Day 15 Dubrovnik-travel

We started the day by taking the cable car to the fort on top of the mountain overlooking the city. The views were spectacular. There was a war museum there with pictures and descriptions of the war from 1991 to 1995. Really brutal. We then ventured back into the old city thinking it would be not crowded since we saw no cruise ships from the mountain. However, that was not the case since buses had brought many groups. We walked up the 100+ steps for the last time and packed. Our hosts, a young couple Iris and Lamie, took us to the airport. The Dubrovnik airport is pretty small, but nice. They are expanding it, though and a new terminal is in progress. Supposedly, in 2016 there will be direct flights from the US to Dubrovnik. Our Lufthansa flight to Munich was OK. We really enjoyed Croatia -- its natural beauty, the spectacular coast with hundreds of islands, inlets, bays and picturesque little towns surrounded by hills and mountains. The most enjoyable places were those that were a bit more remote and not accessible to cruise ships and big bus tours, like the little towns on Hvar.

Day 14 Dubrovnik-Montenegro

Left first thing in the morning for our tour to Montenegro. We were a small group of 6 – two girls from Finland, a couple of retired professors from Brazil and us. The drive along the Croatian coast is beautiful. The border crossing into Montenegro immediately changed the terrain. It is obvious that it is a poorer country than Croatia. The first impressive site was the bay of Kotor. It is a large rambling inlet of the Adriatic with several historical villages and lots of yachts. The next stop was the town of Kotor, an ancient little town on the bay with a lovely old town and very impressive city walls that go up from the bay high into the mountains in a triangle. Unfortunately, there were 3 cruise ships in town so it was awfully crowded. We decided to climb up the walls towards the fort at the top. We only made it half-way because we didn’t have enough time to go all the way, but the views were spectacular. Then, we continued to the Budva Riviera, which as our driver/guide explained, was dominated by the Russians who invested heavily into hotels and other infrastructure and traditionally about 85% of visitors to Budva were Russian. This year supposedly Putin made a deal with the Greeks and the Russians started to pull out of the Budva Riviera, which lost a lot of tourists, investors and money. We did see a lot of properties (including hotels) for sale, but we also saw and heard a lot of Russian tourists in town. After 2.5 hours in Budva, Milo, our driver showed us two seven star hotels in the area. One is brand new hotel that just opened, and the other is the historical Sveti Stefan hotel, which is a little island with hold stone houses and a church in the middle. Each house is one apartment. Apparently a lot of celebrities and heads of state stayed there over the years. We got back to Dubrovnik around 6:30 pm and headed down to Stradun. For the first time there were no crowds and the city felt like a normal city.

Day 13 Dubrovnik

We walked. Explored unexplored parts of the city. On the morning walk, we stopped at a travel agency and booked an all day tour tomorrow to Montenegro (a bordering country). Then, we went to lunch at Lady Pi Pi, named for the obscene statue in front. We were lucky to get a table without waiting. The food was slow but good and plentiful. Then we went to the harbor and took a boat ride to a nearby island of Lokrum. The boat ride is only 15 minutes, but it’s a nice escape from the city and the crowd. The island is a nature preserve with lots of small stony “beaches” and magnificent ruins of a 13th century monastery, which was later converted to a summer retreat for the Habsburgs and most recently used as a location for the Game of Thrones. There is an official Game of Thrones welcome center in the island, with multimedia displays from the sets and a replica of the throne. They’ve been filming this series all over Dubrovnik (and also in Split and Sibenik) and there are Game of Thrones tours of the city, which seem to be quite popular. We spent about 2 hours on the island and when we came back, we found a furry visitor on our little patio --- a cat was sleeping in one of the chairs. Cats are everywhere here, even inside restaurants or sleeping in the midst of the hordes of people on the main drag. They are totally unfazed, well fed and content. We’ve seen a lot of cute little kittens too.

Day 12 Dubrovnik

Did our morning stroll which included the 100 obligatory steps (twice). We planned to go to Cavtat which is a town on the other side of the bay. Lots of boats offering rides there but we decided to take a bus there and boat back. The bus had fantastic views of the shore. It went way up before coming back down to sea level. The town is a very pretty place. We visited the home and museum of the famous Croatian painter Vlaho Bukovac, which was very impressive. We also visited a church/mausoleum of the Racic family, a wealthy shipping family whose 4 members (husband, wife and 2 children) died the same year of the Spanish flu. The mausoleum was created by a famous Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. It is located on a hill high above the town. Next to it is a cemetery that is still being used, and it’s apparently very desirable and exclusive because a plot there costs over $25,000. We had lunch by the sea the walked up to a very impressive 5 star hotel (Hotel Croatia) with an amazing view. On the terrace there, we met a young woman who works for NCIS in Bahrain and is touring Croatia with a group. We decided to forgo the boat and took the bus back to Dubrovnik. In the afternoon we walked around the old harbor and caught the sunset there. We were planning to have dinner in a small restaurant called Lady Pi-Pi not far from us in the city walls with a fantastic view of the whole city. Unfortunately when we got there, there was line of people waiting for tables so we gave it up and had to go back down to the “downtown” area to eat.

Day 11 Dubrovnik

We got to Hvar city dock a little early and there was a long line. Fortunately, they were going to Split. Thirty minutes after that catamaran left, ours arrived. The 3 hour trip to Dubrovnik was very nice. We made 2 quick stops at 2 islands – Korcula and Mljet. Our apartment owners met us at the dock and drove us to an entrance to the old (walled) city. Cars are not allowed in the old city, but it was a short walk to the apt, which is located close to the Buza gate and almost next to city walls. It’s a major part of a tiny old stone house, which was recently completely renovated so it’s bright and very modern inside. We then set out to walk the old town. From our place we have to walk down a very steep street with at least 100 uneven stony steps to get to the main drag (Stradun), and probably the same number to come back up. We went to a Bosnian restaurant for lunch and had a fantastic meal, the best we’ve had in Croatia so far. Then, to burn the lunch calories, we decided to walk the city walls. We paid an exorbitant fee to enter the city wall. The walk around the entire city on the wall took 1.5 hour and included enough steps to qualify as two trips to the gym. But all this effort was rewarded with amazing views of the city inside and outside the walls. After a rest in our place, we did some shopping outside the walls and went back down to Stradun to see the evening activities. It was still crowded, but a bit less than during the day when people from 3 cruise ships descended on the city. There was lots of activity in the evening, the main one being a concert of the Dubrovnik Symphony and some tenor in front of the cathedral. And of course hundreds of restaurants with people eating and drinking and enjoying life.

Day 10 Hvar city

Bo’s friends drove us to Hvar from Ivan Dolac – about 20 miles only, but a world apart. Hvar is a city bustling with tourists speaking many different languages, with restaurants galore, bars, coffee places and many hotels. It has a lovely location on hills surrounding a a large port with lots of boats and yachts. It has ferries to several places (only passenger, no cars) and catamarans also. There is a chain of very small islands called Pakleni Otoci right off the Hvar harbor. They are supposed to have pristine beaches so there are boats that take people there for 40 kn (about $6.50) round trip Our hotel (Palace hotel) is right off the main square adjacent to the water. Lots of pizza places here due to Italian influence. We had an excellent pizza for lunch. Then we walked up to the fort at the highest point, about a 20 minute hike. We spent the afternoon walking around Hvar’s main and back streets, admiring the views and people watching. Walked behind cathedral and smelled nice cooking. We found a quant restaurant that said their specialty was goulash. We went back there for dinner and the nice man said they do all the home cooking and had only 4 main courses. I ordered the goulash and Bo ordered the fish stew. After about 20 minutes and ½ liter of wine Bo got her stew. After 5 minutes passed I waved at the gent and pointed to my empty place. I saw him ladle out the goulash for me. After I was 80% done he came by. I told him that it was not right that both dinners were not served together. And my roasted vegetables were cold. They came out of the refrig and were put on top of the goulash. He exploded and told us to get out. So we left. 1/2 liter of wine and dinner free. We have never been thrown out of a restaurant before.

Day 9 Ivan Dolac

Woke up at 4 am (not unusual) and went outside on balcony. The sky was intermittently (around 2 seconds) being lit up by lightning. We could see no lightning, just the sky being lit up and it was silent – no thunder. It is called cloud to cloud lightning and it lights up the sky for miles. At 11 it was drizzling and we went for a walk and got caught in a down pour. It will probably rain all day. At 4:45 we set out to go to the only market in town, really a mini mart called Mini Mart 2 (but there is no Mini Mart 1). Hours are 8 to 11 am and 5 to 8 pm. Then we walked past the only restaurant around, Slavinka. We ate there 3 days ago and it was excellent. At lunch time when we hid there to escape the downpour, there was a group of Germans there eating big portions of good looking and aromatic food so were planning to have dinner there again in the evening. Walking back from the shop we decided to check their dinner hours. To our shock, a big sign in the window said “CLOSED -- see you next summer”. Fortunately, Bo’s friends had invited us for dinner which we had turned down. We knocked on their door and reinvited ourselves. We drank a lot of wine with dinner. Every 100 ft there is a house selling wine. There are 3 kinds of alcohol here: wine (both white and red, only one kind of each. The white is fairly light and not fruity, and the red is very dark and thick), rakija, and prošek. Prošek is a dessert wine. Since this may be confused with proseco, a sparkling wine from Italy, the EU decided that for Croatia to join the EU they had to stop using the term prošek. The locals here still call it prošek.