Advertisement
Published: February 7th 2009
Well we have made it a little further up the Adriatic coast to Dubrovnik, Croatia "the pearl of the Adriatic" or something... What a spot! Stari Grad (old town) is a totally walled in town of narrow alleys, high staircases and old buildings... well somewhat old. the towns been around a long time, but back in the war in the 90's a lot of it was damaged or destroyed. but its been fully restored and is a tourist magnet again. even this time of year there are a few people around. i can't image how hot, crowded and generally annoying it must be in summer though. but its just great this time of year!
all the houses have red clay tiles for a roof, they'er all whitish stone (whitish meaning lots are almost black with dirt), and its seemingly built for tourism. the downfall - prices are shooting up. $4 for a coke? where am i london?
So yesterday we arrived after an uneventful bus ride past BEAUTIFUL scenery from Montenegro. high mountains, blue-green ocean, green mountain rivers, forests... Not even any trouble at the border. although there was this one guy who got off at the border crossing (which was basically in the middle of nowhere) and didn't come back. not quite sure what happened there, but bettert him than us.
on arrival in dubrovnik we got some kuna (croatian money) at teh bank machine and chatted up these lovely british ladies who were just coming for the day. we all hopped in a cab to share to the old town (and got there half price!)... altho they didn't realize that croatia didn't use the euro, and had no money... i think i'd want to check that befoer i arrived! haha no worries though we paid for the cab and they gave us their half in euros. no trouble, those euros won't be long disappearing when i get to italy.
so we find the address of our "hotel" no trouble. its just a house. knock on the door, no answer. uh oh. so we just kinda hang out for am inute to convince ourselves we were actually in teh right place, and this elderly lady is slowly walking up the stairs. we ask her. she has no idea, but does say we have the right address.
she goes down the road, into another house, and comes out saying just a moment!! so we wait and 5 mins later this young girl comes running up with a key and lets us in. the house is three floors, and each floor is a room and bathroom. separate beds, our own bathroom, a little balcony. not too shabby. 60 bucks a night which is a little steep but hey, pretty cheap for this place.
so we get settled in then head out to walk the walls of the town. kinda like the great wall of china except much much smaller haha you walk around the whole old topwn on top of thw alls with great views, i took lots of pictures. but of course it started to rain. and i mean rain. the town has a main street running through teh center, and on the north side (Where we are staying) its a huge hill, up lots nad lots of steps.... well the rain was super heavy, and all the stairwells (aka roads) were rivers and we got soaked. so that sucked. but we did have a good supper, jeff had lasagna and i had spaghetti carbonara. (oh yes and that reminds me we had an EXCELLENT pizza in montenegro the other night, so good) haha its all about the food isn't it.
we've been making good use of the pekara (bakery), for breakfast each day. chocolate bread, regulaar bread, apple or cherry turnovers... YUM
jeff even managed to pick me an orange from an orange tree. tey have all kinds of those, lemon trees, palm trees... the orange was a little squishy though , so i didn't eat it. still it was fun.
so we had booked the place for 2 nights but kind of ran out of things to do yesterday and still had all of today. so we went to the tourist information place tos ee if we could rent scooters. well the girl that worked there... what a riot! (it was a case of laughing AT someone, not WITH them which is mean, but thats it, i'm on vacation)... we ask about scooters. she says just one minute i'll check. then she says just aminute. then just a minute. (about 3 seconds had passed) then just a minute (3 more seconds) .... in the 5 minutes we were tehre she said 'just a minute' fifty times at least. she also looked very much like a man. very interesting. but she calls this guy, talks in croatian, says "900 tomorrow good?" we say yes. she gets off the phone and says meet him at the Pile Gate (one of the entrances to town - there are only 3 through the walls) at 9am. we're like who, she said you'll see... haha so that was how we got hooked up with scooters
true to his word, he picked us up outside the gate right at 9, and we got two motor scooters for the day! a bit expensive, but soooo worth it. we motored all around town, up and down the coast, up this HUGE mountain (mount srd - sounds like serdge) with gerat views. weather was a bit better today, but windy. 12 degeres or so but no rain.
jeff had "fast food" for lunch. thats what the place is called. slice of pizza and a chicken burger. i had the bakery again, chocoalte bread, and plain bread. i could live on bread. hmm come to think of it i kindof am.
anyways thast about it for now. we're heading off to mostar and sarajevo in BOSNIA tomorrow! we've both been looking forward to it a lot. not quite sure what to expect. but after all we heard as kids about bosnia and the war, it will be super interesting to see what its all about finally.
jeffs time is getting numbered, he leaves from ljubljana, slovenia on friday. that won't be long going, we're already 11 days in! crazy
see you in bosnia!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.482s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 11; qc: 48; dbt: 0.1997s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Susanne
non-member comment
YAY scooters!!
Jason, Sounds awesome! What a unique place to visit and unforgettable experiences I'm sure. Would love to be there!! Just one question - did you manage to stay upright on the scooter the WHOLE time??? too funny. Take good care. I'm reading! Susanne