The travel literature on Dubrovnik -- a city that has endured many empires and nations, but has nevertheless survived -- cannot cease to cite the putative words of George Bernard Shaw that "those who seek paradise on Earth should come to Dubrovnik ... the pearl of the Adriatic."
As a dedicated walker, on leave from Dirt-City DC (yes, Washington, our American capital, where the Mall, the heart of this town, has "green" spaces that look like an abandoned baseball playground, not speak of appalling social/economic conditions in parts of the imperial city as we "rebuilt" the Middle East/Central Asia), what has struck me most thus far about this European city's old-town are its impeccable, shiny main streets (needless to say, car-free), almost unreal, if not eerie in their cleanliness (they remind me of the Yellow Brick Road in the Wizard of Oz, or maybe Disneyland).
My main question, though: Are the streets made of limestone or marble?
This evening, on yet another stroll, I asked a TV cameraman filming an event (a wedding?) near St. Blaise's Church on a main old-town street and asked him, pointing to the ground below me: "Limestone or marble? And do they wax the streets?"
"Definitely limestone," he said, ignoring the silly waxing query and, to some, its "sexual" connotations. (Everyone a foreigner addresses in Dubrovnik speaks some form of English).
Why do the streets shine? "Because," the cameraman said, "for centuries people have walked over the streets, making them shine." He did not specify who these invaders were, but tourists, I would say, are the latest among them....
Image (no, the reflection is not water caused by global warming) from
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