Doviđenja Dubrovnik

 As I said in my last post, we spent our last full day in Dubrovnik seeing the sights in the Old Town and climbing the walls, quite literally.  We broke all of the walkings and "seeings" up with a mid-day kayak session so that we could beat the crowds and the heat, both of which were stifling and overbearing!  We had been warned ahead of time that not one, not two, but THREE cruise ships full of tourists would be hitting the tiny, compact city center starting sometime around 10 am so we made sure that our tour started before that happened and we would be on the water when the center was unmanageable. 

Since we were staying right in the heart of the city center, we actually had to leave Old Town to meet our guide and then have her walk us right back to where we started from.  This time she imparted her knowledge of the buildings that we had been wandering amongst for the past 3 days.  She told us a bit of the history of the town that used to be known as The Republic of Ragusa located within the Kingdom of Dalmatia until 1918.  With the fall of Austria-Hungary in that year, the area officially became part of the newly formed Yugoslavia, and from there it changed hands a few times until Yugoslavia split apart and fought a years-long war amongst itself.  Peace was restored in late 1992 and Dubrovnik, having been severely damaged in the war, underwent almost 5 years of reconstruction to repair the center to its former glory per UNESCO guidelines.  Today, you can still see a few scars (the red-tiled rooftops are new, the paler tan are original).  Mainly, all I saw was the beauty of the city and its fabulous, friendly citizens.

 The church on the left was right outside of our window (across the street), and if we looked to the left, we saw the clock tower and north entrance.

 

 The orange chairs were stacked up outside our doors each morning before the restaurants opened.  The left is one of the few staircases that you could climb to enter the city walls.

 I snapped a few pictures while waiting for our tour to start...Not too shabby of a view, huh?

I didn't take many pictures on tour - mainly because I had already taken the photos at other points during our trip, but I did snap this one of two cute girls enjoying their daily gelato just afterward... 

After the gelato, it was time for some pizza!  We took it back to our hotel, ate it leisurely and changed into our swimsuits.  We hit our kayak tour just in time and then came back to the hotel once again to clean up.  Ready for adventure once again, and with the cruise ships having been reboarded or having left port, we were ready to walk the walls.

 Entering the walls.  MadHatter had been told earlier that morning by our guide that there were 800 stairs in the walls.  She set out to count each one...

 The Stradun (main street).  Our hotel is by the clock tower at the end, on the left.

 The walls of Dubrovnik are over 2 km (1.2 miles) around and contain over 800 stairs (as I said before).  They are cited as one of the greatest fortification systems of the Middle Ages as the walls have never been breached by a hostile army.  The walls were mostly constructed in the 14th and 15th centuries though the building continued up until the 17th century.  Famous in their own right, they have become more famous in the past few years as the show Game of Thrones uses them as the location for Kings Landing (and if you are a watcher of the show, most of Dubrovnik is featured in some way on the show by my understanding).  I don't watch the show so I am no expert, but I do know that the views from up on the wall were magnificent.

 Another hotel swimming hole attached to the walls.

 New roof on the left, old on the right.

 What do you do with your old guillotine?  Make it part of your garden, of course.

  We made it down just in time to see the changing of the guard.

As to the number of stairs MadHatter counted on our walk - 801!  With all of that climbing up and down, we were famished (the kayaking probably contributed also) so we sat for a nice dinner while we listened to the wedding and party at the church next door and then headed back to our hotel.  We had an early start in the morning as we had to head back to Munich.  But just because it was early didn't mean that I couldn't snap a few more photos as we headed to our taxi.

 I got one final photo of the sun coming up over the walled city before we made our way to the airport and our awaiting flight.  I am so glad that we completed our tour of Croatia (from top to bottom and capital to coast) with this gem!  Truly one of a kind!

Keeping cool...

 Our final full day in Dubrovnik saw us actually staying in and touring the great city itself.  But you know by now that I had something up my sleeve because rarely do we spend a whole day touring without throwing in something for the kids (big or little).  This time I had booked a kayaking tour that would take us around the "cursed" island, allow us to swim and snorkel in a hidden swimming hole and give us a whole new perspective on those walls that surround the city.  It would also give us a much-needed break from the unrelenting sun and the droves of tourists that enter the city in the late morning making it almost impossible to even walk.  (Tip: if you are in the city during high season, which we were not, get outside of the walls between the hours of 9 and 4.  This is when the cruise ships are docked and release all of their passengers.  Do a day trip, kayak on the water, go anywhere but do yourself a favor and get out.  There is no place for those thousands to go but the small city center and you can hardly move).

We had grabbed a quick lunch after our early morning tour (next post) and were sunblocked, swimsuited and raring to go.  Since they were two-person kayak's, we had to pair up, agreeing to switch at the halfway point when we stopped to swim.  It was decided that I would take Stinkerbell to start since I was fresh and strong still and since she wouldn't even have her own paddle, I was going to have to paddle for two. 

We were put in the sea with the others and set off on our 3-hour tour.  And I pretty quickly realized that this was not going to be a leisurely kayak.  A double kayak is heavy.  Stinkerbell is extra weight. The sea was not calm because of all of the boaters and jet skiers.  And I was going to have to paddle without stopping if I were even going to have a chance of keeping up.  Not to say B had it much more comfortable since MadHatter would stop paddling for long stretches just because.  But even though it was hard work, the views were incredible, and the times we stopped to listen to the history of the island, the caves and the coves let me recover enough to keep going.  And going.  And going. 

 Heading out through the bay.

 Ready to go!

 One of the stopping points around the island.  I really enjoyed the rests!

 B and MadHatter just hanging out.

 Inside the cave.  I was too far back to hear the story, but it was pretty...

 On the left is a hotel that was just bought by a Russian millionaire.  He is going to put up the first 7-star hotel in Europe on it.  Which is funny because there is no such thing as more than 5 stars here...The picture on the left is a house they used for episodes of Game of Thrones.  As I am not a watcher, I could only tell you it is in the season 4 finale.

 We finally made our swimming hole and took a half hour break to snorkel, swim and watch the crazy local boys dive off the rocks (see video below).

The water in the cove is much warmer than in the open sea and extremely salty. Hence it's nickname of the Little Dead Sea.  It was a much-needed break for my arms (and strangely, my legs)...

 Back in our boats again!  Why am I still in a boat with Stinkerbell you ask?  Why did we not switch places and give B a chance to experience the fun me a rest?  He offered.  More than once.  But I figured I had made it this far, I was going to do the whole thing.  I could see where we came from and thought it couldn't be that far.  Can anyone see where this is going???  Yep, it was a LOT farther than it looked.  And since we hit the open channel, and our guide told us that we needed to sprint for about 500 m to get through or we would go back or get run over, we needed to work twice as fast.  But I was already paddling twice as fast as the others just to keep up.  How can you sprint when you are already sprinting???  Let's just say I slept well that night and was reminded of our kayak every time I moved for the next few days.  

But in other news, this is how Stinkerbell enjoyed the trip back to land...

We made it back and even though we were the last ones in, we had such a great time.  Our guide helped us pull our boats out of the water, store our paddles and then broke the news that we had each kayaked over 5 miles!!!  It was indeed time for a drink, we earned it. 

Coral Club Beach

With over 1700 km (1100 miles) of coastline, you can't visit Croatia without hitting the beach.  I mean, I guess you could, but why would you want to?  Since we were staying smack dab in the center of Old Town, we didn't have a pool with our hotel much less any water so we found a great Beach Club and booked sun chairs for the day.  We arrived early, set up our things and proceeded to relax in the warm sunshine.  We swam, we read, we played cards.  We jumped, we ate and we attempted to paddle board (the board was broken).  But most of all, we had fun!  Just what the Dr. ordered.

 Ok!  To both of those things.