Exploring Dubrovnik Old City

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We all met in the lobby of our hotel at 9am to walk to our bus and head into the old city of Dubrovnik. Once we arrived at the Pilé Gate, we met our local guide Dennis (yep, food Croatian name!),. It was crazy there as there were huge groups of tourists off cruise ships. Dennis told us that there was one day a few years ago where they had over 16,000 visitors into the old city, which isn't really big enough for that to be an enjoyable experience for anyone! UNESCO got involved and recommended they restrict the number to 8,000, which they have done but I believe they will reduce it further next year to 5,000. They will also control how many cruise ships can come into port on any one day. Of course there are two sides to every argument and many of the locals don't want it reduced too much as they make their money during the tourist season which sees them through for the year. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

We walked around the old town with our local guide Dennis (yep, good Croatian name). He spoke at a mile a minute and his accent was hard to understand at times - if you could hear him at all! Not one of the best local guides who just seemed to be on a mission to finish this tour and start his next group. Anyway, our first stop was a visit to the Franciscan Church and Monastery, which is a large complex belonging to the Order of the Friars Monks. It consists of a monastery, a church, a library amd a pharmacy. The pharmacy began operating in 1317, which is the third oldest in the world but the only one that is still operating. This building though has seen its share of troubles since it first was built - most notably it was destroyed by the earthquake of 1667 and then suffered damage in 1992 during the Homeland wars. You can still see the evidence of shrapnel damage on the outside walls. The library contains over 20,000 books as well as numerous valuable manuscripts. I particularly enjoyed the cloister though and could imagine what a beautiful place of refuge this would have been for the monks. After our visit here we continued on our walk of the old city, visiting the St Blaise church, the Sponza Palace and the Rector Palace. Our walking tour finished at 11am and we then walked back to our bus drop off point and Damir drive us as close as he could to the cable car entrance. It still required walking up quite a few stairs, which I was fine with but we do have a few people on our tour that struggle with stairs, for various medical reasons. So, after conquering these stairs we got to the line up for the cable car - only to be advised that it would not be running as there are high winds expected and a storm in the horizon, which we could see the dark clouds of in the distance. Melinda then advised we had free time to explore the old city on our own until 4pm.

Kim, Don and I decided to tackle the walk along the wall, as it was too early for lunch and going by our normally lunches, none of us would want to walk the wall after a glass or two of wine! The wall is apparently just over 2kms long but there are also turrets and towers that you can explore, which adds to the distance. There are some steps and inclines but we found the whole thing pretty easy. And the views were amazing! Every angle you look at this city from is stunning - the famous terracotta tiles makes this city an Instagram worthy shot from every location. We thoroughly enjoyed our walk around the city. We saw a few of the others from our group along the way but the ones that have trouble with stairs either didn't do it or only did half. After we finished the wall we started to head to a place Melinda had recommended for lunch. Along the way we bumped into Robyn and John, who were also searching for a lunch spot. We teamed up and searched together. The place Melinda recommended was full so we walked along one of the lanes that was parallel to the main street (Stradun) - I knew what we were all feeling like so walked along, checking each menu out until I found one that had calamari and was a reasonable price. Four of us ordered the fried calamari and John ordered the grilled. So funny that 2 days in a row we all chose the same thing for lunch! Of course we all deserved a drink after conquering the wall so we settled back to enjoy life the way Croatians do - sit back, watch the world go by and just do nothing but enjoy life. Easy!

When it was time to meet the group we paid up and left our little restaurant. We met Melinda who advised we were going to attempt the cable car again before heading back to our hotel. We were in luck - it was running again (btw, the storm never did eventuate!) and there was no queue so we were able to board the next car that arrived. The view on the way up was amazing and gave you a real perspective of the layout of the city. After taking enough photos to satisfy everyone, we got the cable car back down and then Damir picked us up and drove us back to our hotel. We had an hour to get ready to go out for our final group dinner.

Tonight we had dinner at a local families house that is out in the countryside, so we headed out that way just as the sun was setting over the Adriatic. A beautiful sunset! on arrival at the family house we were welcomed by the daughter and her two children - who were both wearing shoes that lit up! We received a welcome drink of the traditional Croatian schnapp, so we had to shoot that down and then we were given a dried fig to have with it. The family did some traditional music and dancing for us before we all went inside to have a feast! The rain had started, otherwise we would have eaten outside. We had a simple lettuce salad, which was delicious and platters of BBQ'd veal, chicken and potatoes. At first I thought there might not be enough but they kept bringing out more! All this was accompanied by carafes of white and red wine, that was actually really good! Then the young boy brings his electric keyboard in and starts playing songs, while his shoes were flashing like disco lights! He is self taught and very good! His Mum said he is now starting lessons but all the songs he played us he had worked out himself - and there were plenty golden oldies! Eventually it was time to farewell the family and thank them for a wonderful night.

Damir dropped us off near our hotel and as we were walking to it we just happened to walk past a pub, so Kim and I decided we needed a beer cleanser. A few of the others saw us head there, so they joined in too. It was a fun night and a great way to finish of another fabulous day.

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