7/23/2013

Warehouse with a hearse, Lukovo Šugarje, Croatia


Visited 24.4.2013 by skkye & jonahi. This two-storey (nowadays one-storey) building was our last finding on the village tour. It was near an old church which was still in use, so it's possible that this warehouse (or something like that) has something to do with the church. There were old tools, furniture, sacks, bottles, window frames etc. but the creepiest thing was that broken hearse! A carriage with which corpses had been taken to their graves. It is probably just dumped here after the building was abandoned for it looked a lot newer than other things inside. Could be that someone has even lived in this place. At least there was a laundry line outside. The building must be very old, or at least the stones and the shape of the place look very medieval.

7/22/2013

Pumping station, Lukovo Šugarje, Croatia


Visited 24.4.2013 by skkye & jonahi. On the same walk through the village and surrounding hills we also visited this pump station in a clear-watered (I always have to mention about the water color, because it was so different from the water back home and I hope that I will always be amazed by it!) bay surrounded by rocks. That could have been an amazing place for a resort hotel or something. But the Yugoslavs had decided to put up an army base there. Isn't that ridiculous! However, nowadays it looks actually quite beautiful with all that rust. The whole place was surrounded by barbed wire fences, but only the concrete posts remained of it. Probably the metal had monetary value and somebody had stolen it. But I have no idea what this pumping station was used for. I was quite fascinated about the valves, though, and that one door that looks like an owl.

7/07/2013

Houses on the beach (part 1), Lukovo Šugarje, Croatia


Visited 24.4.2013 by skkye & jonahi. We spent two days couchsurfing in a lovely tiny village by the amazing coastal road of Croatia. The village was so small that there wasn't even any kind of a grocery store. The area was very special because apart from densely populated and touristy coast, it was very quiet there. We took a walk with our host and her dog and she showed us these small stone houses at the beachside. They were in a surprisingly good shape considering their age.

I wonder how anyone can abandon a house in this kind of a place: the front door went literally straight to the deep blue and turquoise sea! On the other side they were surrounded by flower meadows and old stone walls. All stuff in these houses were really Yugoslav style - enamel dishes, mattresses filled with hay, and that weird cupboard with elf pictures on the glass doors. And of course those retro advertisements!

The village was born when people living up on the rocky and extremely windy mountain Velebit moved down closer to road. The people that had lived in these houses probably were also these mountaineers or their offspring. Our host told us that the land had looked just like moon surface (like the island on the opposite shore which you can see in the sixth photo), because Italians had cut all the trees and erosion had taken place. But the mountain people had brought some humus land and some trees had grown back.