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Published: December 3rd 2007
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Our bus to Dubrovnik left Kotor at eight thirty and surprisingly we managed to get up for it. The bus was comfortable enough but we had a little bit of agro at the border. At the checkpoint to leave Montenegro there was a general shout down the bus, we heard something "Anglaiski" and we were beckoned off the bus. We were told to get our backpacks and follow the border guard into a room. They asked us where we had come from, where we were going and purpose of visit (as if our backpacks and stamps in our passports didn't spell it out.) They asked to see further I.D from Rob and then proceeded to ask him questions about his job, where he went to university etc. They looked at each other and then passed us our passports back as if we had done something terrible but they couldn't prove it. It was only once we were back on the bus that funny ways to answer their questions occurred to us. When asked where have you come from? The answer should have been Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania etc. In comparison the Croatian border was a joke, they didn't even look at
me when they checked my passport.
We arrived in Dubrovnik and found that the bus had dropped us off at a different bus station to the one on our map. We stopped to consult our guidebook and an old lady grabbed my arm and attempted to sell us her private room. It was very cheap and sounded lovely but we felt that it would be too far from old town. We found Bokun Guest house and after getting past the automatically locking metal gates, it was a lovely place. We pretty much just dumped our stuff in our room and set out to see Dubrovnik. One of the first things we noticed was that the water in the harbour was so clean and clear which Rob managed to upset by dropping our bottle of water in. We tried to fish it back out again but we couldn't. It was a pretty lengthy walk to the old town and we had a good old barny on the way. We managed to stumble across the town from above which made for a rather good first impression of the walled town. We walked down the steps and were confronted by groups of
tourists.
We hadn't eaten since our pretty lame meal the evening before and therefore were dying for lunch. We walked up the main street and then around the side streets looking for a shop/café that sold sandwiches. We found pizza, seafood, ice creams etc but not a single sandwich. We were both very hungry and had remembered a shop just outside the walls that advertised sandwiches. We went inside and whilst Rob tried to order I spotted the prices and then the "sandwiches" themselves. £3 for a finger bun and a tiny slither of cheese, no way! I dragged Rob out of the shop and we went to the bakers next door and bought a baguette and jam. We sat and ate our makeshift but thrifty lunch on benches overlooking a fortress surrounded by the sea. We were insulted when an obese American wandered over to us and asked whether we were part of the cruise liner people.
One activity in Dubrovnik that was recommended by everyone was a walk around the city walls. We paid our discounted student price of £2 (£5 for adults) and joined the rest of the tourists walking around the city. The view
was stunning of both the old town and looking out over the sea at the surrounding islands. To begin with we took plenty of pictures and smiled when we were asked if we would mind taking a picture of yet another group of tourists. We joined a procession where we alternated with an obnoxious American couple, a family of Japanese photographers, a young male backpacker and a woman who enjoyed taking the lead and then set up her tripod in the middle of the path. We did enjoy the view and we were glad we did the walk but after an hour or so it becomes slightly less interesting.
After the walk around the walls we went down and had a walk around the actual town. It is beautiful and every building inside the walls fulfills an aesthetic criteria however there isn't much of interest, just souvenir shops and pizzerias. We were lured into an ice cream shop and were offered a deal, two scoops for the price of one. We began talking to the man behind the counter about the football and he empathised with us. On the bright side we got our ice creams even cheaper because
he let us off. We sat and ate our ice creams on two pillars and a woman said that we were on her picture of the street. I offered to move and she laughed and said she actually quite liked the picture. As she showed us the picture she had taken another guy came over and showed us a picture that he had just taken of us. Weird. We sat there until it started to rain.
We decided to nip and see the "cannot miss" monastery which we thought we had missed whilst walking around the walls. We walked to where it should have been and couldn't see the monastery. Rob checked the map and decided that the church in front of us must be it. Oh well.
The rain started getting a lot heavier and we found ourselves stuck for something to do. We didn't want to walk back to the guest house as it was quite a distance from old town and we felt like we should spend some time there. We saw that there was a cinema playing a film called "Atonement" which looked quite good so we decided to stick around to see that.
We needed to waste a few hours and dry out a little so we found a cute little bar that was playing rock music and had a happy hour on. We sat and had a couple of drinks whilst reading English papers and writing postcards.
The film is worth a mention because we got half the way through it and I suddenly (rather loudly) realised that it was Redcar beach. It was quite amusing to be sitting in a cinema in Croatia, watching something that was filmed back at home. Rob says that it looked better as Dunkirk than it does in real life.
We walked all the way back to the guest house in the rain, all the time looking out for an eatery of any kind. We found one "sandwich" shop that sold Burgers and that was pretty much it. At the guest house the owner was there and we asked if he knew anywhere we could get food. The reason everywhere was closed was because it was the night the election results were coming in. He did manage to find a pizza place that was open so we had a takeout pizza before bed.
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atonement
Hi So did you enjoy Atonement? I had read the book and also enjoyed the film. Dad was not so keen. Redcar still has the french words on the old building on the beach. I bet the words will stay there forever as a reminder that Redcar was a good film set. bye