(Day 5) Marble-Topped Paradise

When I was in my first year of college, many moons ago, I had an instructor named Ilija Dragojevic who was Croatian. He was a larger man and somewhat…furry. Also, he could not be described as shy and talked often of his country, which is what initially got me thinking I’d like to travel there someday. On October 6, 2009, that’s exactly what I did.

At a ridiculous hour, as usual, our room began to shudder and rumble as our mammoth vessel shuffled sideways into port. Again, the port didn’t look like much and we kind of wandered around confused until we found our way onto the shuttles that were heading toward Dubrovnik’s Old Town. Riding into town is always interesting as the people who are lurking outside their houses gawk at the massive buses rolling by on the winding roads. I’m sure they are completely used to it by now, considering the sheer volume these cities see on a near-daily basis all throughout the cruising season. I pity the foo.



We arrived beside the beautiful terrace above, right outside the stone walls of the city’s old town. Considering the early hour and that we were the first ship in port, the glorious sights were ours for the taking.


Dubravka Restaurant, where we will eat lunch.







All those pictures above were taken within several feet of one another – amazing, right? There is a massively full day of photos ahead. With that, let’s head into the walled portion of the city.





Dubrovnik’s old town is covered with narrow marble streets and alleys that shine in the sunlight. The first order of business for us was to walk the perimeter of the wall of the old town. We quickly found the ticket booth (which had so kindly stuck a paper with a jacked-up price over the usual, tourist-free, lower price), bought our tickets, and climbed the stairs to begin the journey that is Dubrovnik’s wall.



For a panoramic of this first step for mankind, click on the photo below!







The surrounding houses and landscape outside the walls.


Quite literally, a hole in the wall.








View of Fort Lovrijenac from the wall.


Old Town’s insides.

Here’s a little video on the scenery:






The beautifully blue Adriatic Sea.




I will come to this spot to die…if I can choose…or something.




Peeping in on some Croatian schoolkids…is this creepy? Just call me a peeping Jadranka.


This restaurant below is such a hole…in the wall. These kind of jokes never get old!




The view from my prison cell for being a peeping Jadranka.




Look! There’s Marty!










Some of the ruins from the Dubrovnik bombing in the Yugoslavian war in 1991. Though the Old Town has been revitalized, they leave these ruins so they will never forget.




The Dubrovnik Riviera.



















The brilliant orange roofs of the Old Town and throughout Dubrovnik are uniform as it the national colour of Croatia. The brightest ones are new since the war and indicate just how many buildings were hit. In time, they will all fade to brown.

Want to see a larger panoramic? Just click the photo below to enlarge:




And here we are, back to where we began. The walk was awesome and took us nearly an hour to walk the 2km stretch. The wall was nearly deserted due to our earl start, but when were done, the tour groups started arriving in droves. It was likely the single most romantic part of our trip…honestly. The pictures can’t really begin to emulate the feeling, but that’s to be expected.

Arriving back down to the ground level, we headed in to the depths of town to explore what we saw from above











After trawling the backstreets, we decided to get our sightseeing on. First stop was St. Blaise’s Church, who is the patron saint of Dubrovnik.



Um…there was no pictures inside the church and really, there was absolutely nothing to write home about. I don’t mean to become a church snob, but I’ve seen some nice churches and this certainly doesn’t even rank in my top 20. Sorry Dubrovnik. I did manage to get a nice shot of Jesus, who was inside the church.



Next point of attraction was Rector’s Palace.











Here’s some strange stone heads that were found and they are old, of course. Also, these heads were kind of stuffed in a cave in the far corner of the palace and it was cold and dank. You know, just to give you a feel for the place.


This guy has a “sun” head.


This is how I feel when I have a cold.


This guy messed with the wrong people.

Rector’s Palace was alright, but I’m not too up on the history of Croatia the surrounding areas. Therefore, I cannot make any intelligible commentary. Let’s move on to strolling along Stradun, the main walkway throughout the town.





We went to go visit the Old Port next. I recall Beyonce arriving on some kind of yacht last summer here. Pffft. Beyonce.




These weirdos were have a major photo sesh clinging to every doorway, banister, stone covering the city. Seriously it went like this: take one step. Pose cheesily for picture(s). Take one step. Try to pose sexily for picture(s). Take one step. You get it, right? Well, I suppose you don’t get what the big deal was. I’m going to say you’d had to have been there.


This is a map showing the Old Town and the spots where shells hit. Too many little black and red dots. I’m sorry Dubrovnik.

We went into a public church that had a pretty ceiling painting.



Finally, we met Grant and Rachel at Onofrio’s fountain and decided to head for some lunch.




Since it was ridiculously warm, we opted for a patio spot and ended up beside some people from Alberta. SMALL FREAKING WORLD. They looked like farmers.


Oh yeah! In Europe they never cut my damn pizza. Frig.

After lunch we decided to depart from the crowd of geris and head to a place they wouldn’t be – Fort Lovrijenac – which was tucked up on a cliff and nary a tour group in sight.






So freaking clear.



The walk up to the Fort was awesome, as you can already tell. We passed by tiny docks in the water and small coves that one wouldn’t see from town. The water looked oh-so inviting.



In an imitation of my Vesuvius adventure, I decided to leave my mark on Dubrovnik as well:

I’m bad, I’m bad, Jemone…HOOO!



Oh, here’s a super-rad stitched photo I took of Marty on the cliff.




The Old Town from the Fort entrance.

The Fort was really cheap to get into – about 20 kuna or so (~$3.50 each). And it was luxuriously deserted.
















OH I love you Dubrovnik!

Can you tell that it was hot out? So freaking hot!! This called for some gelato once we had journeyed our way back into town. Though I know we were supposed to have it in Italy, I don’t believe Italy’s actually could have been much better than this stuff.



After a while, we had had enough of the swarms and were feeling the heat. We decided to head back to the ship for a shower and some grub.


Can you see Marty? This is the largest home I’ve ever lived in.

Tonight was dinner on the Lido…I didn’t feel like fussing with dressing up for dinner, and I didn’t want to miss the sail-away from my favourite port thus far (though I realize it’s only been two.)





The sail-away was, of course, stunning and serene.









That night was pretty quiet on board…I think people were tired. Marty and I wandered the ship and took many moments to relax.






Even our towel friend took some time to relax.

I realize this was very picture heavy, but I’m not sorry. This beautiful port deserved nothing less. Frankly, you should probably go yourself since these types of places are difficult to explain and need to be seen to believed (just ask Venice.) But, I will apologize for clogging your bandwidth.

Tomorrow we arrive in the mysterious lagoon that holds Venice, Italy. Since we are in port overnight, expect some adventure, confusion, and late-night adventures from the geris.