Town of Sibenik – The Stuff You Won’t Find in a Sibenik Tourist Guide

02.08.2021
Dalmatian coast

Have you ever heard of a town where people never get married in may?
No?

Well, actually you are just going there. It’s town of Sibenik!

Town of Sibenik…Seems like every place in Croatia has at least a legend or two to be retold from generation to generation. But, for a superstition to outlive the centuries and survive into a present day is a story of a kind.

So, why doesn’t town of Sibenik folks marry in may?

The story goes way, way back.

She was a happy child. She was laughing so much in those days that the servants thought her laugh will never fade away from the wide rooms of a palace. Girlish giggling echoed through the palace corridors. Flowers in the garden reflected the colors of her summer dresses.

She danced through the years with not a single worry on her mind, but only one simple duty.

Each morning she would bring the basket with food to a local orphanage. She liked her morning walks downtown, and she liked the children in the orphanage, but as the years went by and a girl became a young lady, an orphan boy stole her innocent heart. She fell in love. Desperately. Her parents would never agree on it.

She loved a boy so much she would pray only not to meet him during a visit.

So, one day she stopped going to the orphanage and devoted herself to nursing the plague-infected patients. The epidemic harvested the city of Šibenik. The days of sorrow and misery. Her heart could no longer bear the suffering. She made a promise to God:

“If the plague goes away I will become a nun and devote my life to serving the Lord.”

And suddenly, in the month of May, the plague disappeared. Overnight. Like it never happened. She kept her promise and spent the rest of her days in a monastery. But, people of Sibenik didn’t forget her divine dedication.

For them, the act she forced herself to was interpreted as an act against love.

And for that reason, from then on, no citizen of Sibenik will ever get married in the month of May.

They kept their promise, too.

EXPLORE ŠIBENIK

Town of Sibenik and The Evening Game

Inspired with this love story we invented a little Hide & Seek game for you, our dear readers, to make your evening in Sibenik a more diverse experience. The game is about the hidden Sibenik, stuff that other tourists will surely miss out because it is not to be found in the sheets of tourist guides.

Here is the game:

Sibenik is the city of superstitions and legends. They have their own vampire here, they have their beloved witches Mrna and Dobra, they have their own Bloody Wedding and the Tower of Sighs.

They also have three hidden gems inside the old town streets. No tourist will notice those gems unless they’ve been strictly pointed at them. We’ll tell you what they are and you try to find it.

Who knows what might show up on your quest.

Ready? Let’s go!

The hidden gems are:

1. The Rebus

There is a rebus built in a stone facade of one of the stone houses at the Dobric Square. The rebus consists of four displays – the wings, the scythe, the two bags of money, the three dice, and… the skull. The story of the rebus is unknown and assumed the meaning of it would be something like FROM A LYING MOUTH OUT COMES THE DEATH.

2. The Stone Pots

There are two opposite stone pots in the ground level of the Marenzi Palace, on the west corner of the Medulic Square and Kalelarga. One pot has a sign – Amor d’Cani – meaning – A God’s Love to the Dogs.

Seems strange? But, it’s not really.

3. The Length-Measures

Medulic Square used to be a market. The remains of that market are the two length-measures carved in the stone wall of one of the houses.

According to these measures, merchants were obliged to make their own measures accurately to the sample cut into the stone. No cheating on the market!

Ok, we’ve given you enough data. Go and find the gems yourselves. If you manage to find them, you can be sure you experienced something other guests of Sibenik skipped.

Your CTC Team, S.J.