Dubrovnik

After our hellish ferry from Italy we weren’t really in the mood for finding a place to stay (as we hadn’t booked anything) and when we started to be hawked by potential hoteliers Rach walked away and left me to deal with it. Then just when we thought that we’d have to pay for a proper hotel along came Nikola. He told us that his place was ‘very nice’ and 25 min walk from the old town but that he’d drive us everywhere we wanted to go. Too good to be true right, well not really. The place was really nice; it was pretty new, full kitchen and bathroom, pretty much just a new 1 bed (king size) apartment. And to top it off we’d just txt Nikola from wherever we were and he’d be there in 15 min to taxi us to wherever (so big ups Nikola, highly recommended www.burum-accomodation.com). He even gave us a Happy Xmas/New Years txt the other day.

Our first full day in Dubrovnik was spent exploring the old town, it reminded me of Venice (funny that considering it was part of the Venetian empire). It was a really nice day and I was even contemplating a swim.

In one of the ruins left by the Bosnian war we found a mini cat colony

Then Rachel kicked a dog

we brought a hat off some old ladies who wereknitting in old town

That night after reading the many posters advertising a free wine and cheese evening in one of the resort we headed out to see what we could get for free. The answer was everything, it was put on by the Dubrovnik winter tourist board and it was another case of the endless wine glass. The vineyard owners would get up in-between glasses and explain what was so great about there wine (all in Croatian so it was a case of nodding and smiling), apart form the wine there were full plates of cheese and bread with olive oil. Basically we didn’t need to go out for dinner and drinks afterwards.

The next day we’d planned to catch a quick ferry over to one of the islands for a day of beach walking and picnicking, but the weather had other ideas. I was raining cats and dogs. So we got a pass to see 4 different museums to get out of the rain. Of course we couldn’t find the entrance to the maritime museum and in searching for it ran around the outer wall of the old town only to be drenched head to toe by freak waves that were battering the city walls.

The last day in Dubrovnik before another big day of travel up to Slovenia was spent doing another of our speed tourist activities. We had missed out on the city wall walk on the first day and our second day was washed out so we had between 10 and 10:45 (as our bus left at 11:00). So we basically ran around the walls looking at all the views and taking a quick succession of pictures.