Legends of Croatia

Discovering the myths and legends of magical Croatia...

Sibenik viewed from a boat (Supplied)

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In association with touristar.tv


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Croatia, a country of such diversities; green mainland with mountains and amazing plains the Adriatic sea with its well-known clear waters. But this year we didn’t want to film natural beauties or rich history. We wanted to show you more.

We will tell you amazing stories which you can hear around fireplaces or find perhaps in stone walls of ancient ruins. Sometimes you can come across them on the long tight streets of Dalmatia. Or you can read them on touristar.tv’s web page, for now. In autumn you will see them on www.touristar.tv.

For the second season in a row, the online television TouristarTV has been filming a series of its own production, Discover Croatia. This year’s theme was the Legends of Croatia. Five foreign bloggers who travelled across Croatia and enjoyed magnificent performances of amateur actors from local associations and cultural art societies.

Everyone was eagerly ready to preform and present great stories about kings, mermaids, fairies, battles, love, witches and pirates.

If we needed to pick the best one, it would simply be impossible. But if we were to say which were the most interesting ones to see or to take part in, we could point out the legends about pirates, and the great time we had partying with them on Galija, a pirate ship on board which we sailed along the coast of the Sibenik region, watching the amazing scenery of the Solaris beaches and being impressed with St. Nikola’s fortress in Sibenik.

If you asked us about love, we could certainly tell you that proving your loyalty to a lady and planting 365 olives on the island of Kornati (dry land and stones), and then waiting 10 years to get her hand in marriage, really explains a lot. One stubborn father, who wanted the best possible husband for his daughter, but who expected a young man to respect traditional customs; of course this was meant to become a legend!


If you go deeper in the hinterland, you will find dragons and magical caves, deep lakes and unfortunate destinies. We can tell you a story about two towers and a strange way of crossing the bridge. A sad day for a father, prince of Bogocin town, who lost his only son on his wedding day.


A poor young man who tried to save his fiancée by jumping into deep Krka river to save her from the claws of a dragon. Unfortunately, he died. To his memory, his father closed two young girls from the village into two Towers, Necven and Trosenj, both still standing on the banks of the river Krka. People still recount that there was a bridge between these but to pass it, you needed to pay an unusual price – two tears.

 

Magnificent sights of the National Park Krka will lead you to Cikola river (river is not in the park though) and take you into its gorge. This year has not been so dry, so be ready for some mosquito invasion. But remember one thing; the girl from the last legend of the sad father and the dragon - Miljeva was her name, lived in the Kljucica fortress, an amazing fortress on the hills near the Cikola river. You simply can’t pass by it and remain indifferent - it is breath-taking.

Since the Adriatic coast is well known for its beauty, we of course visited a few islands during this year’s filming. One of them is Korcula in the Dubrovnik-Neretva County, best known for Marco Polo who lived in the town of Korcula. Since we did our due diligence, we prepared great legends to tell, and one of them was in the small village of Smokvica (little fig), in the centre of the island.

Legend goes something like this: One morning old Jakov went to the field, a little valley where he was cleaning the pathway towards the grape vine. As he was reaching the valley, he spotted a girl, an astounding beauty, and he thought this could not be a human being. The girl was sleeping in the sun and he decided to make her some shade.

On his way home, the same beauty appeared in front of him and thanked him by saying: “I shall give you a gift as a token of gratitude for having saved me from the sun, my skin would have burnt in the sun. Just make sure you do not open it until you get home.”

But the old man, curious as a child, opened the bags which were now full, not giving a second thought to what the fairy had said. He was deeply disappointed and grew angry as he realized the misfortune had befallen him, as there were no more gifts in the bags…

Our first stop in the Dubrovnik-Neretva County was the island of Korcula, and then followed the island of Mljet, the town of Ston, Metkovic, Dubrovnik and Mlini in the end. Having entered the amazing cave of Sipun (Cavtat) with a lake inside, having taken the dragon out by the power of God, and having burnt him on the beach in Mlini, we completed the filming of the show.

We went home with great memories and lovely impressions. You can see it all in the interview that we made with our bloggers. Amazing people from the UK, the USA and Croatia: Joanna Hogarth, Paul Bradbury, Alex Robinson, Mike Siegel and Igor Tomljenovic, and our host Ashley Colburn. Great crew.