The beginning of the home stretch

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After another gut churning ride between Montenegro and Croatia, it was to Dubrovnik to begin what I am considering the home stretch of the holiday. Which is sad, but it turns out the Croation coast has quite the ability to cheer one up! But first, Dubrovnik.

One of the bigger cities in Croatia, but still not that big, it was nice to arrive back in the country after the initial visit to the north a couple of weeks ago. Trying to be strategic in the heat, after our arrival we decided it would be best to do a walk on the city walls sooner rather than later. So at around midday after some ice cream morning tea, we dodged the cruise ship groups to get up on the city wall for a view of the old city. And a pretty good view it was, when I wasn't mainlining water in an effort not to keel over from the heat. All these white stones look very pretty, and I guess make it great to be inside the buildings where the heat is reflected away, but being on top of the buildings with all the heat radiating upwards is another story. Still, the walk was well worth it. After being damaged extensively and pointlessly by the Montenegrians with Serbian support during the most recent Balkan war, it is back to its former glory.

My activities after the walk turned out to be pretty typical for this area of the Balkans - late lunch, with probably too much beer, followed by a siesta out of the heat and then some dinner. And in between all that some pretty extreme stair climbs between the old town and the apartments we stayed in, which meant that sweatiness was never far away.

As the cruise ship groups detracted a lot from the enjoyment of the city, the next day I decamped to the sort of nearby city beach, where I set myself up with a chair, an umbrella and some nice fruit and snacks to make the most of the 35 degree heat, hoping for as little sweat as possible. And it turns out there was bonus frozen dacquiris to help!

After some time out from the craziness of the city, the next day I felt ready to brave the hoardes again. As I had not been depressed for a few days, I decided I would go visit a war photo museum documenting a lot of areas of the most recent Balkan War. Which was very good and did the trick nicely. Then it was off to explore some more alley ways, visit a few cloisters and have some lunch, before siesta time again.

The next day I agreed to walk up the hill behind the city to the fortress to get a panoramic view of the area. The theory was that if we left at 8am then it wouldn't be too hot. We can all guess how that turned out. This is confirmed by the fact that we saw not a single other soul on the way up or back. At least the exertion made me feel like I had earnt another day at the beach when we got to our next destination/s - some beautiful Croatian Islands. Which will be coming your way soon to pick you up out of any winter gloom you may be experiencing!

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Comments

[Karin]

Beach!
It is minus a million here! Enjoy the sun.