Mahjong "Green Dragon" 麻將青發牌

The Zadar Sea Organ is a remarkable art installation combining a dynamic light display at night with an organ consisting of large pipes that produce sounds when driven by the waves and the wind. The sounds are unlike anything I've heard, and the night-time light display is quite interesting. Well worth a visit. 🙂

One of the interesting places we visited in Split was Diocletian's Palace. Diocletian was the first Roman Emperor to give up the throne while living. Presumably, he hoped to survive longer that way, as Emperors tended to have a short life expectancy. He wanted to live out his retirement comfortably, though, so he had a little retirement cottage build (see photo). This huge and lavish palace partly survives to this day, and it's impressive, indeed. 🙂

And here we are in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the beautiful city of Mostar. The city takes its name from "The Old Bridge" ("Stari Most" in Serbo-Croatian). Being here, and looking at this old bridge, is a very moving experience. During this Adriatic tour, we've repeated encountered the remnants -- historical, social, and physical -- of the terrible Homeland War among the Balkan states in 1991-95. It was a war no one wanted or expected, among peoples of the parts of Yugoslavia, turned unstable after the death of Tito. The Old Bridge was destroyed in that war, a symbol of the wanton destruction that occurred then. It's also a symbol, today, of the resilience of these amazing people who have gone on with their lives, rebuilding socially as well as physically, and healing the wounds better than one would expect after such death and destruction. Oh, and it's a beautiful bridge, too. Again. 🙂

This was my second cache in Croatia, very near the first. I actually went out of my way to find a cache near the Museum of Naive Art because I enjoyed that museum so much. I wanted to show a tiny bit of it to the folks whose TBs and geocoins I'm carrying. I've seen a lot of art museums, but I've never had so much pure fun as I had here. The art here, by untrained folk artists, is remarkable. It's colorful, very detailed, often whimsical, and painted on glass. That has to be an especially difficult medium, as the artist, who is painting on the opposite side of the glass from the viewer, has to start by painting the shadows, then the foreground detail in layers, working back until the most distant background layer is painted last. That means that the artist can't see everything he's painted as he continues painting. Amazing. I'll post a photo of one particularly whimsical piece, a painting by Ivan Vecenaj. This museum was my favorite stop on our whole 24-day, four country tour of the eastern coast of the Adriatic. If you ever have a chance to visit here, I'd recommend it. 🙂