Day 5 – Public transport, Red Museum, Babin Kuk

5th Jan, 2023

When we go places, I am slightly obsessed with experiencing the public transport there. So far in Dubrovnik, we got there by taxi from the airport, walked everywhere local, and did a day outing by cab. Then this was to be the designated public transport day. We get day tickets at the bus terminus at Pile Gate. It seems buses to all destinations must come and go to Pile Gate one way or another, so we were at a lucky location for taking a bus.

Dubrovnik’s public transport, by the way, is limited strictly to local buses – no trains, trams, or metros. Even to the airport, you need a cab. B says that Croatia in general is a car country (no wonder the Chinese got a foot in with that bridge contract!).

The bus timetable posted at each stop is identical – and identically retarded too. It just gives the start times from both ends of a route, rather than the time that the bus will be at that stop. So the way you can guess when to expect a bus where you are waiting, is to know exactly how far that stop is from the starting point, and how long it would take to get here from there! It took us all day to understand this system, but luckily, we were never in a hurry.

Red History Museum

B has seen in a brochure a couple of days ago, that they have a Red History Museum. Knowing my commie upbringing, he suggests we go check it out. We have examined the bus routes map in advance, and I roughly know where we need to go. A nice, clean, nearly empty bus takes us there. By putting the route on google maps to the museum, I track our progress in the bus, and we get off at the right stop without incident.

The Red History Museum. I go in without any expectations, and am delighted by its contents. We end up spending nearly 3 hours in the small museum. It has a simple layout, some interactive items, and a nicely laid out story in chronological order. It is not always a pretty story if you think of the history of communism, and Yugoslavia in particular. But I find it a compelling story.

Karl Marx, Engels, Tito, Stalin, and Lenin. Communism and socialism, the differences therein. How Yugoslavia came to be. The powers that ruled it, their 5-year plans, how USSR played interference. The secret service. The concentration camps to imprison people suspected of being against Tito and the government. The break up into today’s different countries, and a bit about the 1990’s invasion of Croatia by Serbia and Montenegro (where Dubrovnik in particular was affected).

There were sections in the museum that showed the inside of a home in the 1950’s: thanks to communism supporting the equality of women, time saving devices such as washing machines had a place in the home way back then.

At one point, I look around for the B, and find him proudly sprawled on a couch which is part of the display. I wonder, then notice a sign indicating that the couch is an interactive part of the exhibition. He pats the space next to him, inviting me to join him on the commie couch. I giggle over the name and we sit there soaking in the atmosphere for a few minutes. That couch with its brown and yellow patterned fabric, and poor old springs tells an eloquent story by itself.

We notice the time and hurry through the rest of the museum. Near the end is a small hall with black and white photos from the past: I think individuals have contributed these photos from their own lives – nothing to do with communism, but just to show glimpses of life in that time. It is an uplifting section of the museum.

The museum itself is in a building that was some sort of factory. There is a virtual reality exhibit of what the rooms of the museum looked like back then.

We step out into the sunshine, walk back to a bus stop and wait for a bus that will never come that way – thanks to the confusing way the bus routes and timetables are put up at every stop, we spend more time at that bus stop than intended. A kind local lady who could speak some English finally helped us.

Babin Kuk

Where do we go next? Ah, yes. To Babin Kuk. I have seen buses with this destination board many times on our walks the previous days. The name has captured my imagination for some reason. Having repeated it, chanted it in silly made-up songs, and giggled over it for hours the previous days, I’ve acquired the name of the “Babin Cookie One”. Finally today, we actually go there.

Apart from the pretty park behind the bus terminus, it is a ghost town. We are hungry by this time, but everything is boarded up. We follow misleading signs pointing to restaurants and cafes, all of which are shut. In winter, nothing is open there, but you can still walk down to the famous Copacabana and Cava beaches.

A golden seahorse is guarding the Copacabana beach. It is a beautiful afternoon, and just a handful of others wander down to the beaches while we are there. You could imagine the bustle of summer as you gaze out at the bridge and the sea. The sea is peaceful, lapping gently against the beach.

We clamber over and around some rocks in the sea, and get to another section of the beach. Lokrum island looms not far from us. So close, yet out of bounds in winter.

Hunger pangs. We need to get back to civilization and find food. On the way back to the bus, B finds a larger-than-life wall mural of The Little Prince. He insists on me posing exactly in the same stance as the Giant Little Prince. I indulge him his simple pleasures.

Sunset

Back at Pile Gate, by way of a late lunch, we eat some Croatian mini doughballs doused in chocolate syrup. Next activity is to find a bus to take us partway up the local hill called Mount Srd. Yes, the ridiculous hill has that ridiculous name. Have fun rolling the “rrrrrr”. I read somewhere that it is worth going to view points on this hill to watch the sunset. The cable car that normally shuttles up and down in season, of course doesn’t run now. Hence the fallback to the bus. Bus route 17 would take us to a village called Bosanka, from where the view points are not too far. This rare specimen of a bus has useless timings – we cannot catch the sunset by taking the next one. Also in these short winter days, sunset is at 4:30 pm, so we need to finesse the timing, and worry about the last bus back.

Ah, screw Bus 17 and Bosanka. Let’s go to our secret pine park to watch the sunset! What’s even better, let’s take a bus to get there (which is perfectly walkable, but today is public transport day!) We do, and we are in time for a beautiful sunset. We catch a bus back pigheadedly.

We take a short break at the apartment and step out for dinner. Very close to our alley is a little bakery, which has a very nice assortment of Turkish-style baked goodies generically called Borek. We get a few of those, and the B gets a slice of salami pizza and a sausage bread roll just to be sure. We take it back and have an early dinner, curled up on the couch watching a movie.

Rascal kids with firecrackers

We walk to the pier late that evening. The moon is almost full. As we stand around the harbour, we hear a dull, explosive sound. B recognizes it as fireworks thrown into the water exploding underwater with a subdued boom. B says he’s done this too as a child, and goes on to explain the delicate timing required to throw it such that it explodes underwater. As we watch a circle of smoke rise over some ripples, a bunch of boys rush about nearby, speaking in high-pitched excited voices. They look about 12 years old, and their leader seems to be a spectacled specimen holding more fireworks. They have a bit of an argument with some older girls who threaten to tell the police, from what I can understand. The little rascals are determined to have fun with more underwater fireworks. As they pass us, the leader notices my phone poised to take pictures, and issues a passing instruction, “No photo, please!”. They go to the end of the dock and throw in one more firecracker, time it badly, so it explodes on the surface rather than underwater. Apparently deciding not to push their luck, they run off towards the town and disappear under and archway.