It used to be a brothel, back in the bad old days. Now it's just another magnificent bar in the center, with a stuffed monkey in one corner. The bar seems to change owners fairly often, partly because there shouldn't legally be a bar here at all, but some keeps the local monkeys (not the stuffed one in the corner, mind you) greased. Marquis closed down for about six months but now seems to be open again.
The last time I was in Marquis de Sade was in the early summer, I'd been hoping to photograph the space under the bar. Under Marque de Sade, you see, is something even more magnificent: an early 20th-century ballroom with a ten meter ceiling. No one has touched the place for decades and now it's in ruins. I went to the bar with Silvia, one frantic Croatian from Vis, who knows the owner, and would have a bit more bargaining power than I.
We didn't get in touch with the owner, although we did stay for a beer of course. While pondering what the next move should be on our quest to see this cellar of local myth, a stag group neanderthaled its way into the bar and squatted in the opposite corner. Silvia and I stepped out for a smoke and watched the stags from the other side of the glass. They were doing something I had never seen before. Some kind of game, involving a metal tankard and two spoons; two men facing each other, one with a spoon in his mouth, the other hitting the spoon with the other spoon, and occasionally smashing him on the head with the metal mug. Lovely. We returned inside with a new angle on tribal stupidity.
