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Published: August 9th 2007
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In all honesty, I wasn't too keen on visiting Dubrovnik. Shame on me. How mistaken I was.
The Old Town of Dubrovnik was an absolute eye opener and somewhere that we would both recommend visiting.
We stayed in two different guest houses as we ended up staying another night longer than intended. Both were run by the most lovely people ever and the rooms were spotlessly clean. One even had air conditioning which was an absolute bonus as Croatia was feeling the effects of the heatwave that was causing deaths in some parts of Europe.
The first elderly couple spoke minimal English and had us laughing non-stop. The old guy kept on chattering away to us in Croatian, repeating the same phrases over and over in the hope that we would understand him if he just kept talking enough. They were very eager to help us with planning our days and navigating the maps and bus stop locations. The name of this place was Anka rooms.
The second family were so delightful and we couldn't recommend their guesthouse enough if you are travelling as a couple. So very sweet and kind. The lady gave us a jug
of homemade wine, a plate of cheese and the man even drove down to the bus stop when we left. This one was called Guesthouse Petrusic - both of these places can be found on hostelworld.com
Anyway, the Old Town of Dubrovnik has an amazing past and is now listed with UNESCO. It became powerful under the protection of Venice in the 13th century but since then, has somehow managed to survive earthquakes, bombardment by the British forces and the 1990's siege following the break up of Yugoslavia.
During the seven month siege that ended in 1992 (not long ago!) over 2000 shells hit the beautiful old city. Such sad destruction is just so hard to imagine today.
Dubrovnik is now back in business and THOUSANDS of tourists are flocking to soak up the beautiful archetecture, walk the paved streets and explore the amospheric alleyways of the Old Town.
After seeing the number of tourists down by the ferry terminal we knew that Dubrovnik was going to be a pretty busy place. This was confirmed on our first visit to the Old Town. We decided that Dubrovnik needed to be explored early in the morning and
late at night if we were going to really enjoy it.
This proved to be a really good idea as we arrived in time to see the Old Town awakening the next morning. We were able to soak in the atmosphere, cafe with the locals, watch the cats coming to life and see the stalls being set up in the little markets. We also walked the city walls as soon as they opened in the morning. This is something that we would certainaly recommend as the walls were crawling with tourists by the time we finished and the line was horrendous!
By the time we had finished our explorations for the morning, we stood by a fountain and watched the Old City come under another bombardment. And what military precision! Within a few minutes, twenty buses arrived from the cruise ships and out piled the hoards of middle-aged tourists. Each one sporting a numbered sticker on their chests and milling around their frantic looking, flag-waving tour leader who was deseperatly trying to give a walking commentry without losing anyone. After a brief history and even briefer photo stop, they were hearded in through the walls of the Old
Town. And so out comes the next tour group...
By evening, the Old Town had quietened down a little so we met up with some friends we made on Vis. We had a great meal, a few drinks and shared travel tales.
Other activities during our Dubrovnik stay, was a trip to one of the resort beaches (more hassle than it was worth and we spent most of the time wondering if we were going to be asked to leave - obviously we hadn't paid!) and a full day visit out to Miljet Island where we visited the island monostary and swam in the inland lakes.
As we were flying back to London from Split, we caught the bus back up along the coast, stopping enroute in Bosnia where a big man checked our passports and everyone jumped out of the bus to buy cigerettes!
Back in Split, we found ourselves a crash pad for the night and spent the evening strolling through the town, eating pizza and checking out the sights. The next morning we were sitting at the airport feeling relaxed, tanned and quite happy with our little adventure.
...On came the
BBC news - Britain has suffered torrential rain and wide-spread flooding...
Can you believe it's only two hours flight to Croatia?!
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