Many rural estates in all parts of Croatia offer tourist services based on indigenous cuisine, customs, ethnographic collections, and architecture.
written by Kata Pranić
[email protected]
Have you ever been awakened from sleep by the sound of birds instead of an alarm clock? If not, you must treat yourself to that experience. It will be one of the rare sounds of the past from which you will draw strength in the saddest and most tiring moments. That perfect musical composition, orchestral or solitary, will rest not only your auditory organs but also your thoughts. What wellness, team building, psychoanalysis, autogenic training, transcendental meditation – the consequences of modern life are most effectively healed by staying in nature. That perfectly spontaneous atmosphere in which tangible silence, harmonious sounds of nature, fresh air, unlimited freedom of the original landscape, and time stopped in the past, which was once someone’s present, or rather, everyday life, complement each other. Some of that has been preserved to this day because man, no matter how hard he tries to destroy his origin, fortunately, is not so powerful, which is why we can still enjoy the beauties and fruits of indigenous nature and villages. Images of past centuries that we remember from literature can be experienced, indeed, in a somewhat modernized edition, in rural tourism, on rural estates that preserve tradition.
Karst and Game
The joy of living outside the noisy offices, shopping centers, fast-food restaurants, and stereotypical resorts has been discovered in recent years in what many, and still do, have overlooked. In search of oneself, or just out of curiosity, we have discovered the miraculous power of nature and tradition brought to life in food and drink and ethnographic collections from which much can be learned. But those who are not interested in who Duke Antun Prže Prvan from Kokorić near Vrgorac was, whose clothing from several centuries ago and weapons stand in the ethnographic collection with 250 exhibits of the ethnovillage Kokorić, can enjoy the beauties of the karst. When they wash down their enthusiasm with the well-known black wine from the vineyards in Bunina field and feast on indigenous dishes, they can go hunting for wild boars and other game on Mount Rilić.
Hikers will be welcomed at the rural estate Vrata Biokova at an altitude of 897 meters, just 15 kilometers from Makarska. With a rich offer of delicacies: Biokovo prosciutto and cheese, dishes under the bell with four types of meat, and grill specialties, the herbal brandy, rakija spiced with 48 medicinal herbs, is indispensable. While you ‘enjoy’ the divine flavors of food and drink, your eyes will rest on the Dalmatian islands, distant Italy, and hilly Bosnia and Herzegovina. And when you descend from the karst to the sea, be sure to sail to Brač and enjoy at the eco-estate Tomić in Gornji Humac. Besides the homemade ‘spizom’ prepared from the fruits of the garden, orchard, and olive groves of the Tomić family, and meat from its eco-farm, treat yourself to wine from a tavern that is eight hundred years old and bathe on the private beach Paklina. Then head to Istria where almost every place in the interior has a rural estate where Italians, Germans, and Austrians often rest, enjoying the indigenous Istrian cuisine, olive oil, and wine.
