No visit to the Dalmatian and Montenegrin coast, without a stop at the beautiful mediaval towns of Kotor and Dubrovnik , I thought. Even more so, as I had for this part of my journey the company of Lea Kreszinger, the president of the Croatian Small Animal Association and of Gonçalo Da Graça Pereira, one of Europe’s finest veterinary behaviourist. The two were without doubt the most considerate and entertaining travel companions I could have asked for – sorry Michael Palin……..
Predrag had invited our colleagues to Montenegro and now he also volunteered to be our taxiservice, taking us along a stunning coastline of parched rock with sparce, but hardy vegetation which was emitting the scent of wild thyme, oregano and coriander. The blue water of the Mediterranian Sea was always in sight and it was guiding us to these magnets for – unsurprisingly – also every cruiseliner in this part of the world.
The limestone pavement in these seaside fortifications, polished by the soles of generations of visitors, paid testament to the never ceasing attraction of these historical sites.
However, it didn’t require the assistance of my veterinary companions for me to notice, that – similar as at the Hermitage in St.Petersburg or at Aoshima in Japan – the predominant motives on the cameras of a lot of these travellers were not the history buildings, but rather their feline residents…….
It struck me, that these cats – which were completely unfazed by the legions of foreign intruders – had been genetically selected for centuries to both ignore the crowd and to claim their favorite spots on the pavement. Without any doubt their parents and their grandparents must have done exactly the same and by now they were born professionals in being admired and repeatedly imortalized on social media sites all over the world for just doing so.
Forget hundreds of years of history and World Heritage Site status – the real stars here had paws and whiskers, and they liked to eat fish, preferrably freshly caught from the sea!…..
None of these ”show offs” though became such a celebrity as Anastazija, the resident cat of the Rector’s Palace in Dubrovnik :
So strong was the local sentiment for this cat which used to live on the door steps of one of Dubrovnik’s most famous buildings, that when a few years ago the building’s curator tried to removed her shelter (handmade by a local craftsman !), a petition of the local residents demanding to leave her in the location she was accustomed to, raised more signatures than for the mayor of the city. The shelter went, but the cat remained……
Sadly, we were told, Anastazija had passed away just a few weeks before our arrival – so, our intervention would have been too late…..
But many other cats had started taking on her celebrity status on other sites in Dubrovnik and also travelling vets can’t resist taking photos of cats with scenic backgrounds. And undoubtedly, were the local felines part of our conversation that night, while we enjoyed the wine and the food of the Balkan in Dubrovnik …..
The Blue Vet Diary 