Dalmatian Mornings

The best mornings start with a coffee and a walk by the sea.

There’s a quiet buzz about the old town in the early morning light. Beneath ancient arches and along cobbled corridors, shopkeepers and city workers quietly get ready for the day. I make my way down the uneven steps and through the covered side street to join the scene—shrugging my jacket cooler higher in the dry autumn air.

It’s not hard to find a good cup of coffee in Croatia. There’s a local roaster I frequent if I’m just picking up a latte to-go. Tucked into an alley, the stall barely accommodates more than two people at a time. The interior screams DIY Pinterest with a modern, high-contrast theme, minimal greenery, a sans-serif menu, and a light wood slat counter. The young barista pours his best latte art with all the intent it must have taken to style his handlebar mustache. I feel bad reaching for a lid.

The mid-autumn sun hangs low over the Adriatic lighting up the ancient facades and the limestone peaks high above them. Most of the tours have stopped for the season leaving fisherman to tend to their boats. Old friends gather on benches and chatter back and forth in a familiar tone. I cross an empty street and pick my way through narrow alleys until I find the long winding corridor that leads upward. There’s not much English on this street. Parents plead with straggling kids on the way to school as lazy dogs look on from sun-ladden landings. Each side street is a portrait—some with Vespas and fresh laundry, some with flowers and ivy and blue shutters keeping watch over the sea. All a clue to the lives that traverse them. As the steps continue, the red-tiled roofs disappear beneath me.

Houses give way to evergreens, cacti, and giant aloe vera. The way leads past an eleventh-century stone church before turning sharply uphill along waist-high stone walls. I scan the bushes for cats who like to hang around the zoo on the other side of the hill. The sea pops in and out of view, and a cold wind rushes through the pines. I close my eyes for a split second and can smell the freshness of the High Sierra back home. Above, a Croatian flag lays outstretched in the wind—a beacon high above the city and to the islands scattered across the horizon. I pause to take another sip. Sailboats ride the waves as ferries carve their daily routes through the channel. A middle-aged man stands reverently below the flagpole keeping watch over the ships below. The wind howls above the pines and carries a chill across my face with the weight of the winter slowly approaching. I can feel my coffee getting colder, so after a moment to take it all in, I descend back into the trees through the filtered light of a new day.