Pearl of the Adriatic-Dubrovnik

We left Korcula on Thursday taking a very fast catamaran to our next destination Dubrovnik. Surprisingly the boat trip wasn't that exciting as one couldn't go outside and we travelled pretty far from the coast and other islands so there wasn't very much to see. The ferry was pretty full so Andrew and I had to sit apart and I was three seats from the window. I sat beside a very interesting woman from Denver Colorado. She was a democrat and dedicated reader of the New York times so we had a lot in common. it was interesting to hear her perspective of the current political situation in the states. She recommended a Youtube video by Rick Steves in which he discusses his insights into American politics and I have now watched it and it was very good. Rick Steves is traditionally known as a writer of tourist/travel guides which I have enjoyed using to plan my trips. The link to the Youtube video is a follows and I think that he has done a veery good job catching the essence of American politics. I think that it is worth a listen.

https://youtu.be/E20u5y7CJZQ?si=UguwrfRoNJULZKw8

Dubrovnik is a medieval city that appears to come right out of some fantasy novel such as Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. It is a large walled city filled with medieval buildings with lots of old stone churches, palaces, monasteries and interesting civic buildings. It was a significant city state during the 16th and 17th century competing against Venice for control of shipping and trade in the Adriatic Sea. It was unfortunately significantly damaged by an earthquake in 1667 but rebuilt. Some may be familiar with Dubrovnik as it was used in the television series Game of Thrones. Because of it's beauty, association with the tv series and ease of visiting for cruise ships,it is very popular with tourists, in fact it is packed with tourists. The Croatia weather service all week has been calling for significant rainfall although it has yet to materialize. I keep telling Andrew that we are going to get heavy rainfall only for nothing to happen. Thursday was the one day this week that they were not calling for rain so after arriving in Dubrovnik and dropping off our luggage at the Air BnB we headed out to do the obligatory Rick Steves walk of the old city of Dubrovnik. The tour covered much of the old town and we were able to take in many of the monasteries from outside, the rector's palace(mayor of Dubrovnik),the squares and the churches and learn a little about the history of Dubrovnik. We had purposely saved the best thing to do for the late afternoon. the best thing to to in Deb is to walk the walls of the City. The city walls are tremendously thick and in areas are up to 25 metres tall. They are truly some of the most impressive walls of a castle or walled city that I have ever been on. It takes about 45 minutes to complete a circumference of the walls. As it was late in the afternoon, the cruise boat tourists had all departed and it wasn't too busy. We did about 1.5 loops of the wall. Normally one is supposed to only do 1 loop of the wall but the attendent let us do another loop. About 3/4 of the way around the wall Andrew became quite excited. I thought it was because there were all these young women in bikinis subathing and swimming at this one spot beneath the wall but what was actually exciting him was the opportunity to go cliff jumping beside this bar area where all these young people were hanging out. We made a beeline for this spot as soon as we got off the wall so Andrew could experience jumping off this 4-5 metre cliff into the water. While I sat down to watch in the midst of all of these bikini clad beauties. No sooner had I sat down then I was engaged in conversation with these two young Irish woman and the conversation quickly transgressed into discussing sourdough bread, favorite cake recipes and the benefits oof fermenting foods. If one ever talks to an Irish person and tells them that you attending the Ballymalloe cooking school, the conversation immediately becomes very food focused. The Irish are very passionate about their food. We were having such a very in depth conversation about Ballymalloe relish that we didn't even realize that Andrew had made his first leap off the cliff. I paid greater attention to Andrew's 2nd and 3rd leap. I had decided not to leap off the cliff as I don't want to get hurt on this trip. The one Irish lass showed me this massive bruise/hematoma on her hamstring that she had acquired after jumping from the cliff and landing wrong on the water. This only reinforced my deciding not to jump. I suggested that she get some ice on it but I think she was jsut going to have another beer. After Andrew was finished throwing himself into the water we said goodbye to our Irish friends and headed back to the Air BnB.

Friday dawned and despite the weather report predicting rain it was sunny and windy. Andrew didn't feel like he had exercised enough yesterday so today he decided that we should hike up Mt Srd, the mountain overlooking Dubrovnik. It was 6 to 7 hundred metres in elevation. It took us about an hour of hiking. Mt Srd was quite important during the 1990s civil war as The Yugoslav Army had invaded and captured all of southern Croatia except for Dubrovnik. Whoever controlled Mt Srd controlled Dubrovnik. In the city we saw a memorial to all of the Croat soldiers who had died fighting over it. Very sad. Despite the sad story, it commanded beautiful views of Dubrovnik. We walked down on a road which allowed different views of the city before heading onto Fort St. Lawrence which was a large stone fort beside the city. It's claim to fame was that some of the scenes from Game of Thrones had been shot there. Andrew was eager to recreate some of the scenes.

The Dubrovnik pass allows entrance to several museums in Dub. We went to the Franciscan monastery museum and the house off a 17 th century playwright. They weren't very good. Maybe if you had done a PHD on 17 th century playwrights you would have enjoyed them but they were just boring but busy with other tourists who had a Dub pass. By then I was starting to flag. Andrew annouced when we had got back to the Airbnb that we had walked 18 km and 700 metres of elevation gain. No wonder I was so tired.

Saturday the weather services were calling for 45 mm of rain in the morning clearing on the afternoon. We had planned to do a possible excursion but with the weather we decided against it. We chilled out in the morning and it was cloudy but no rain. Andrew had given up on the museums so I headed out by myself in the afternoon just when it finally started to rain. I did 3 of the art galleries included on the pass and they were very good. Croatian artists of the 20 century painting Croatian scenes. I also took in the Rector's palace, the maritime museum and the ethnography museum but they were all duds. Probably why they were included on the pass. I navigated around the old town using all of the back alleys rather than the tourist thronged larger thoroughfares which was more fun than many of the museums.

Tomorrow we are off to Bosnia Hertzogovi and Mostar.Read more