Croatia Invaded Again!

  I have recently returned from a holiday in Croatia. This beautiful country, once part of Yugoslavia has been ravaged by war in recent times but seems to be catching up, for me a little too quickly, with some of the excesses of The West. Thank goodness there are no English pubs or McDonalds to be seen but I want to remember it now, as it is, for I fear that in ten years time it will be the new Spain overwhelmed with ugly hotels and its tranquility spoilt by the thud, thud thud of disco music.

 Houses, and very expensive ones at that, are springing up like little boxes, made of ticky tacky, for those of you whom remember the song, along side the beaches and estuaries and, as they did in Spain, are climbing further and further up the mountainsides each time that I visit so that there will soon be no exposed hillsides on show. To give you an example of what I mean I have included a few photographs.
 I stayed on an island, which is about fifty minutes sailing time from Dubrovnik and there is a rather poignant notice board there detailing its history back to Greek and Roman times but also stating that since 1992 it has been going through the most difficult period of its history. Just like Spain the island, which is now mostly overgrown, was once rich in vineyards, orchards and citrus and olive groves. Not for much longer though I feel, as the developers clearly see a killing to be had there in financial terms, whilst the charm and the character and its sanctity as a refuge, for monks and the locals as well as the occasional traveller will soon disappear. One agent I approached said that a plot of land that I had seen was for sale at for £100 a square metre.
 One monstrous hotel has already appeared on the island

and one former concrete shambles, from the Tito era, currently used by a few innocent squatters is about to go under the bulldozer, perhaps for an even more ugly Juggernaut - and these two between them, at peak season, will probably contain at least four times the population of the island, currently numbered at 250 people and where the pace of life is such that the post office is currently closed, temporarily, whilst the postmistress collects the mail from the ferry.

  For some unknown reason I am always more comfortable with decay as I wonder what stories lie hidden there and who passed by whilst the modern intimidates and shouts out with its ugly bravado. However some of the islands, thank goodness, will have none of the new and tastefully maintain the old or let what's not worth saving slowly rot which adds character to the place, so all is not paradise lost.

May your God watch over you, whoever it is!