From Croatia to Bosnia to Croatia: Reaching the beautiful city of Dubrovnik

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Even though we had a long drive yesterday, we got back into the car today with our friends Richmond (Australian) and Cristina (Swiss) for the 3.5 hour drive south to Dubrovnik. It was mostly the same drive as the day before except for the last part, where the road turns off back to the coast and you have to cross the border into Bosnia & Herzegovina for 20 kilometres and then cross the border back into Croatia (Bosnia & Herzegovina must have wanted to keep some of the coastline). It was a beautiful sunny and warm day.

We left early, but by the time we reached Dubrovnik it was just after lunch, so we were starved. As we approached the old city of Dubrovnik, we were stricken by its beauty. The walls surrounding the city were mammoth and the cobblestone streets were narrow and lined with really old looking buildings. Of course, the buildings all had the red roofs that Dubrovnik is famously known for. Dubrovnik was not spared from damage due to the war. Serbian and Montenegrin forces also shelled and bombed the city. Many of the buildings were badly damaged and have since been repaired. It's amazing that the fortress surrounding the city once protected it from cannons and other war conditions, but is no match today for modern weapons. Overall, the city now looks in great shape, but some buildings really do look new, and it's sad because you know that the old building had probably been completely destroyed.

The old city itself is only home to about 43,000 people, and there are less than 100,000 people in Dubrovnik proper. It feels like its so isolated because not only is it far from the rest of the country, but there isn't a lot around it. We had always thought Dubrovnik was the capital of Croatia, but that would be Zagreb. Dubrovnik is only the third largest city in Croatia, Zagreb being the biggest and then Split.

We made a beeline for this cafe in the walled old city that we had heard about that overlooks the ocean, called Cafe Buzza (pronounced Booszsha). But the only directions we had talked about a nondescript door in the western wall down a narrow alley. We tried a bit to find it on our own, but with those kind of instructions we knew we were doomed for failure. So luckily we had Cristina with us, who speaks a bit of Croatian but more importantly can speak German and apparently a lot of Croatians can too. So after asking two different people, we found the nondescript door, which was truly nondescript, with no sign other than a pointing arrow that said drinks. When we entered the cafe, it's like we walked into paradise. This little cafe (more of a bar) was outdoor built just on the outside of wall of the old town, and it overhangs the ocean. There we sat and had a drink (it turned out they didn't serve food), and reveled in the beauty of the exterior walls and ocean surrounding Dubrovnik.

As tempting as it was, we didn't want to spend the whole day hanging out at the bar, but we were still hungry so we wandered the narrow cobblestone streets of the Dubrovnik old town to find a pizza place that smelled really good. The narrow street that we sat and ate pizza on felt much like we were eating pizza in Italy. It must be that Mediterranean feel.

After lunch we wandered through the streets and looked In shops, just getting a feel for the city. There were a ton of tourists around, although many seemed to go home around 3 (we had seen a cruise ship docked earlier and there were lots of tour buses... And this isn't even summer!). We paid the entrance fee to be able to walk along the top of the walls (they all got a half price student discount price, but Elysia was the only "adult"). The walls gave a beautiful view of the city's red roofs and the surrounding water from above. It was just abosolutely beautiful. The walls are much higher up than you think! We walked a bit more than half way around the walls but it was getting late so we thought we should leave. It was, after all, our last night in Croatia so we wanted to spend it with the others. It was a beautiful day though and we were all really glad we went for the drive.

On our way home, Mike (the driver) was getting a bit sleepy so we stopped off at the beach as we drove through Bosnia. The Bosnian town we stopped in, Neum, was sleepy, obviously waiting for the summer crowds. We jumped off the pier (well Elysia slipped into the water, afraid of what aquatic animals might be waiting for her.... There were none). After a brief dip, we got back onto the road and drove back to Split. We arrived just in time for the dinner some of the boys made, and after we sat outside on the deck and watched the stars.

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