Travel writer and photographer - Croatia, Eastern Europe and beyond
Some images of St Jacob’s Cathedral in Šibenik, Croatia – the finest piece of Renaissance architecture in Croatia, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s a phenomenally beautiful building, with some wonderfully emotive sculpture.
Šibenik’s cathedral was built between 1431 and 1535 by the architects Juraj Dalmatinac and Nikola Firentinac.
Click here for more images of Šibenik.
All images copyright © Rudolf Abraham. No unauthorized use.
Dragon Bridge, Ljubljana, Slovenia
This image was taken at the end of August this year, on the way back to Zagreb from a visit to Slovenia’s Postojna Cave (Postojnska jama) – the harsh early afternoon sunlight making it more suited to a black and white conversion, or a little Photoshop trickery, rather than the original colour version.
The dragon is part of Ljubljana’s coat of arms, and each side of this bridge – one of the most familiar landmarks in the Slovenian capital, built between 1888 and 1907 – is guarded by two large bronze dragon sculptures such as the one above, the work of A.M. Beschorner of Vienna. The concrete construction of the bridge itself was quite innovative for the time.
Photos © Rudolf Abraham. No unauthorized use.
Entrance to the Neolithic burial chamber at La Hougue Bie, one of the largest and best-preserved passage graves in Europe, in the eastern half of Jersey, Channel Islands. The burial chamber dates from around 4,000 BC, and would also have served as a sacred or ritual site – crouching (almost crawling) to the far end of the 9m long, 1.4m high passage reveals a series of chambers which would have formed the focus of ritual activity, and the alignment of the passage is such that the chambers were illuminated by the sun’s rays at dawn on the equinox. Above the passage and chambers stands a 9m high burial mound faced with dry stone walling (which can still be seen around the entrance to the passage).
A small chapel was built on top of the mound in the 12th century, which was then converted into a Gothic tower in the late 18th century.
The Gothic tower was, unfortunately, demolished in the early 20th century, and the chapel restored to what may, or may not, have been its original state.
La Hougue Bie was also the site of a command bunker during the German occupation of Jersey in WWII, now converted into a Memorial Centre to the prisoners and forced labourers who worked (and frequently died) here during the occupation, often in appalling conditions. A walk down through the concrete cells of the former bunker, hung with photographs of those who worked here, and the words of those who witnessed the conditions, is a sobering experience indeed. A sculpture by Maurice Blik struggles out of the earth above the former command bunker. Blik was himself a survivor of the concentration camp at Belsen in Germany.
Photos © Rudolf Abraham. No unauthorized use.
The first 10 images from the CROATIAN MISCELLANY series. Click on any of these for a larger view and background information, or head over to http://croatianmiscellany.wordpress.com. 90 more to go….
Photos © Rudolf Abraham. No unauthorized use.
Sculpture of Većeslav Holjevac (former Partisan soldier and Mayor of Zagreb) near the River Sava in Zagreb, Croatia
Photos © Rudolf Abraham. No unauthorized use.
Detail of Ivan Meštrović’s 1905 sculpture ‘Well of Life’, in front of the National Theatre in Zagreb, Croatia
Photo © Rudolf Abraham. No unauthorized use.
Croatian Miscellany #5 – Sisak
To view this image larger and for background information, see A CROATIAN MISCELLANY.
Sculpture of the Croatian poet, writer and politician Vladimir Nazor (1876–1949), in Zelengaj. Zagreb, December 2007
Nazor was born on the island of Brač (a lovely place), the folk legends of which informed one of his best-known works, Pastir Loda (‘Loda the Shepherd’). During the Second World War he joined the Partisans, and was later appointed first president of the Croatian parliament in Tito’s Yugoslavia. Appropriately enough, in this sculpture he wears a Partisan hat and cloak (which led to the statue being removed briefly during the Tudman era, along with a few other references to the Partisans, though it was later reinstalled).
It’s not just perspective which makes the man in the background look small – the statue is huge.
Photo © Rudolf Abraham. No unauthorized use.
Sculpture of Renaissance playwright and poet Hanibal Lucic, in front of the Benedictine monastery in Hvar, February 2011
Photo © Rudolf Abraham. No unauthorized use.
Statue of the Croatian poet Antun Gustav Matos by Ivan Kozaric, Zagreb, April 2009
Zagreb has some wonderful outdoor sculpture, and this one of Matos is probably the best-known, with people regularly turning up to have their photograph taken here, or to just sit on the bench with him. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s keeping whom company (this wasn’t posed, and there was no one else there). If you’re interested, you can read an article I wrote on Zagreb’s outdoor sculpture for hidden europe a while ago here: hidden_europe_28_zagreb.
Photo © Rudolf Abraham. No unauthorized use.
CROATIAN MISCELLANY is an ongoing and deeply personal portrait of this southeast European country - its people, traditions, festivals, landscape and cultural heritage - by UK-based photographer Rudolf Abraham. It is not intended to be a collection of well-known sights and beautiful views - not that Croatia has any shortage of these - but rather a more intimate glimpse of places both on and off the beaten track, and into the daily life of a country that has fascinated this particular photographer for the best part of the last 15 years. Read more
St Oswald's Way and St Cuthbert's Way (Cicerone, 2013) Istria. The Bradt Travel Guide (co-author with Thammy Evans; Bradt, 2013) Rijeka Carnival (Blurb, 2013)
