Music Boxes and Clean Clothing

(Photo cred: Will Van Beckum)

Yet another souvenir shop nestled within Trogir’s UNESCO protected stonewalls flaunts their musical boxes in a display outside and tempts you with a free try. You wind the tiny metal crank and out comes a semi-recognizable tune. These boxes may amuse for a minute or two:

“Oh look, this one plays Hey Jude!”




“Wait, this one plays Happy Birthday, I’m gonna get that for my sister.”

But soon, the smart ones realize that even the clothing sprawled out on a line hanging in between two three-story stone buildings expresses more about Croatia than these generic musical boxes.



The brightly colored clothing dangling overhead evokes a sense of a more innocent time – nobody’s paranoid that some evildoer will walk by and snag their clothing; nobody’s hiding anything, not even from the tourists, if they’re willing to look carefully.