Croatia Diaries: Max's Place

Peacocks, diseased rabbits, and the Emperor who bought an island

So you want to get away from the hustle and bustle of Dubrovnik? Experience some nature and peace and quiet? Come to Lokrum Island! There are trees and rocks and beaches, there are peacocks and rabbits. Or at least, there used to be rabbits. Now they’re gone.

Actually, I don’t know if that’s true. If anyone reading this is sitting and looking at a rabbit on Lokrum Island, please don’t write in. What I can say is that when I visit on a very warm spring day, there are no rabbits. I have been unable to discover whether this is anything to do with their slight disease issue recently.

There are peacocks, though. Tons of them. You may get peace from the crowds on Lokrum but you will never be alone. I stroll down to the island’s dead sea and I’m joined by a family of fowl on an outing.

It’s not enough to just see a peacock in the wild, though. They must perform for you, splay those tail feathers and give them a shake. I stare at the family at the dead sea for whole minutes and urge them to do something. For a couple of hours I spot other birds wandering around and I look at them and think come on, you know what to do.

Finally, it happens. I’m walking along a path and a bird appears next to me and suddenly lifts its feathers. They shimmer in the sunlight, the deep blues and vivid greens. It twists, giving me the full show, and I think that just seeing this would be worth the price of admission.

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There’s more to Lokrum, though. It should perhaps be no surprise that the rabbits aren’t having a good time here, given it’s cursed. At least, that’s what the legend says. There are ruins of a Benedictine Monastery here, and the scattered buildings aren’t the only legacy the monks have left.

After being ordered to leave the island against their wishes centuries ago, the monks decided to serve their last mass, put on their hooded cloaks (for added creepiness, I’m sure) and conduct a funeral procession. According to the legend they then walked around the island three times chanting and holding candles upside down. This bit is a bit hard to believe if you’ve ever lit candles on a birthday cake and then tried to carry it over any distance greater than about three inches.

But that’s the story and however true it is, the monks left the island to its fate. There are various stories of people meeting untimely ends on or just after leaving the island, but the most famous is that of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. That’s a mouthful, so we’ll call him Max.

If you think you have an overachieving older sibling who is quite clearly your parents’ favourite, spare a thought for dear old Max. His brother was Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. This no doubt added a little bit of pressure, so it’s no surprise really that when he discovered the uninhabited island of Lokrum he declared it “paradise on earth,” and, as one does, bought it.

But then he was asked to become Emperor of Mexico and well, who turns that down? This did not go well. Three years after becoming Emperor he became Former Emperor, as the Mexicans got sick of him and decided to shoot him.

Poor Max. But at least he owned an island. How many people can say that?

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Not me. I have to content myself with a long wander around Lokrum. I walk up the Path of Paradise, which sounds lovely but isn’t. The Path is a steep, sharp incline up to the highest point of the island and the remains of Fort Royal.

As I get my breath back and my pulse stops pounding in my ears, I stare out to Dubrovnik. It’s easy to see why this city has become so overrun with tourists. If Game of Thrones hadn’t been filmed here then Instagram would have brought the flocks anyway. The city’s brown tiled roofs glow under the hot sun in the distance. The sea and sky are perfect shades of blue.

Thrones has reached Lokrum too. In one of the monastery buildings a replica of the Iron Throne sits on a plinth and tourists line up to try it out. I wonder whether Max would have found it ironic that his paradise on earth would one day contain a throne that wasn’t his. Then I leave that slightly anachronistic thought in the throne room where it belongs, and venture outside to have one last go at spotting a rabbit.

No luck.

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Some housekeeping.

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