Saturday, May 23, 2015
Sunshine! In our original itinerary, we had been thinking of doing a day trip to Montenegro today. We nixed it, however, because the weather report said that Montenegro would be cloudy, and we couldn’t possibly leave the brilliant sunshine in Dubrovnik after having sloshed through two very wet days. Also, I wasn’t particularly eager to get back in the car.
We had a glorious day in Dubrovnik, starting with a huge breakfast down the street from our sobe at one of the many tiny sidewalk cafes. Next stop: the Franciscan monastery with its old pharmacy. This was a quickie thing: you can do the whole building in about 10 minutes, which was fine with us because we wanted to get back outside.
From there we climbed up the stairs to the city wall. Walking the wall is the classic Dubrovnik activity, and it didn’t disappoint. I can see where it might get very crowded at the height of summer, but it was not too bad for us even on a beautiful Saturday in late May. Quite sensibly, foot traffic on the wall only goes one way. Most of these photos are self-explanatory. I must have 100 photos from this walk; it was hard to decide which ones to post because every view from the wall is spectacular.
Above, Dubrovnik Castle from the wall. Interestingly, with all its fortifications in place for hundreds of years, Dubrovnik never had to defend itself until the 1990s.
Above, a view of the Stradun (the main street) from the wall.
Above and below, the busy harbor.
I draw to your attention the picture above because, if you look at the hill in the center of the photo, you can clearly see slicing through the middle of it the one-way, one-lane cliff road that had taken me clear out of town the day before during our little fiasco (see yesterday’s post). I know it looks benign in the sunshine, but it didn’t feel that way in the torrential rain with no way to reach Grace.
Goofy touristy pics above. What can I say?
People actually live here…there was lots of laundry to prove it.
Interesting that there were lots of green spaces where no one had bothered to rebuild since an earthquake in the 17th century.
Grace, I added this one just for you. This was the annoying guy who could only pay two notes on whatever instrument that was. Anywhere within 300 yards you could not escape it.
We ate lunch just outside the walls at a place overlooking the water, then I bought a little oil painting with which I was quite pleased — for less than lunch cost, and lunch wasn’t all that much. The owner of the gallery was also the artist. (As I write this I’m regretting that I didn’t buy a few.) We wandered the streets a bit…
Above, Grace outside our sobe and below, the “street” on which it was located high on the hill.
Below, a view down another “street,” with little shops every few steps. I could have spent more time wandering through Dubrovnik. And it’s probably a good thing that I never found the jewelry district, despite some hunting for it.
Local woman sitting outside the cathedral, I imagine waiting for someone to go in to Saturday evening mass. Croatia is a very Catholic country.
Below, a typical side street with cafes and restaurants tucked into every nook and cranny.
We spent a few minutes relaxing on the tiny beach just a few hundred yards north of town:
We debated at some length how to spend the rest of the afternoon and ultimately decided to take the tram up the mountain. The views were lovely, but I was slightly tortured looking north up the coast, below.
This was what we were supposed to have been seeing yesterday on our scenic drive! Who knew there were so many islands out there? You couldn’t see them in the rain and fog.
Below, a good view of the old city of Dubrovnik:
At the top of the mountain is an old fort that was a Croatian base in what they call the Homeland War in the early 90s. The fort now houses a museum with plenty of photographs of the bombing of Dubrovnik. I admit that I was not well-versed in the details of that war, so it was interesting to read about it and watch the short film. The presentation was quite biased, but it was still chilling to see the damage to this beautiful city. You would hardly know it today; the city looks great, but many of the tile roofs (rooves?) are new. After seeing creepy photos of the Stradun completely abandoned except for a soldier standing guard, with damage to many of the buildings, it was cheering to see the street thriving today, only 20 or so years later, with loads of people, shops and busy cafes (see photo of the Stradun earlier in this post).
Above, the view toward the interior of the country (East).
Back in the old city, our late-afternoon destination was the Hole in the Wall, a bar that juts out from the wall onto the rocks and over the sea. You can barely glimpse the white awnings in the photo below, partway down the wall and above where the woman in black is standing.
Some young men were jumping off the rocks, below:
which impressed the girls who were watching, until the second guy had to be dragged out of the water, since he was struggling to make landfall on his own. The current was quite strong. We had a couple of drinks and read our books and watched the sun set.
Then we scouted around until we found the restaurant that Grace had identified for dinner (she was Yelping everywhere we went). [Grace, need the name of that restaurant!] That was one of my favorite meals of the trip. I loved my John Dory (local fish), and it was lovely sitting outside eavesdropping on the three British couples at the next table. Indeed, there had been Brits next to us at lunch too; with direct flights from London this must be a perfect weekend getaway. A good reason to move to London; Dubrovnik was just lovely. Below, Dubrovnik at night. It’s not wet – the stones are gleaming.
