While passing by the town cold Bale a couple of days ago ...
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... I noticed a small church by the road, about a kilometer from the last houses of that town. It looked interesting, so I stopped to take a shot to two.
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I parked the car about a hundred meters from the building because didn't want shiny, modern stuff in the picture.
The textures of old stone walls and the surrounding vegetation looked great together. Something metallic like my car would disrupt the atmosphere.
When I came closer to the church ...
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... I noticed that the roof is mostly missing.
Now when I analyze the photographs on the PC screen, the absence of a roof is visible from a distance as well, but back then, didn't notice it until coming closer ...
... and taking a look through the bars of the gate.
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Didn't know the name of the church until today when I found it on the Internet while preparing this post. It took quite a bit of time and patience to find it because this building is far from being well known and advertised on the tourism-related sites that talk about Bale and its surroundings.
The outer surface of the walls was covered with lichens ...
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... especially on the back of the building.
The growth of colorful yellow lichens looked like an interesting abstract artwork.
I saw plenty of lichens on the trees as well.
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They were less vivid and colorful ...
... but the shapes weren't less interesting ...
... especially when seen through the macro lens. Which I, fortunately, brought with me.
These remains of another, considerably smaller building, were photographed about twenty meters from the church.
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In this shot, the church is photographed from there.
I can't tell you much about this building.
I mean, there is nothing I can tell you about it, really. There was nothing on the Internet ...
... so I can only show you what I saw.
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From this angle, I wasn't able to see much, ad example. What looks like the remains of the front facade, was hidden by the dense vegetation. Some of these shrubs are deciduous, so the building is still partially visible in winter. In springtime and summer, the thing completely disappears covered by lush green foliage.
The fern was thriving in many places on the wall, sprouting from the narrow spaces in between the stones.
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I don't know when the church of St. George was built. The information found on the Internet state only that it was changed many times through the centuries. So it must be very old, I guess.
Here you can see the ivy climbing the wall. I'm pretty sure that the ivy was more abundant, but the church and its surroundings were recently cleaned a bit.
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This small bell tower is the most iconic architectural detail of the small church.
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The altar is still in its place. But with two beams fallen from the roof, that form a weird cross, the place looks like a great setting for a horror movie or some suspicious real-life practices 😃involving an alternative view on Christianity.
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Here you can see a thought that someone has written on the locked gate that makes the church inaccessible to worshippers. It's written in the local dialect. And displays some really weird grammar even for the dialect that mixes Croatian and Italian words. WHERE JEHOVAH IS, THERE IS NO GOD ... states the mysterious writing, written in a pretty inept way, but still with a dash (or illusion) of something deeply philosophical. All this looks funny and laughable on a sunny day like the one shown in this post. But who knows, maybe at night the same things could have a higher dose of creepiness.
Before walking back to the car ...
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... I spent another ten minutes or so with the colorful lichens that grew on the wall.
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I can look at these shapes and patterns for hours.
I almost reached the car when this photograph was taken.
The historic center of Bale looked great from here ...
... so I took a couple of shots before driving away.
AND THAT'S IT. AS ALWAYS IN THESE POSTS ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK - THE END.
