Tag Archives: Dubrovnik

Final Dubrovnik Day

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Greg and Jan invited us to their hotel for some breakfast this morning, and we slowly went out to take a walk. (In all honesty, we just haven’t done as much in Dubrovnik because of the heat. When you go out you are dripping wet in no time!)

We headed out one of the gates of the old town, stood in a spot where we could enjoy the beautiful water and see people swimming and taking kayaks out on it, and then spotted a fort just a short walk and a lot of stairs away, so we went to investigate that.

We decided to pay to enter it — actually Greg had a pass that got him in because he did the city wall earlier today, and Dan went ahead and bought that pass while at the fort so he can walk the wall tonight. Jan and I are skipping the wall. I had pondered it, and was still wondering if I should try it. After entering the fort and going up to a higher spot I had some height-fright difficulty. Greg looked at me and said, “if you can’t do this comfortably you could not do the wall!” so that settled that. I wish I didn’t have such a strong reaction, but this trip has convinced me that isn’t going to go away, so I just need to know when to say no to something. 

By the time we were done with the fort we were, again, dripping wet. Go figure. So we opted to find a shady place to stop, have a drink and, as it turned out, have salads for lunch. Then we went back inside the walled city.

Greg’s pass had only an hour left on it (he purchased it yesterday), so he checked to see what else he could use it for and nearby was a place about a famous playwright who was from Dubrovnik, Marin Držić (1508 – 1567). Someone we’d never heard of, but that didn’t stop us from checking it out. Besides, the place was air conditioned! It wasn’t a large place, and we probably could have skipped it, but at that point it was good to go inside, cool off, and spend a bit of time there.

Then we opted to go back to our rooms for a bit of rest, but after saying goodbye to Jan and Greg we sort of ended up at a gelato place. HOW did that happen? Such a mystery!

Later Dan went out to walk the city wall and I met up with Greg & Jan, enjoying a nice glass of wine and relaxing. We sat near the place where the smaller boats bring in people from the cruise ships, so we saw a lot of people passing by. We also saw one pretend old boat.


Eventually we left to find our dinner spot for the night, doing a less costly meal (and less attentive service!). The area had several cats just waiting for food … and making a good amount of noise about it. Sadly I neglecting to get a photo of them.

After that we had a nice glass of wine at Jan & Greg’s place before heading to ours. We could see, on the way back, the place where the orchestra concert was taking place. I just can’t imagine doing a concert that begins at 10 PM, but at least they don’t have to deal with the scorching daytime temperatures and it’s now a somewhat comfortable 79°.

Tomorrow we head to our final (boo hoo!) destination. Hm. Wonder where we’ll end up?!

 

August 24 In Dubrovnik

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VERY few photos today. But oh well … sometimes I’m just not in the mood!

We began the day very slowly. After yesterday’s drive I think we all are a bit weary. In addition, it is just extremely hot here. I know Greg and Jan ended up walking back to the car to put some things back in the car and bring other things out.

Greg and Jan came to our room and we all had coffee and our choice of bread treats (croissants and the like) Greg had bought.

We walked to where you can see, in a distance, the cruise ships. We could also see smaller boats close by. I guess if we wanted we could but a ticket for some of those, but we merely wandered. The water is just lovely: a very pretty blue green.

While Kosovo had street dogs, this area appears to have a ton of cats. Maybe it’s because of the fish? Dunno!

After walking a bit we walked to where Greg and Jan would spend the next two nights (the place we continue to have didn’t have a space for them when their plans changed). Their room is fabulous and while I might try to kick them out I guess I shouldn’t. (Kidding!) After that it was definitely time for a cold drink as we were again dripping wet.


Next up was getting back to our place to collect their luggage to put it at their new place. (I know, I know, this is boring stuff: I write these not only for people who might be interested, but so I can remember what we did!).

And soon it was lunch time. We went to an air conditioned place — it looked a bit cave-like — and had tapas. It was nice and relaxing, and the food was light and tasty.

Then (hooray!) we had siesta time. I had missed our wonderful siestas. What with the 90° temperature outside it really was rather necessary to get out of the heat and humidity for a while, too.

After our break we met back up with Jan & Greg and went out to get a glass of wine before dinner. We first went to a place where you walk down some stairs outside the wall and sit at tables overlooking the water (on a bit of a cliff area, I think) but Greg went down and said we’d never get in so we walked a bit more and came across a bar/restaurant that looked very nice. We asked if we could go in for just drinks and the person seating us didn’t look all that happy with us but she did show us to a table. We ordered a lovely bottle of red wine and the server was quite fun. After sitting for a while we agreed perhaps we’d just stay and have dinner, and an excellent dinner it was!

From there we went back down and said goodbye to Jan & Greg. I thought to check the spot where a concert is scheduled for tomorrow, beginning at 10PM and they were in the process of tuning when we arrived. Eventually they began to play … Respighi! Last movement of Pines of Rome, in fact. It was a fun listen.

(I have a video but there is no way it would load with this wifi connection!)

Now, back in our room, we are readying for a good night’s sleep. Laku noć! (At least that’s what google suggests I say for “goodnight”.)

A Day Of Driving And Our Next Destination

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No leisurely breakfast today, believe it or not: we wanted to be on the road by 7:00, so we woke early, had a coffee, said goodbye to Vanessa, Avni’s father and step-mother, and headed out.

It was easy to get out of the area, and we headed up a mountain. And up. And up. And yes, I had to look down or to the side where there was no drop-off much of the time. I am amazed at these mountains and also rather scared … or, to be honest, VERY scared sometimes! Cars pass by so closely. Cars pass us to get ahead even at what I would consider very dangerous times.

We got to the border crossing and said goodbye to Kosovo (where they DID ask Greg to show the insurance so I’m sure glad we bought that the second time we entered Kosovo!), and then said hello to Montenegro. Again, such beautiful country! It began with so many trees and the mountains were beautiful. We drove and drove and the terrain did eventually change. The road continued to scare me a lot. The road was so narrow at times. When we turned on to one road we thought it might not be right it was so narrow but as it turned out it was just a narrow scary road for a good (or bad) long time. As I told Greg, I had a lot of time to look at the floor of the car, and I held on to the the bar on the door (or whatever it’s called) to help hold the car on the road. I thanked Greg later for not killing us, too! We had a few extremely scary moments … just crazy drivers!

Eventually we got to the next border, saying goodbye to Montenegro and hello to Bosnia & Herzegovina. Any photos I got were from the moving car so they are pretty awful, but there was really no choice.

Here are photos from the drive … I’m sorry I can’t label them at the moment … just dropping them here and hoping they will load!

More photos … (doing only so many at a time):

Heh … never mind. Internet crashed. It’ll have to wait.

UPDATE: Here you go … just a few at a time, though … don’t want to crash this thing!

Did I mention that the sign photos are mostly so I can look back and figure out just where we were? And tunnels … TONS of tunnels on a very new road in Montenegro.

BUT there was something else I wanted to mention and now I’m drawing a blank. Argh … I hate when that happens. This will be my place holder in case I finally recall what it was. I need to take notes while I’m in the car, I guess.

Finally, there was our country destination: hello Croatia! We continued the drive for a rather short time and got to the city we will spend the next few days in: Dubrovnik is the city, and we are staying in the historic old town. What a place. First we had to find the parking garage. It’s absolutely horrendously expensive. The most we’ve ever spent for something like this (they say it’s best not to have a car while here and I would agree!). THEN we had to find our way down to the old town. Turns out we would have fared better getting a car to take us to a gate, but not knowing that we hiked with all our luggage down stairs and stairs and more stairs. Greg and Jan had wheeled luggage and that was more difficult than our backpacks, but even the packs were painful with the heat, humidity, and stairs. When we reached the gate we weren’t close to our final destination so we continued to walk and take more stairs. But we did eventually get to the rooms. We are situated in a nice place and I’ve neglected so far to take photos, but suffice it to say we are content to have rooms with air conditioning.

After washing up we went out, had beers and a snack at the restaurant right across from our door, and then walked a while. It’s quite a place and of course we’ll spend a lot more time checking it out tomorrow. Then it was dinner time.

I really wish I could post photos now … so sorry you can’t see this wonderful city!

UPDATE: The next post shows the Dubrovnik photos.

We looked at a number of places and eventually opted to go to a spot on our street, because we saw a server showing customers there the choices of fish for today, and because (hooray!) they had a room with A/C and we were just so darn warm. The dinner was super, and our server was really fun … she had a sense of humor we could relate to! What a fun, fun time.

So here we are in our room, and I’m typing and hoping I can post some photos, but the internet connection is so weak I’m guessing they won’t work so first i will post this and then see if I can add those after it’s published. If photos don’t work I’m guessing I’ll have to wait until our next destination.

Side note: This trip is ending too soon. I could go on and on and I’d be a happy camper. But of course one does have to finally get back to real life and (sigh) work.