The cicadas are silent - they don't like rain.
Just after midnight, the rattling bedroom window wakes me up.
Outside, the wind rattles the trees, a branch scrapes against the house wall, the pounding rain comes from the corrugated iron roof in the garden where my landlords store rusty farm implements.
It is a mistake that nocturnal disturbance of the peace occurs only in places with large crowds, because only seventy people are said to live on the island of Lopud all year round.
Incidentally, I wasn't prepared for storms and rain in the summery south either.
But what is a trip without surprises worth?
Even the crossing to the island was unusual. In Gruz, the modern port of Dubrovnik - the world heritage city in front of which cruise ships usually lie and disguised city guides lead the crowds to locations where scenes from the "Game of Thrones" series were created - I got on board an old ferry. Suddenly the atmosphere changed, nothing was polished to a high gloss, not even the people. The ship chugged north along the mainland coast. The boat and the handful of passengers looked like something out of an old movie. A man and a boy, unmistakably father and son, both in sweatpants and quite stout, took turns drinking from a two-liter Coke bottle. On the screwed-on aluminum table between them lay a torn open packet of potato chips, into which both of them heartily reached into.
A giant with a shaggy beard and a pirate scarf
There were almost only men on board, either they wore tracksuits or hard-wearing trousers with knee pads and side pockets, and tool bags were placed on the floor. In the bar, two teachers crouched over students' notebooks. When they had corrected a piece of work with a red pen, they put a blue industrious stamp under the lines. The toilet doors at the entrance to the deck had been locked with thick ropes. Although the sun was shining and the Adriatic Sea was glittering, nobody was sitting on deck - everyone knew the beauties all around. At the pier in Lopud, the only inhabited part of the island, which is one of the thirteen Elaphite Islands, men waited until the ramp was lowered to load sacks and bricks onto four-wheeled trolleys or golf carts. Lopud is car-free.These little carts were used to bring the material to gray marble villas along Hafenstrasse: witnesses to a past prosperity. Attracted by the mild climate, the citizens of Dubrovnik built their holiday villas on Lopud. Tourism picked up speed in the twentieth century, which is of course out of the question at the moment due to the corona-related crisis. After all, foreigners have recently been allowed to come back, provided that they can prove that they have booked a room.if you can prove a room booking.if you can prove a room booking.
The next morning, the sky has cleared, I descend stairs made of hewn stones to the marina. There are some figures sitting frozen in front of Milo Obuljen's bar, apparently for a long time, no one speaks. The landlord, a giant with a shaggy beard and a pirate scarf around his forehead, doesn't seem to be a movement type either. To start the day off right, Milo explains after bringing me a cappuccino, he rolls a joint every morning. "Less is more. I can go fishing with my three children at any time, what else should I wish for? ", Says Milo and adds with a laugh and a little proud:" Lopud is an island of billionaires! " of late-working hippies and people who make their fortune with diamond mines in South Africa, I also learn from the bar operator:"The super-rich, who simulate drop-outs here two or three weeks a year, do not have what belongs to us in abundance: time, rest, satisfaction."