Thanks to everyone here who has been supporting The Time Traveler's Guide To Dalmatia and encouraging my posts. I've got two announcements coming soon that you'll like - with two people you probably already know!
I'll post more about it later, but for the moment just know we've got some surprises on the way!
Plus, bonus points to anyone who can identify the battle in this video.
Cheers!
I paid a visit to the site where Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were murdered in Sarajevo. What's astonishing is how close Gavrilo Princip was, they have his footmarks on the sidewalk and gold plates to show the tires on the Archduke's car. It can't be more than 10 feet between them.
Astonishing as well is how unlikely the assassination was. Princip and his conspirators failed to kill the governor or the archduke that morning with a bomb. They did, however, injure many civilians.
Franz insisted on going to the hospital to visit the victims. His staff warned against it. He went anyway. They told his wife to at least stay back. But Sophie went, too.
One wrong turn over the Latin bridge and they were stuck in a crowd. 10 feet from the failed assassin. Princip wasn't a professional. But at that range he didn't need to be.
Two shots changed the world forever. Two days earlier Franz and his wife stepped off their steamer the Dalmat at the river port in Metković. Two days later they were loaded back on in caskets.
This group, especially, knows what happens next. But seeing where it happened made the assassination seem more personal. And it showed the mad circumstances that led up to it and those that followed in a new light. Not chance, but providence. But to what end, we still don't know.
I have a special section on Franz and Sophie in The Time Traveler's Guide To Dalmatia. They are, in fact, our last travelers. The bookends to an age when the sun was setting on centuries of history all at once, when Europe was still oblivious of the coming dark.
Let me know if you liked this video and if you want to see some more on site explorations of places that we go in the book. Also, check it out at timetraveltodalmatia.com
Writing about Dalmatia's last most famous visitor before the tragedy of the Great War: Archduke Franz Ferdinand. He and his wife Sophie stepped off their steamer The Dalmat in the port of Metkovic on June 26, 1914. They returned 4 days later in caskets.
So ends the time period that we're exploring in the book. It began in 1778 with Alberto Fortis exploring the natural beauties of a mysterious and ancient land. It ends in 1914 with Franz and Sophie being loaded on to their steamer one last time and leaving Dalmatia for good.
Unimaginable changes to the world followed and we cannot go back. And if you can, you'll need a guide.
Pictured: work on the book, the Archduke and his daughter Sophie, and the assassination in Sarajevo.
See what the coast of Croatia looked like during the time of Austro-Hungarian rule. The book is coming along and I would love your feedback! I've done a few posts about this subject here before. Do you want to see more posts from the book about what 19th century Dalmatia? Sneak peaks of sections? Biographies of travelers who came to Dalmatia?