“If there is one thing to take away from the powerful collage of allusions, imagery, and lyricism in Laurie Sheck’s Island of the Mad, it is the fundamental importance of human connection. As Ambrose follows their strange tale, everything he has ever known or thought is called into question. As the sleepless woman's eyesight fails, she wants only one thing-that her friend read to her from Dostoevsky's great novel, The Idiot, a book she loves but can no longer read herself.
At the island's old, abandoned hospital which has been turned into a conference center, he discovers a mess of papers in a drawer, and among them the correspondence and notes of two of the island's former inhabitants-a woman with a rare genetic illness which causes the afflicted to gradually become unable to sleep until, increasingly hallucinatory and feverish, they essentially die of sleeplessness and her friend, a man who experiences epileptic seizures. "Tomorrow there will be many suns." To that we raise our glasses.Following on the heels of her exciting and widely acclaimed A Monster's Notes, and with Sheck's characteristic brilliance of language, Island of the Mad follows the solitary, hunchbacked Ambrose A., as he sets out on a mysterious journey to Venice in search of a lost notebook he knows almost nothing about.Įventually he arrives in San Servolo, the Island of the Mad, in the Venetian Lagoon, only a few minutes' boat–ride from Venice. "Don't worry," he assures us with typical Croatian optimism. Our waiter hurries over, rearranging marketumbrellas to better shield us. We sit nursing glasses of teran and watch sheets of rain fall over the dark valleys below. At dinner that evening on the terrace, before we get to the pandešpanja, a cloud-light traditional Istrian shortcake, a cloudburst breaks overhead. The motel-like rooms are basic but ours has a lovely view over the hotel's cobblestone terrace, shaded by the canopy of several huge chestnut trees. Once inside the walls we navigate a maze of cobblestone streets and sleepy piazzas to Hotel Kaštel, a 17th-century stone castle that once housed Venetian royalty.
THE SLEEPLESS TOWN SAN SERVOLO SERIES
One of a series of fortified medieval towns in Istria's interior, it appears in the distance as a haphazard stack of stone. Our last stop is the hilltop town of Motovun in Istria's north, approached through a sea of forest punctuated by occasional steeples and terracotta roofs.
THE SLEEPLESS TOWN SAN SERVOLO FULL
The city is full of young entrepreneurs like him, who grew up here, left to have adventures and are now returning to run small businesses and live the good life in a place where, as Ogi says, "there are no traffic lights and you're surrounded by nature, both land and sea". Most are lined with tiny galleries and boutiques, including Atelier Galerija Brek, run by a friend of ours, Ognjen Maravic.
We wind along steep, labrynthine streets to the top of the town on stones worn smooth by centuries of footfall. We warm to the sardonic waiters ferrying espresso and apricot-filled croissants to patrons at the touristy-but-likeable cafés facing the marina. It's fun to join the svelte crowd preening at Mulini Beach, but just as rewarding to revisit our favourite Old Town haunts. And during our time in Rovinj we enjoy both sides of its character. In the five years since our first visit, the city has developed an appealing split personality: a sense of romance and timeless charm in the Old Town on the narrow spit jutting into the Adriatic, and St Tropez-style cool along the harbourfront. Stancija Meneghetti 1, Bale, meneghetti.hr Trg Andrea Antico 7, Motovun, hotel-kastel-motovun.hr Castel 57, Bale, Ī castle in the hilltop village of Motovun. Luje Adamovića 31, Rovinj, īohemian hideaway in historic Bale.
Antonia Smareglia 3, Rovinj, ĭesign-forward stunner with excellent spa and restaurants. Riva Pino Budicin 16, Rovinj, Ĭontemporary 113-room hotel with its own beach. Historic boutique hotel overlooking the marina in Rovinj's Old Town. Emirates operates 11 daily flights from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide to Dubai, connecting to a daily flight to Venice ( /au).įrom Venice, it's a two- to three-hour drive to the Istrian border, or, from late April to early October, take a Venezia Lines ferry to Istrian ports such as Poreč, Rovinj and Pula.
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