Croatia Part III: Dubrovnik
The final stop on our exploration of Croatia was the city of Dubrovnik, famous for its fortress walls. Aside from the national parks, pictures of this city were what made me want to go to Croatia in the first place. I was very excited to explore the fortress and bask in the warmth of the sun.
What We Did
Day 86 (10/16/16): Arriving fairly early in Dubrovnik, we wasted no time in dropping off our stuff and heading into town. It was about a 20-30 minute walk from our place to get to the old city walls. Once we arrived, we walked around the city squares, taking in the structure and touring around the winding roads of the interior if the city. We stopped for lunch at a Mexican place before setting off to do more exploring. We walked down to the port of the city, and up into the hills, taking it all in. We also discovered the exterior parts of the great walls, climbing on rough rocks and dodging the waves as they overtook the walkways and threatened to soak us up to our knees. We hiked a hill next to the old city to the Lovrijenac fortress to get some great shots of the area, before wandering through a nearby park to find a perfect place to watch the sun set over the Adriatic Sea. We then returned home for dinner.
Day 87 (10/17/16): We awoke early to meet the van that was to take us to the port for our cruise around the Elafiti islands off the cost of Dubrovnik. We visited the islands of Kolocep, Lopud, and Sipan for swimming, wandering around town, and playing on the beaches. We also spent a decent chunk of the afternoon cruising around on the boat drinking the unlimited wine and playing cards with new friends and fellow travelers. When the tour finally commenced, we were taken back to our apartment. Feeling pretty exhausted, we spent the rest of the evening relaxing.
Day 88 (10/18/16): After awaking and setting out in search of toiletries, Katie and Justin split up from Adam and I and headed down to Bellevue Beach to explore. Adam and I headed back to into old town in search of sunglasses for Adam. We walked around a little bit more, stopping for a pastry before heading back to the apartment and meeting up with Katie and Justin again. We spent the rest of the afternoon being lazy, with the boys holed up in their rooms doing their own thing, whilst Katie and I sat on the couch watching Schindler’s List. We made a big family pasta dinner that evening and packed our things to be ready to depart for Hamburg early the next morning.
What We Learned
- If you want to walk the walls of the old city, be prepared to part with some dough. When we arrived in Dubrovnik, we were stoked to do a walk atop the famous walls of Dubrovnik. However, we soon found out that it cost roughly $20 per person. While I have heard it is a worthwhile experience, we were on a budget and opted instead to put that $20 towards a full-day tour of the islands, which cost about $45 per person. I felt that we got a decent enough picture of the city by exploring the interior and the exterior, and found places atop the wall where you could go without paying admission in order to get a couple of pictures.
- The islands around Dubrovnik are just as cool as the city itself. We all thoroughly enjoyed the tour we did of the Elafiti islands and it gave us a chance to see a different side of Croatia. We also enjoyed visiting the small towns in the islands and getting to wet our feet at the islands’ wonderful beaches.
Memorable Moments
- Watching Katie and Justin geek out over all the places in this city where they had seen it appear in Game of Thrones was fairly entertaining. We would be wandering around the city and all of the sudden you would hear Katie or Justin gasp and point at something random saying, “remember when…” and snap a quick pic. These pictures included a staircase, a wall, a door, etc. Nicely done my nerdy friends!
- Dodging waves around the outside of the old city walls was a ton of fun, in my opinion. In order to get around some of them, you would have to watch the wave pattern, find an opening, and run like hell, the whole time praying you wouldn’t get stuck with one of the more violent rogue waves that would crash over the walkways unexpectedly. I was lucky. Katie and Justin were not.
Pictures
