.
"You can, of course! It's about 4 km to the waterfalls, it's better to go by trail than by road. Save the ticket so you can return by bus from below. The price of transportation is included in the ticket!"
What are you going to do! Deeply disappointed at first, I gradually tried to find some way out of this stalemate that would be acceptable to me. Too bad, I wished so much to repeat the ride to the waterfalls from 33 years ago.
Just because things change doesn’t mean they change for the better. Specifically this one, and specifically for me, no doubt, has changed for the worse.
I accepted the authority’s suggestion at the entrance, locked the bike, and with my wallet, cell phone, and the camera started for a walk down the road on which I had hoped a few minutes ago that I would do it with the bike.
At the first spreading of the trees, I filmed Krka river or something left of it, calm and quiet, after the sparkling Skradin 's waterfall, continuing towards the sea.
A little further on, after a sharp turn to the left, on the right side, I filmed a scene identical to the one I had taken here 33 years ago with a camera at the time.
It was Lake Visovac where the river Krka rests and prepares to skip the cascades that follow at the end of the lake, known as Skradin's waterfalls (Skradinski buk).
As for that “by-what-is-not-allowed-for-bike” road, I failed to see anything so dangerous either for cyclists or what they could do to others. But maybe my eyes are biasedly blind and, like the eyes of a bike fan, overly subjective, so here are a few pictures for you to see where the potential dangers of cycling, invisible to me, are hidden.
But, if I did not see the dangers, and how I was aware of the denied pleasure of descending through the pine forest. According to the one which says that the sweetest fruit is forbidden fruit, now that I have been prevented from doing so, it seemed to me that the pleasure of descending this road would be many times greater.
I walked that 4 km (on foot, without a bicycle, and downhill, oh what a shame!) and came to the first scenes of the Krka river.
In one of its countless lakes, before the Krka river collapsed over the travertine barriers, I filmed the merry ducks indulging in enjoying the crystal clear water.
A little later and down somewhere where the main course of the river is, I filmed a group of young men who were enjoying Paradise on Earth.
But these are just crumbs, and I need the core, the essence of the bulk of the waterfalls that make up that widely known Skradin's waterfalls. I had to walk another hundred meters along the path - which is closed to visitors!
It was not allowed to go any further. And I was so close, and so far away!
I could take the surrounding hiking trails, or return to the entrance, go to Skradin and approach the waterfalls from a completely different side.
Well, this was too much, a drop that spilt over the glass!
I came back, disappointed and depressed, about ten steps back to the bus I had just passed and got on it.
I waited resignedly for an endless 5-6 minutes until the bus left. So grumpy, I was just looking at the surrounding scenes, which, looking at them from the bus, were pale, scanty and miserable for me.
I found the bike in the same condition I left it, unlocked it and went with it to the same bench where I was resting an hour ago. This time I extended the resting with a small meal, to give my body extra strength for those 10-11 km, as much as I have to Skradin.
You can view the continuation of this travelogue here.
Post je objavljen 24.01.2021. u 14:59 sati.