Day 8 (July 19, 2017): A city wall like no other

I have developed a reputation for being a "one night per town" guy.  I have even been described as someone who tries to "see" a country in one day.  OK OK, those are highly exaggerated claims!  haha  I'd like the record to show that I actually arranged to stay in Dubrovnik for TWO days!  (Maybe I'm getting travel-soft in my old age.)


Today, we decided to spend the morning at the hotel's beach and R E L A X.  Too many early mornings made it quite necessary.  The blue sky pics below show that it was a great day, and the temperatures are definitely on the rise in these parts:  it hit 32C today, making it easy to slip into the Adriatic Sea without too much chill pain.


We took the 3PM boat taxi to Old Town specifically with the plan to do the city walls. We had read that no visit to Dubrovnik would be complete without a walk around the spectacular city walls, the finest in the world and the city’s main claim to fame. From the top, the view over Old Town and the shimmering Adriatic is sublime. You can easily get a good handle on the extent of the shelling damage in the 1990s by gazing over the rooftops: those sporting bright new terracotta suffered damage and had to be replaced. 


The walk is generally an hour in length, but due to the blazing heat today, we stopped a bit more than one would normally stop. We conquered it in 70 minutes, and it was definitely an amazing experience.


Gelato stops peppered the day, as they have been doing most days of this summer vacation for us!  Then it was off to the Dubrovnik Cable-Car to ascend to the top of the mountain overlooking the city to take in the views.


We bussed it back to Srebreno and had a dinner of Dalmatian food at a small restaurant in the middle of town.  


It's been a great two days in Dubrovnik.  It's definitely one of those cities one should add to a bucket list of 25 places to visit in one's lifetime.  Next stop: the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro. 



The beach in front of our hotel in Srebreno, just outside Dubrovnik.  Pebble beaches are the norm here.  What is amazing is that people sunbathe lying on towels on any bit of sidewalk or concrete they can find!  As long as a beach is in view, they're good to go.

To get from our hotel to Old Town Dubrovnik, each day we took a 25-minute boat shuttle from our hotel.  Enroute, the coastal scenery is quite spectacular.

Yet anther example of a hotel that was burned out during the war.  It looks like it could be operating.  but a closer look shows that the windows are all missing and its interior has been gutted.  It seems like the Serbs deliberately torched as many hotels as they could in an effort to bring the area down.

The Old Town harbour entry

At the start of our city wall tour:  1 hour, 10 minutes, in blazing heat.  But definitely a highlight of the trip.

Part of the city's fortifications
Franciscan Monastery, which still houses a cloister of monks.  The monastery served as an apothecary for the city as a way of sustaining itself.



This city wall walk was definitely a vacation highlight


The main street in Old Dubrovnik is called The Placa or The Stradun. It runs from from Pile Gate in the west to the Dubrovnik Bell Tower.  Here it is, as seen from the city walls.
The view of Fort Lovrijena from the city walls.
This shows how the wall follows the contour of the ragged south coast of Old Town

The Dubrovnik Cable-Car provides sweeping views of the entire region.







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 11 (July 22, 2017): Pod-gor-WHAT-za?!

Image
We were a bit sad to leave the Bay of Kotor today.  But alas, we needed to head to the Montenegrin capital, Podgorica (pronounced POD-GOR-EETZ-A.) to start our journey home. Another lovely breakfast on the hotel patio overlooking the square, which was alive particularly early today - Saturday is market day outside the city gate, so the crowds arrive earlier than usual and in great numbers.  We had planned to climb those 1350 steps up the mountain wall as a last Kotor activity, but the heat was excruciating.  We opted instead for a last stroll around the old town.  At 10:30AM, we got a taxi to the bus station.  Our driver told us he was from Podgorica.  When I asked him, "What can one see or do there?"  He replied, "Nothing."  And from what we saw today in the 40C heat, he was quite right! Our bus left at 11AM and stopped on nearby Tivat, Budva, and one other city I cannot recall.  Essentially the route was along the coast then u...
Read more

Day 10 (July 21, 2017): Budva, Perast, and Kotor

Image
The plan for today focussed on two key items: getting ourselves to the town of Budva to see its old town section. And then getting ourselves to the small town of Perast, which is well regarded as one of the most picturesque towns along the Montenegrin coast. After a leisurely breakfast, we walked to the bus station and soon found a bus heading to Budva. Budva is a town on steroids in terms of tourist growth:  Europeans come by the thousands to swell the small permanent population of 13,000 and swim anywhere they can..  Despite the hyper tourist action, Budva's walled old town is certainly a treasure, and we thoroughly enjoyed walking its cobble-stone streets, its ramparts, and exploring its citadel. We were back at the Budva bus station by noon, had a quick lunch at a restaurant there, and then got a bus back to Kotor, arriving before 2PM. We then took a boat to Perast for the afternoon.  The rest of the day was spent strolling the streets of Kotor's o...
Read more

Day 9 (July 20, 2017): "So where is Montenegro, anyway?"

Image
This morning, we got up extra early and enjoyed the over-the-top breakfast buffet at the Sheraton. A quick swim before hopping in a taxi to the Dubrovnik bus station for our trip to the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro. The border line up to get out of Croatia and the line up to get into Montenegro almost doubled our two hour travel time.  We ended up dragging our suitcases almost a kilometre from the bus station  through the 32° heat to our hotel in the walled old town. We are in a lovely hotel that is built into the city walls of the main square. The setting is idyllic. The afternoon and evening was spent wondering the tiny streets of this UNESCO world heritage site. Like many places these parts, every 40-50 years there is an earthquake. And every few hundred years there is a REALLY bad earthquake. Well, in 1979, one of the really bad ones happened in Kotor. Much of the historic center was destroyed, including much of our hotel. The reconstruction has been remarkabl...
Read more