Relaxing on the Riviera (in Croatia)

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Last night was our first formal night so we dressed up for a wonderful dinner in the Dining room. John had the sea salt cod and lobster cake which he really enjoyed. Then he couldn’t decide between the Duck and Sausage Gumbo or 4 Mushroom cream soup so tried both. He said it was the best mushroom soup he’d ever had but the Duck and Sausage one beat it out for last night. Sharon had the Blackberry soup which was good except for the seeds. For the main course he had horse radish crusted halibut and Sharon had the rack of lamb. Both were very good. We both had the chocolate crème Brule for dessert.
We stopped by the casino on the way to the show which probably wasn’t a good idea. Sharon won a bit at the first machine but lost it on the 2nd. John doesn’t want to talk about his short time at the $10 blackjack table. Maybe we’ll have better luck tonight.
The show was called Cantare which was a group of 4 male singers who were all very good singing all sorts of songs from 4 Seasons and Beach Boys to Italian and Latin love songs and everything thing in between. All in all, it was a very nice ending to our day.
Today we are heading into Dubrovnik, Croatia. Croatia is where much of the stone used in buildings in Venice was quarried due to its resistance to humidity. Our Dubrovnik’s Riviera tour isn’t till 9:30 so we’ve ordered room service breakfast to enjoy on our balcony as we sail into the port. The captain just announced that due to high winds at the narrows of the straight leading to the port, in excess of 50 MPH, that we will not be able to dock on time. The ship is rated for docking in this port with winds up to 35 MPH, but even at sea they are gusting 35 to 40 MPH, with noticeable spray across the bow. The advantage to us is that the ship has turned and is now heading north, giving us a fine view of the coast from our starboard veranda. As we would discover later on the tour the winds that kept us from entering the port as scheduled are called Bora (prevailing northerly winds). These are generally not as severe as the Yugos (the southerly winds of the spring and sometimes summer). And I bet that you thought that this region under Tito had gotten its name from the automobile Yugo. Breakfast was very good, and served hot, but with the wind outside we chose to eat in the cabin. The cruise director just came on over the intercom, in the cabins which is unusual; such verbal access to passengers is normally reserved for the captain. He did however want everybody to hear the new assembly instructions for tours today, as we are making our way to the dock. They really emphasized how important it would be for us to have our boarding card and original government issued photo ID or we would not be allowed to disembark or re-board by local authorities. We were in tour group 14 and so had to wait by earlier groups left for their excursions. Despite being rearranged at the last minute to our late arrival, they managed to get nearly one thousand of us on our way. We chose to buy another one liter bottle of water again today, as we needed it yesterday. Our tour began as the bus ushered us from the port, after the passport inspector walked down the aisle of our bus, not looking at anything in particular and certainly not at any papers, and then got off thru the door in the middle of the bus.
We drove up into the hills above the port, where there were some spectacular views of the coast and bay, and of two other cruise ships set at anchor in the bay, whose passengers would need to be tendered ashore. The bus stopped at one lookout where we observed an incredible view of the coastal port we had just left, with tiers of houses cascaded together in colors of white stone walls and red tiled roofs. Also at this point were the remains of an 11th century monastery with just a couple parts of the walls remaining a few feet above its ancient foundation. We went on and stopped at Cavtat, a palm lined seafront promenade on the Croatian Riviera. We stepped inside the local Roman Catholic Church named for St. Nicolas, patron saint of travellers and seafarers. It was a small church with very high vaulted ceilings, with simple but still impressive ornaments adorning the walls, and a simple alter. Outside again, we stopped at a café where we both ordered a Coke. They cost 2 Euros here (compared to 3 Euros in Venice) but still pricey for a one-quarter liter bottle but in fact served in the classic Coca-Cola style glass bottle. John bought a tan Croatia baseball hat, he didn’t see the blue one, and all of the others featured drinking beer. On the way back to the bus we stopped in a little shop that had freshly made ice cream and would put 31 Flavors to shame. The presentation of the ice cream is something we’d never seen, swirling rolls of ice cream on their individual platters and about two dozen flavors. John looked for pistachio (but somehow missed it, it was there) but instead got a scoop of coconut. Sharon got a local favorite because it looked good and may have had vanilla, fudge, peanut butter and caramel in it. Someone from our bus was raving about this place, and the ice cream he had tried, a flavor called “Simply the Best”.
This completed our hour stop on the Riviera. Some in our group took the 45 minute walk around the peninsula, and found the views spectacular. Sharon and I were content to relax on the Riviera as we did and not get too tired walking as we did yesterday. We now drove to the East Gate of the walled city, and before venturing inside went to see some local performers in native costumes perform dances and perform music on instruments such as the string dulcimer. Their enthusiastic and athletic performances were exciting, as we watched them whirl and show-off their fancy fast stepping footwork. We were offered refreshments of orange juice and croissants prior to the performance.
Afterwards we walked through the East Gate, over the drawbridge and beneath a statue of St. Glazier, the patron Saint of Dubrovnik. On the other side was the impressive main and very long courtyard with tall stone buildings from the 16th thru 18th centuries. The need for the walled city was the many enemies, mainly the Venetians from the sea and the Serbians over the mountains by land. Dubrovnik is on a narrow sliver of land comprising Croatia with the capital Zagreb to the north. St. Glazier is the patron saint because he supposedly came to a town elder in a dream to warn of an attack by sea which thwarted a Venetian invasion. We walked the long courtyard and at the other end was a golden statue of person in local garb. If you looked closely, you would notice that the statue would occasionally move (and was in fact a mime pretending to be a statue attempting to startle the occasional tourist by the magic of a living statue). He of course would graciously accept contributions for his efforts. Nearly done with the tour, we walked out the west gate, across another drawbridge, and back onto our bus.
Before dinner we tried our luck at trivia and got a less than impressive 9 of a possible 17 points, a bit over 50%. Sharon was impressed that I knew Pink Floyd performed the Wall at the Berlin Wall, and Sharon demonstrated her musical knowledge by knowing that E is the highest note violins are tuned too (even if she doesn’t know the other word a guitar pick is known by… plectrum). She used to play guitar before taking up the piano.
Our evening fair was in the dining room where one of our single dinner guests created most of the King Arthur’s Court at the Excalibur, and all of its special effects including the lances and shields to prevent injuries to the staff. His heavily German accented conversation tended to dominate the conversation at our table with his tales of his many cruises, and how he had sent his third wife an “anniversary” card thanking her for the best twenty-five years of his life (he’s been single for the last twenty-five years). Sharon had delicious beef tenderloin and so-so chicken noodle soup (where were the noodles anyway?) For dessert she had brownie hot fudge sundae (also delicious). John had grilled shrimp and scallops (outstanding), followed by a fish chowder including shrimp, fish and calamari (again outstanding) with a main course of chicken stuffed with goat cheese and spinach (very tasty but could have been stuffed a bit fuller) ending with pistachio ice cream (see, there was a reason I didn’t see the pistachio ice cream earlier in the day).

After dinner we headed to the show for a comedian who was pretty funny and then headed off to bed since we had to lose an hour to get onto Grecian time for our next port of Corfu.

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