Croatia Photography and Styling Workshop

This past fall Carey and I hosted a photography workshop in Croatia. Linda, Maggie, and Zhanna came to host alongside us, and we arrived in Zagreb a few days before the workshop began to pick up our rental car and drive 3 hours into the countryside. We’d rented Villa Sancta Maria, a huge old stone farmhouse at the top of a hill overlooking a huge valley in Istria, the heart of Croatian wine and truffle country. I’d never been to Croatia before and wasn’t sure what to expect, but when we rounded the corner at the top of the hill and pulled into the winding road leading up to the house we’d call home over the next week, what I saw took my breath away. Perched at the very top of an enormous hill (I think it also qualified as a small mountain), we could see the entire valley stretching out towards the setting sun.  Rows of vineyards graced the curves of the hills around us, and across the valley you could see an ancient hilltop town winding it’s way up to the fortress at the tippy top. Fog settled to the bottom of the valley the next morning, and I watched it dissipate in my jet lagged state (awake much earlier than I would have normally been), and it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to find words to describe the scenery and the feeling of that place. Stone buildings scattered throughout the countryside like bread crumbs on a cutting board; some inhabited with the same families for generations, some given into time and overgrown with trees. Dense old forests that have existed in the same place for thousands of years, holding a treasure trove of delicious treasures if you know where to dig. People so friendly and excited to share their country with you, that they smile and wave at you from their front yard as they see you drive past. Food so fresh and purely good that you understand why people have fought wars over things like salt and spices. The only one other place I’ve traveled to that gave me the same sense of awe, majesty, and just pure unadulterated joy at the experience of existing in that particular location was Iceland.