Slavic Kitties

3
Written by Catherine
Kitty in the hillside neighbourhood of Split

The first thing we saw when we landed in Split and walked out of the airport was a palm tree… with a cat under it.  This must be paradise!

Sneaky kitty cleaning up scraps at a cafe in a plaza. Most of the local folks don't appreciate the cats as much as the tourists, so the cats keep a low profile around restaurants.

In old cities, there are no back alleys to store garbage. This means that garbage gets put out front at night, and combined with the warm climate seems to be a perfect habitat for rats. However, I didn’t see any rats in any of the places we visited. What we did see were cats – lots of them. The inverse relationship between cats and rats made me wonder: why do we say kitties for cats but not ritties for rats? Graham says it is because rats are not cute.

It is hard to take a good picture of a cat, they never look at the camera. This cat's back half was tabby and the rest calico
This one hung around the Jupiter temple in Split. Most of the cats seemed to have a very specific territory, so we would always see them in the same spots.
By the Cathedral on our first morning in Split. From here we could probably see 5 or 6 cats, just hanging around in the courtyard.

Tabbies, calicoes, plain black or white ones; some with collars or bells but most were wild; many were skittish though some were friendly.  The general thing to say is that they were medium sized (not Swedish giants) and quiet cats, we heard hardly any meows.

Old timer on a city roof. This is one of the few cats with a collar - he has a little bell- so he must be getting cat food somewhere.
This cat was making himself comfortable in the shelves of a semi-outdoor shopping kiosk. How much for that kitty in the window?
Bosnian kitty. To me, it seems just like the Croatian kitties... but they assure me they are different!

One night we had a wonderful dinner on a plaza by the old port.  We had a great salad and risotto and some fired sardines.  There was a massive pile of sardines and since we don’t usually eat meat we got full pretty quickly.  Luckily there were some local cats willing to help us out.  They sat patiently under our table for extras.

Aw! They are hugging! These ones weren't friendly to me though, because I tried to pet them 10 seconds later and they ran away.
This guy in Split is a scruffy oldtimer, but friendly and with a lot of personality.

We don’t see many cats in Sweden so it was nice to be able to pet some cats.  You can sit on a park bench and a friendly one may come by.  One crawled into my lap while I was sitting on some rocks by the sea.  Just in case you are wondering, Graham also pets cats, but somehow all the pictures are of me petting cats, making me look like a crazy cat lady.

Seaside kitty sitting on a rock outside the Dubrovnik city walls.
The winner of ABSOLUTE CUTEST!!! This is a mamma cat with her two kittens living in a space between the wall stones in Dubrovnik.

3 Comments

  1. awwwwwwwwwwwww! i love the slavic kitty post!!!!
    all the cute kitties and sniff (the kitty whisperer) looking to pet all the cute kitties. And noticing their territories and neighbourhoods! And the momma kitty and her wee bebes!!!
    aw.
    this is the cutest cute of the day.
    ps. I think Im with graham. kitties not ritties. 🙂

  2. I saw a group of stray cats while I was in Hawaii (along with lots of chickens) – couldn’t believe how many there were. I have pictures but I think yours are cuter :p.

  3. Hawaii is also a good place for neighbourhood cats, and Brasil. I think only hot places have neighbourhood cats, and in cold places the cats want to live inside.

Comments are closed.