Living in the midst of History

My husband and I recently spent a month in Osijek volunteering at the Evangelical Theological Seminary. See previous blogs for pictures of the school, the synagogue turned into a church, and the Cathedral in the town center. Todays pictures feature the old part of town, called the Tvrda (the fort) by locals.

Osijek, Croatia, on the Drava River, has changed hands many times over the past few millennia. The Austro-Hungarians razed the city when they forced the Ottomans out, so what you see is late seventeenth to nineteenth century.

The Austro-Hungarian city was surrounded by a wall entered by this gate facing the river.

I bought a water color of the square from this vendor the morning of the monthly antique fair. One side of the square was a series of open-air coffee shops. Croatians LOVE their caffeine.

The music school is in this yellow building
facing the square. I love the sound of students practicing.

One evening we attended a free saxophone concert in the music school. The guy was awesome!

Tunnels run under the surviving fortress walls on the opposite side of the river. I found them very photogenic, i.e. I got carried away taking pictures.

Here's another attempt at a stitched panorama. I stood in the middle of the street to take this. (Left and right are really one continuous line.) I had to edit the pictures before stitching to make the corners line up properly. I think it works better with distant shots.

I'm partial to shooting through arches and doorways, so here is the Tvrda from the ruined walls on the other side of the river.

Tomorrow we'll see a few more pictures of life in this fascinating city, before moving to Split on the Adriatic.