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.

Day 8 Ivan Dolac

After breakfast we went to the beach – the nude beach. After sunning ourselves au naturel we went skinny dipping in the Adriatic. We had lunch with our friends then embarked on a tour of the island. First stop was Stari Grad. It’s one of the oldest towns in Europe established in 384 BC by the Greeks under the name of Faros. Then it came under the Roman rule, and then changed hands many times throughout history. It’s a picturesque towns of stone buildings and narrow streets. It has a protected harbor with tons of boats and yachts. Then we drove up to one of the highest points of Hvar for spectacular views of both sides of the island. Then to a small town of Vrboska, another pretty town with tons of yachts. It is also famous for its nudist camp ground. Janka desperately wanted to drive up to the camping to see if the receptionist was naked, but she was overruled and we continued to an ancient village of Pitva for dinner. Pitva is a a hillside village of stone houses from the 10th century. It has a church and one (“slow food”) restaurant that we decided to try. Konoba Dvur Dubokovic has a great location overlooking the mountains and the sea, good wine and many choices of Croatian dishes. After dinner, we stopped at a wine cellar in Ivan Dolac that the people from Brno recommended. We tasted some wines and rakija and bought both. Wine is cheaper than water here …..

Day 7 Ivan Dolac

This tiny village doesn’t have much. We went out looking for something to eat in the morning and found a woman selling some bread and pastry from a window in her house. Further up the road we found a mini mart (really mini) with 2 kinds of cheese and packaged ham. It sufficed. After breakfast we hit the “beach”. No sand and lots of rocks both big and small. Actually, there are several small, secluded beaches within a short walking distance, one of them being a nudist beach. But you don’t really need a nusist beach to swim naked. This morning, we saw from our balcony three middle-aged persons emerging naked from the sea. Swimming in the Adriatic is wonderful, naked or otherwise. Janka and Andrzej invited us for a salad lunch and afterwards we embarked on a short sightseeing trip to two local villages located on this side of the tunnel, which is almost synonymous with “cut off from civilization.” One of them was Jagodna (about 4 houses) with a spectacular beach and a campground, and the other is Svata Nedielja (Holy Sunday). Its new part consists of a few houses by a very deep (about 50 m) harbor where we saw grapes being dried for raisins, and the old part way up the St. Nicholas Mountain (the highest in Hvar) has picturesque stone houses, an old church and a big modern winery. High above the village is an ancient cave with a 16th century chapel inside. When we got back to Ivan Dolac, our landlord invited the four of us for wine (another liter) and showed us his picture with Tito. In the evening, Our landlord grilled fish for us for dinner. It’s an elaborate ritual that involves rubbing the grill with raw onion, then with olive oil infused with garlic, which is also poured on the fish, and rosemary is inserted inside the fish. Then the fish is grilled on all sides until the skin is crisp. Delicious. The fish he made was brancin and orada. We had this dinner on the terrace of his house overlooking the sea. There was also a group of 2 couples from Brno who were grilling their own fishes. After dinner, we started talking and they started pouring Moravian wine and we just sat there drinking and discussing wine and life till 11 pm.

Day 6 09.21.15 Pula-Hvar

Our apartment is great. In the center of town and nicely furnished. Toured Pula all day. It is a really nice city. We even came across poorly marked, but surprisingly well preserved Roman mosaic floor in the center of the city, about 2 levels down from today’s ground level. There probably are lots of Roman remnants underneath the city center that have yet to be uncovered. Pula is very clean and friendly and not expensive. In the afternoon we took the sea plane to Split then another sea plane to the island of Hvar, city Jelsa. The sea plane rides were spectacular. Amazing panoramic view of the islands and coastline. Jelsa is a very picturesque town on a hill slope coming down all the way to the sea. We were met by Bo’s friends for the drive to their favorite village of Ivan Dolac. The drive included a half mile long tunnel only wide enough for one car and not tall enough for buses or large trucks. Electronic sensors only allowed cars in one direction. Supposedly it was built by Yugoslavian soldiers in the 1960s, and before that the only way to get to Ivan Dolac was via donkey/mule paths over the mountains. No wonder tourists were sparse. The village is very picturesque with houses scattered on a mountain slope, vineyards everywhere and maybe two streets. It’s a real “hole in the wall” with no ATM, no wifi (only in one place in the village and only in certain hours), no TV, no credit cards, but an abundance of cheap wine. Almost every house has a sign “domaci vino” (home-made wine), which they’ll pour for you in a liter bottles – and a liter bottle of either red or white will cost between $3 and $4. We rented a nice, modern apartment with a view of the Adriatic sea from a guy who was supposedly Tito’s bodyguard during communist times. He gave us a liter of his domaci vino as a welcome gift.

Day 5 09.20.15 Pula

Breakfast, walk and pack. We took the 2 pm boat to Rovinj. It is a nice big boat – see below. We then took a 3 pm bus to Pula. Pula is a great town. Much less touristy than Rovinj. There are no hotels in the downtown area so we rented an apartment. Centrally located and very nicely furnished. Pula has a big Roman Amphitheater from 27 BC and one of the best preserved of all Roman amphitheaters. It also has a lot of later, Venetian buildings from the 16th and 17th century. After Pula, we really started doubting Rick Steves and his recommendations. In his Croatia guidebook he raves about Rovinj, and dismisses Pula as not very interesting. We disagree. Rovinj is lovely and very picturesque, but it’s fantasy land for tourists. Pula is a real city, with industry, working people and some tourists added to the mix. Restaurant prices are about half or one third of those in Rovinj. When we got here this afternoon, half of the streets in the old town were blocked off for the “Iron man” race, which stared at 10 am in the morning. Our taxi driver had to drop us off a few blocks from our apartment because of that. Later, we saw the finish of the race in the amphitheater, where they call the name of each runner and called them “gladiators”. Istria 13, Pula 13

Day 4 -- 09.19.15 Rovinj

Spent relaxing day walking around the 2 islands. Then spent time lying on the beach. We took the 5 pm boat into town for a nice dinner. The town was jumping – lots of people and boats and even a parade of antique cars. On the way back, our ferry got crowded with lots of people coming onto the island for a pharmaceutical conference. It may be a good thing that we are leaving tomorrow.

Day 3 - 09.18.15 - St. Andrew’s Island

Today was a very relaxing days. We spent the whole day on our little island together with Phil and Sybill. We woke up after 9 am and had breakfast in our lovely restaurant in a converted all church with a view of the sea. Then we headed to the beach. There a several little beaches here in various parts of the island. They are all stony beaches and the entry to the water is a bit tricky because you have to walk on slippery stones. The water is also not as warm as we expected, but it’s very refreshing. We had lunch at a hilltop restaurant on another little island that you can walk to, and then back to the beach. It was Phil’s birthday so in the evening we celebrated in the church restaurant with an elaborate dinner, champagne, wine, etc. Doing nothing is very tiring. Here is a picture of Rovinj.

Day 2 -- Split, Pula, Rovinj

After a great breakfast at Hotel Luxe we walked to the harbor and checked in with European Costal Airways for our seaplane to Pula. The number of immense ferries here is astonishing. They are large car ferries and they go to other islands and Italy. We took a sea plane from Split to Pula. The views were spectacular. There are over 1000 islands off Croatia in the Adriatic. Pula is a large metropolitan city. We walked from the sea plane to the bus terminal (about 15 minutes). There was a bus to Rovinj every 30 minutes and it was a nice coach. From Rovinj we took a boat to the island where the hotel is located. The entire island is owned by the hotel which includes two buildings. One is a large traditional hotel. The second is smaller and is all suites. Our suite is nice – a bedroom and a living room. We met our friends, Phil and Sybill and had lunch at an outdoor restaurant. We then took the boat into town. The boat runs every hour from 7am till midnight and is also owned and operated by the hotel. Rovinj is a very charming hill town with a church at the top and winding narrow streets. The harbor area is full of bigger and smaller restaurants and becomes truly alive after dark. Being jetlagged, we only explored Rovinj for about 3 hours and then took the boat back to our island (St. Andrew’s) and went to sleep at 10 pm.

Day 1 Sept 16 Travel and Split

It poured all morning in Villa Park so we pushed up our taxi pickup by 30 minutes for fear of freeway slowdowns. When we left the house at 1:30 all the roads were dry and we got to LAX in less than an hour. The flights were very nice.. Flying into Split gave a gorgeous view of the Croatian coast. Many beautiful islands. The airport is small and efficient, but it’s rather far from the city, on the other side of the bay. Split is a big city, the second largest in Croatia, but the historical center is relatively small and very charming. Our hotel (Luxe) is very modern and nicely located just steps from the harbor and the old town. We checked in around 4 pm. Left our bags and walked to the harbor to see where we must go tomorrow for the sea plane. The harbor is very busy; lots of big and smaller ferries going to various islands, boats, yachts…and people, cars, buses. Then we walked through the old town and the ruins of Roman Emperor Diocletian’s enormous retirement palace from the 3rd century. We walked and walked the streets of the old town, and then the main seaside pedestrian promenade, the Riva, which is full of little bars and cafes, and amazing ice cream places. After walking, we got tired and hungry and after a long search (There are tons of lovely restaurants in the old town), we settled for one inside the palace and had dinner with excellent Croatian beer (Tomislav) and wine.

Preamble

This is our 49th trip together. We fly into Split Croatia and will visit several islands. We will return from Dubrovnik Croatia.