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| Croatian coastline |
After visiting Prague, we flew to Dubrovnik on Croatia's Dalmatian Coast. It was absolutely stunning. Even the drive from the airport into town on our first day was awesome since it was nice and sunny and offered amazing views of the Adriatic. I was happy to shed the winter coat I had worn in snowy Prague and throw on my sunglasses and enjoy the warmth.
The bus dropped us off right outside one of the gates to the Old City and the square was teeming with life. We were immediately bombarded by old women demanding if we needed accommodations and offering rooms in their houses. We already had a hotel in the Old City itself so we headed through the gates and down the marble streets to find it.
Although it was certainly not high tourist season at the end of October, the city's main esplanade was packed with travelers. Each day, cruise ships that were docked in the new part outside of town would bus in loads of tourists to explore the city for the day. It was so much more breathable once they left to dock up again around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. We got caught in a square during the bus load up and there were easily a thousand people in windy winding lines that waited probably an hour to get on a bus and head to their ship. Can you tell I'm not a fan?
My mom kept exclaiming the entire time we were in Dubrovnik, "Okay well we may not be celebrating Halloween, but how exciting is it that we're in the country of Dracula!" And even though my dad and I told her several times that Croatia is NOT old Transylvania, she kept repeating it throughout the trip, even after I googled it and showed her Transylvania is in Romania...
History time out: This main street is known as the Stradun, which was a name actually given by the Venetians. The term, meaning "Big Street," was given in pejorative nature by the Venetians to try to play down its beauty. The Venetians attacked Dubrovnik many times in the early centuries to try to bring it under control since Dubrovnik posed a threat as a major maritime trade center. However, most attacks by the Venetians on the city failed.
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| The Stradun It is actually probably 3x the length it looks in this picture. The entire Old City is made out of the white marble material you see, with orange shingled roofs and turquoise window shutters. |
There was an English family staying in the hotel the same time we were. It was a mum, dad and their teenage daughter. They had about the same routine every morning:
-Parents would go down to breakfast and ask the daughter what she wants, so it'd be ready once she came down
- 30 minutes would have passed and the daughter is still in bed.
- *try to imagine it in a British accent* "Honey, you're egg and bacon sandwich is getting cold come down"
- 10 minutes and no movement
- BANG BANG BANG "Sweetie come down. We ordered you the sandwich and we're not going to let it go to waste."
-10 more minutes
-BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG. "Open this door RIGHT now! Get up and come downstairs. You are eating this sandwich." BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG "OPEN THE DOOR!"
Mind you this was all going on while we were still in bed. So while I was annoyed that this girl couldn't get out of bed to eat her GD bacon and egg sandwich, I was still lying in bed trying to drown the noise out with my pillow.
Effects of the war are still visible throughout the city, when Croatia declared itself independent from Yugoslavia in the 90s and thus came under siege for a period of about seven months. Along the Stradun, you could see marble had been blasted away in parts of the street and buildings lining it. Remarkably, most of the buildings seem to have been completely restored, although one of the girls at the front desk of our hotel said that its just appearance and that many buildings are empty and still in ruins on the inside (in the Old City). The girl also told us that Croatia's, especially Dubrovnik's, population dropped off quite severely during the war with many emigrating to other European countries, or if they could, to the United States. Families have just recently began moving back to the area.
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| The long, narrow alleyways that make up the Old City |
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| Dubrovnik sunset (photo courtesy of Diane Kilbourne!) |
Dubrovnik definitely had the best food out of the three places we visited. The cuisine is dominantly Mediterranean, meaning lots of seafood. Although, since the city has historic ties to Italy, pizza and risotto and other Italian staples are served in many restaurants. The food I had in Dubrovnik is easily the best seafood I've ever had. I had a lot of cream soup with either prawns or crab, shrimp scampi and calamari fritti. I remember the food so distinctly I'm salivating right now. Or maybe I just need to eat dinner. We also had a lot of really nice wines in Dubrovnik. Before the trip I wasn't aware that there is a pretty rich wine production industry in Croatia. We had a lot of really nice dry whites to accompany our sea food. I think only one of the restaurants we went to came from our guide book; for the most part we were happy to rely on the recommendations coming from the people working at the front desk of our hotel. And they never failed to lead us to a great restaurant!
A photo summary of our journey:
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| another of Dubrovnik's narrow alleyways |
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| A longer view of the Stradun's marble pathway |
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| View of Dubrovnik looking towards the sea |
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| Dubrovnik's old port |
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| View of the Adriatic |
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| From the fortifications of the Old City. The fortifications surround the city on all four sides and you can walk around the entire thing. You get really cool views of the inside of the city as well as out towards the sea. We heard one couple exclaim, "I can't believe that almost took us 45 minutes!" as we were finally climbing down the steps after four hours. |
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| Red/orange shingled roofs of the Old City |
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| There was this little marble stone that jutted out about half a foot where you tried to stand on it and make your body parallel to the wall. |
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| Not quite |
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| Easy, pffft. |
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| Croatians dressed in traditional celebratory garb for the Nov 1 holiday. |
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| View of the Old City from above |
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| One day my dad and I decided to head over to cliffs to the right of the city. We just climbed around the rocks and got amazing views of the Adriatic. The sky looked really dramatic because it was about to rain. |
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| We went to this awesome Bosnian restaurant one night called Taj Mahal. One of my favorite dinners ever. My mom ordered Chevaps which I loved so much I went got a special order take out of them for dinner one of the nights. They are a type of kebab in this awesome doughy flatbread stuffed with minced meat sausages, onions, sour cream and cheese. Sooo good. |
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| Another awesome view of the Croatian coastline. We rented a car for two days and headed up along the coast into Bosnia the first day to see Mostar. The guy we rented our car through is actually the cousin of family friends from back home. Such a small world! The cousin had lived in Falls Church for a period of time (I think they moved during the war) and he just recently moved back to Dubrovnik. |
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| They were on their phones more than I was! |
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| On the Stari Most (Old Bridge) in Mostar, a 16th century town named after the bridge it's famous for. The Ottomans ruled over Mostar, evidenced by multiple Turkish mosques throughout the city (one is visible behind me in the above picture). |
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| Mostar. The actual tourist area was very tiny and consisted of a couple streets veering off Stari Most in a couple directions. We walked only about 10 minutes outside of the direct center and found ourselves in the 'real' part of Mostar, which also had visible effects of the war written on it. Many of the buildings and shops were dilapidated and clearly hadn't been touched since the war. |
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| One of Mostar's other main attractions: the Turkish house. This house has been preserved from the 1600s and you could see how the people of the time lived. The wooden floor was creaky and felt like it was going to cave in at any moment but it was cool to see the different rooms and decorations. This picture is from the outside of the men's room, which had long stone supporting legs (typical of houses at the time) whereas the women's room was more like a bay window jutting out from the frame of the house. |
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| Stari Most again. Looks like something out of a fairytale. |
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| Day 2 with the rental car we headed south down the coast towards Montenegro. |
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| We visited the Bay of Kotor in southwest Montenegro. The bay is HUGE. At its widest point it's almost 4.5 miles across. |
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| Every time we thought we had reached the point at the bay where it starts to curve into its half-moon shape, we would turn the corner and a whole other part of the bay would expose itself. It got more beautiful. |
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| We had lunch on the northern side of the bay near the town of Kotor at a restaurant that was recommended to us called Stari Mlini. It was set in a little cove off the bay over a stream that flowed into the bay. Mlini means mill since the restaurant is now in the place of where an old mill used to be. |
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| More great white wine and I had this awesome rosemary-skewered steak with fries. The rosemary stem actually served as the skewer. What an awesome idea. |
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| More bay views |
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| After lunch we continued around the bay to the actual town of Kotor and climbed the fortifications rose up over the town. The architecture seemed pretty similar to Dubrovnik in terms of shapes and the orange shingled roofs, but I don't think it was made out of the pretty white marble that Dubrovnik's buildings are. At the edge of the town on the water is a little harbor for yachts to dock up. In the summer apparently the bar is packed with fancy, million-dollar yachts enjoying lazy voyages around the bay and down the Adriatic coast. One of the boats in the harbor was actually from Delaware! |
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| Kitties! They were everywhere in Dubrovnik |
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| A guy near one of the main entrance gates had a bunch of parrots. A bunch of little kids were holding them and I wanted into. I don't think I've ever had a parrot on my shoulder and it was a bit disconcerting because I couldn't see what it was doing. |
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| Pretty view from our plane on our way to Roma! Ciao Bella |
I have to say, I think Croatia is the most beautiful country I've visited, although Thailand is certainly a close second.
I definitely plan on returning. I heard from multiple people that Croatia in the summertime is a must and that you haven't really seen the country until you sail around the islands. Consider it added to my bucket list.
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