Still the Dalmatian Coast, but farther north than the usually seen walled cities.At Senj, there is a fortress at the top of the hill behind the port town,. A large valley in the mountains funnels to the sea. See overview at www.senj.hr/English/Geographical_pos. There, refugees from the Turks, Uskoks, fled and set up a town, and fought back. See www.lickosenjska.com/senj/senj1_e/senj1_e.
The Uskoks had helped the Venetians, by fighting back the Turks, and enabling the Venetians to disengage and just keep paying financial tribute to the Turks, instead of fighting themselves, say the books. Ongoing research - see lookups at Bogomilia: A Site for the Unsung
Then, when the Uskoks through their experience in battle and on ships were getting too strong, the Venetians turned against them, eventually destroying them and dissipating their numbers. The Uskoks had become great seamen, managing the winds that even the Venetians could not; so they became pirates. Always check up on Wikipedia because the information can be updated, or left erroneous - but this looked accurate, in line with what we think we learned: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uskok.
Courage, flexibility, adaptability, and drive. All for nothing. Just another page in history. But it is good to see how school children now can tour the fortress up there,and see the great crests of the old Croatian families lined up on the walls, and read of the great struggles for independence and dignity of the past. There is huge post and beam construction that still holds up, for you builders. The town looks like this, I believe this is Senj, but if it is a neighboring town, Senj looks like this from the top where the fortress is. We walked up there. We try to take notes, but sometimes get pictures mixed. For a scholarly long article, try The Uskok "Problem" at etext.virginia.edu/journals/EH/EH42/Simon42.
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