Croatian Alcatraz

Croatia is getting more and more popular for spending a week or two sunbathing on the majestic Adriatic Sea, but sometimes the country's developing tourism industry offers some goofy surprises.

What to do with that free week in July?

In '96 I had just broken up with someone and was looking for a cheap holiday. I wandered on down to the local IBUSZ, a commie-era travel agency, and met the person who would remain 'my travel agent', a loony, middle-aged woman named Judit. That summer she talked me into going to Crete, where I had a fantastic time all by myself.

Years later, my then-girlfriend and I popped into the same office and Judit was still there. She recommended a peninsula on the northeast coast of Greece, gushing on about it and showing us her own photographs. We ended up having a great time. Judit is a woman who loves what she does, and I trust her completely to set me up with a destination.

Well, the old IBUSZ office had closed, Judit re-surfaced in the IBUSZ office right near my flat. There are lots of travel agencies, but I was certain that we couldn't go wrong with the help of Judit.

Quandry: most of the holiday charter flights do not take off on the weekends, but on weekdays. While I'd promised myself that I'd never take a bus trip from hell ever again, the best thing Judit could suggest within our budget was the Croatian island of Rab, by bus...

The bus is full of families with kids. It stops 7 or 8 times at different hotels and resorts on our way down the coast to the Adriatic. The ride become painful, especially by early morning. Stop and go, stop and go. Imagine the fate of one couple: dropped off at 5am in the dark and having to wait until noon or so to check into their room. At least we got to stay on the bus.

The early morning ferry crossing over to Rab is also trying. The line is a couple hundred cars long. It takes about two and a half hours for our bus to reach the front. We, along with most other passengers, get out of the bus as it rolls down the hill. We bake in the hot sun, and my head is in a funk from all the stop and go catnaps.

Fortunately, an old woman and young girl sit at the side of the road under a parasol. They're selling delicious coffee for one euro. She asks if I want milk and sugar. While I can tell her I want milk in my stumbling Croatian, I attempt to tell her that the reason I don't want sugar is that I'm American. She doesn't get it, but it's no problem.

When we get there, we find the Hotel Imperial, which looks pretty nice on the outside (and in pictures), but is a communist relic on the inside. Supposedly, the hotel's rooms have two different views: overlooking the sea or overlooking a park. The first view was valid if one has binoculars, the second if you add an '-ing lot'. But whatever, the room was clean.

Our room comes with 'half board', which means we get breakfast and dinner every day. A very murky soup arrives for the first meal and I get scared about what we've gotten ourselves into. But then, surprisingly, the food is pretty decent, except for the fish my girlfriend gets one day, which come complete with the skeleton of another diner's fish under her obviously recycled side dishes.

For every meal we share a table with an Austrian couple and their teenage daughter. They are friendly and we attempt to communicate. We all laugh about the two-tailed fish.

The morning of our last breakfast, the husband's armpit is quite pungent - by the last day, it is apparent that this is one of the telltale sings of a a 3 star hotel, stuff like guests who come to breakfast with stinky armpits.

We get used to the cast of characters working in the restaurant: the smarmy drink server who I thought was ripping me off for charging us 2 EUR for a tiny bottle of tonic, the 'main course' woman who was bow-legged and always gave me a loopy smile, not to mention the peasant-faced desert girl who came down with a case of herpes in the last few days of our stay.

The sea is fantastically clean in Croatia. Our sunbathing spot was an embankment made of concrete and stone at the foot of a hill covered in trees and shrubs. Periodically along the shore, there are steps leading down to the rocky beach.

Most days we were able to find cover under the shade of the trees which were bending down from the hillside. Lots of reading, bottles of frozen mineral water and dips in the aqua blue. One can nearly always see to the bottom, even when swimming far out from the shore. Swimmers heads bob ever so slightly as they glide further out.

Nearly every day we go to the same spot and get used to a group of young German neighbors, who have, appropriately enough, a German Shepard named 'Luna' who often strays from her master, and steps on and sniffs other sunbathers' things. One of the German guys is quite tall, blond and Aryan-looking. The two girls with him mostly go topless - which is handy for a furtive glance.

On our evening strolls in the old town, we check out the line of ships in the dock which take tourists for day long trips around the island. In front of most ships is a salesperson of sorts who tells you the details of the trip. We approach one who looks sort of glassy-eyed and smarmy, but is friendly enough. He asks me if I speak Croatian and I tell him 'samo malo', so he gives me his spiel while pointing at the pictures, one of the 'Hrvatski Alcatraz', two nearby prison islands which housed political prisoners under Tito.

We decide not to go with that specific ship but choose one called the 'Stupetarska'.

The trip on the Stupetarska is hosted by a huge, enthusiastic woman named Milena. Most of the others on board were Italians with very expensive eyewear. One of their sons cuts his foot up on the coral after we dropped anchor to dive down and see a sunken World War II vessel. The Stupetarska high-tails it back to the island where someone is waiting to take him to get some stitches. The lunch of fresh fish on the boat was delicious, despite all the eventual gore.

Before all that, we did make it to the 'Croatian Alcatraz' - one island for men, one for women. On the female island they were forced to pick figs and there was even a processing plant which made fig jam. Some of the rusting machinery was still inside the crumbling facility.

But what struck me with awe was what I saw as our ship pulled away from the women's prison island: the giant grey outline of a communist star and below 'TITO' on the side of a steep hill. The prisoners were forced to fill the star and letters with colorful flowers, which I'm sure made it much more conspicuous - and cruel!

Great stuff about Croatia: (1) ice cream: not cheap but bountiful scoops, (2) few Americans/English speakers, (3) subtitled TV: it was Robin Williams film week on state TV and we also watched some Oprah whenever we needed to retreat from the intense sun, (4) Karlovacko beer - wonderful bite and very refreshing, (5) locals almost as friendly as the Greeks (especially at the patisserie owned by the smiling brothers), (6) a single bungalow bar on the beach, (7) Croatian wine: screw top, but pretty much dry wine served everywhere, (8) figs (when ripe!), (9) the chillin' park near our hotel with meandering paths through the woods, (10) topless women (although not always a good thing!), (11) crystal clear water, (12) Balkan fast food: cevapcici & burek, (13) decent coffee.

Despite these wonderful aspects, someone stole the mineral water from the hotel's common fridge on the day we were to get back on the hell bus to Budapest. It seemed a fitting ending to our cheap holiday.

We decided that the whole adventure in Croatia was like a visit to the 'Croatian Alcatraz'.

While waiting in the dank waiting room for our bus, I do a commercial with a fake Slavic accent: 'Come taste specialties of Croatian kitchen - like double-tail fish - at Hotel Imperial, Hrvatski Alcatraz! You like armpit smell or maybe even waitress with herpes? We have plenty - just come to Hotel Imperial, Hrvatski Alcatraz - mineral water not included...'