Motovun attracts fools like the proverbial ship of fools (“Navis stultifera,” August 15, 1985). Most of them are social misfits of one sort or another, but some of them are outright lunatics. A few of them have all the papers to prove it, as well. As of late, one of them has been molesting his neighbors with loud music, but not a single neighbor has done a thing to stop him. Although the music reaches my house, it is bearable most of the time. “You know how he is,” they shrug their shoulders and raise their eyebrows almost pleadingly. The hilltown thus offers the best protection imaginable even to the craziest among its inhabitants. “Let’s hope he doesn’t do something much worse,” his neighbors shake their heads imploringly. And so the loud music goes on and on. Day after day. “Are you okay?” I asked him when I visited him this afternoon. He just nodded and jacked up the volume to show me how fine he actually was. It would not even cross my mind to stand in his way, it goes without saying. The hill of fools is my home, after all.

Addendum (March 18, 2016)

As the so-called winter is drawing to a close, I am thinking about Motovun ever more often. This is how it is at the beginning of spring the last few years, for I am spending the winter months in Zagreb. Easter marks the beginning of the tourist season in the hilltown, and this year it falls on March 27. My beloved and I will be there a few days before the holiday, and we will thus witness the first crowds. Few of the fools who still live there will miss the beginning of the tourist season, either. Motovun will come alive once again, but it is anyone’s guess what each of the fools will be up to this time around. And I must admit that I am looking forward to the spectacle. The hill of fools thus ricochets through my mind almost every day, as does its delicious Latin name. Collis stultifera, here we come!