Monday 29th October 2007

The BBC website said that today would be fine and it was quite correct, it was a glorious morning. We needed to make the most of it as the forecast for the next two days was poor.
We were travelling back to Split and the weather allowed us to enjoy the views along the coast and the islands. The town of Ston looked really good from the mainland and the extent of the walls was much clearer than from the peninsular.
We had spotted signs to the archaeological site of Narona (Vid) on the journey down to Dubrovnik and were determined to visit it on the way up. This area of Croatia is very narrow and Vid, being very close to the Bosnia border, suffered badly in the war. We realised that, being a Monday, it was highly likely that the museum would be closed and we were quite right. The very impressive, modern museum definitely deserves a visit in the future – a good reason to come back again. Given that we couldn't visit the museum, we decided to investigate the village and it proved to be very interesting. Vid is on a hill on the edge of the extremely fertile Neretva delta and it is an ideal place for a Roman site. A river runs at the bottom of the hill and the delta (marshes, wildlife etc.) stretches off into the distance South. The locals still fish in the river much as the Roman would have – nets strung between posts in the fast running parts of the river. The river was full of ducks and we wondered whether duck was on the menu at the local restaurants. Given that we haven't seen duck on any menus in Croatia, it was unlikely.
The buildings of the older part of Vid were interesting, but it was only when we looked at them closely, that we realised how interesting they were. One building in particular caught our attention – it had chucks of Roman stone in it including a number of carved and inscribed stones. After that discovery, we started to check other buildings and found many with Roman stones incorporated into their structure. There were obviously many poor households in Vid and the contrast between their lifestyle and the richness of the architectural heritage was difficult to assimilate.
On then to Split and Camping Stobrec.
Photos: Mali Ston and its walls; The house in Vid with many reused Roman Narona stones; collage showing just some of the Roman blocks; Shallow-draught boat with poles for fishing nets in the river behind.