Dalmatia Revisited

Here in Bavaria, May is just a series of long weekends and days off with a few working/school days thrown in for good measure.  It is fabulous because it gives us time to rest up before that final push to the end of the school year.  But I will say that by the time we hit that final 4 1/2 day weekend, this family is tired.  It's our own doing.  We just can't sit still and stay put.  In that vein, we just returned from our final trip before heading back to the U.S. for the summer.  Where did we go, you ask? Dubrovnik.

Last summer we took an almost 2-week trip through Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina.  We spent days driving from one gorgeous Croatian town to the next and really got a feel for the country.  We fell in love with its landscapes, its seaside towns, and the wonderful people.  It firmly entrenched itself into our top 5 countries that we have been lucky enough to visit.  That is why, when planning out our year of travel (yep, a year ahead if possible), we added Dubrovnik as our last long weekend of the school year as it was one of the few places we had yet to explore.  Throw in the fact that we could also spend some time exploring Montenegro and it was the perfect destination.

Last Wednesday morning we took a short flight and by early afternoon we were ensconced in our hotel room smack dab in the middle of the old town!  With this view...

Not ones to spend much time in our hotel we set off to explore the old town a bit before heading to an early dinner.

 

 And our first of many gelatos from Peppino's!

After our ice cream, we exited the old town through the gate at Pile and walked up the street to our meeting point for our very first tour - a Ghosts and Mystery walking tour.  

 Just outside the Pile gate

 The tour met here, at the locks on the bridge for a good reason.  For many hundreds of years, the desperate citizens of Dubrovnik used to come to this spot and jump off of the cliffs to their deaths.  But in 2012, people started locking their love on the fence that tried to keep the despondent from leaping and it stopped the suicide attempts completely.

 The view from that bridge.

 The locks rust quickly with the level of salt in the water below.

 We started the tour across the street at the city's main cemetery and started hearing about the legends and the myths that go all the way back through Dubrovnik's history.  This was the tomb of a young lady who tragically died in a fire when she was in her teens.  She was from the most prominent family in the town and her story is long, complicated and spooky.  I recommend the tour to hear it all!

For the next 90 minutes we traveled back in time and learned about the turbulent history of Dubrovnik and its mysterious events.  We walked through parks, and cemeteries, and even the old hospital/morgue (it is now a University). We snaked our way through cobbled paths as we traced the history of this town and its citizens.  The history was interesting and the stories made it so much more fun for us all.  MadHatter was mesmerized and even Stinkerbell was attentive for most of it!

The tomb of a very prominent citizen that is said to haunt the parks.  And a ship going by on the water by the Nunnery, blowing its horn in response to the nuns ringing their bells for the sailors.

  The Old Town at night.

 Heading back to our hotel we were tired, a bit spooked and thrilled to have had such an exciting and fun night!  We needed to rest up because in the morning we were off to the beach!