United States or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was very early in the morning when we arrived at Arbe the first time; so early, in fact, that the innkeeper was still in bed and had to be interviewed from his chamber-window, and we had to deposit our belongings at the door before commencing our explorations breakfastless. On this occasion we were unfortunate.
Somewhat later, the Venetians made it their principal city, putting the bishoprics of Arbe, Veglia, and Ossero under the metropolitan in 1154, and making Domenico Morosini, son of the doge, Count of Zara.
There is a bell in it founded by Battista of Arbe. Opposite is the Roland column. Affixed to a pilaster is a symbolic statue typifying freedom of jurisdiction and commerce.
The bitter north wind, the Bora, is the curse of the district. In the island of Arbe it sometimes blows even in June and July, stripping the vineyards as if hundreds of men had been at work, and carrying the salt spray all over the island, to the great detriment of vegetation.
Our second visit to Arbe was made from Zara, which we left in rather stormy weather, the waves outside the harbour flashing with little white caps, while flaws of rain constantly hid the island of Ugljan on the other side of the channel.
A Zaraitan record of 986 mentions a Bishop Petrus. In 1062 a Bishop Dragus is named as being at the consecration of S. Pietro in Valle, the oldest Benedictine convent in Arbe. In the communal archives are preserved the oldest MSS. of the kings of Dalmatia and Croatia of the tenth century.
S. Christopher was patron of the town and diocese, and the greatest relic is his head, now that those of Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego have disappeared. A great stone fell from heaven into the camp of the besiegers on that occasion, and the missiles which they shot recoiled upon them. In Arbe, S. Christopher's Day is kept on May 9, the day of this discomfiture, instead of July 25 as elsewhere.
The chain of islands which forms a natural breakwater to the coast of Dalmatia is broken into two groups by the Punta Planka, the ancient Promontorium Syrtis, south of Sebenico. To the northern group belong Veglia, Cherso, Ossero, Arbe, Pago, and a number of smaller and less important islands, including Ugljan, opposite Zara, and Pasman, a little farther south.
We occupied the spacious after-cabins, exquisitely paneled in white mahogany, which had been used by the Austrian archduchesses and whose furnishings still bore the imperial crown, and our breakfasts were served under the white awnings stretched over the after-deck, where, lounging in the grateful shade, we could look out across the harbor, dotted with the gaudy sails of fishing craft and bordered by the walls and gardens of the quaint old city, to the islands of Arbe and Pago, rising, like huge, uncut emeralds, from the lazy southern sea.
It was restored in 1867; the adjoining ruinous building has 1657 over its door. S. Pietro in Valle is some six miles from Arbe, and is as yet undescribed.
Word Of The Day