Blogs from Dubrovnik, Dalmatia, Croatia, Europe - page 42

I have been an SFT for one month now. SFT being the acronym I invented for Solo Female Traveler, or learning to deal with the world by yourself. With this new status, different cautions must be heeded, and new opportunities arise. On my first morning traveling independently, I was offered a ride to my hostel, encouragement to travel, and sugar-powdered cookies. I would like to think this would happen in any traveling situation, but traveling as a solo female makes people percieve you differently. SFTs are more vulnerable because of their independent status. They are more open to the generosity of others, but are also more easily subjected to unwanted attention. Some SFT´s remedy this by eliminating male contact completely, but by eliminating all contact with males, you essentially eliminate half of the potential people ... read more

It's been a quick few weeks, after racing through Serbia and Montenegro (see previous "amended" blog) I caught up with Tans and Andy in Dubrovnik. they've been working in France for the last few months and, as it turns out, are currently on a whirlwind trip of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. Quite a contrast to my "keep it slow and warm" philosophy. Luckily we were both flexible and had no big ideas.. i.e. no short-term plans or long-term cash :) This time of year on the Croatian coast is a real low point in their tourist season - the last campground closed two days after we left, and all "regular" tourist services were on completely irregular timetables. It was great, there were still enough people around to make it interesting, the make believe timetables put paid ... read more

Pizza for breaky, the pizzas are huge; I ate less than a quarter of mine. The knives are rubbish; they should give you a small roller cutter similar to what is used to slice pizzas. Anyone seen such a thing at a restaurant? Nice meal at the water side restaurant cannot remember the name, down the steps next to the bus stop and follow it around. If you have had enough of seafood, then go for the Fillet steak it is superb, the Dalmatian rib steak on the other hand is horrible. ... read more

We needed to find accommodation this time; the girls had already arranged theirs for the next few days. Lapad is out the way for either the bus station in the morning or the old town night life. So we just go with some guy who had an Audi, the girls were happy to get a lift in a nice car for once; the guy thought he was getting four people for his two spare rooms, he was not happy. The restaurant by the old town marina is one of Jules' favorites, as its cheap, has great views and the staff are very friendly. I had the "Small Fried Fish" again. 4 liters of wine later we were ready for a good night out at the Fresh bar. Serves cocktails and like a gallon of beer in ... read more

Even though I have a stonking headache after last night in London, we'll just call that a Friday night out. 3.5 hours delay at the airport means brushing up on our Daytona skills, we may need these later. In my following posts some names will have been changed to protect the guilty, but the blurry photos are from the alcohol shakes. Skip ahead to us arriving in Lapad where we had a tiny room booked for the first 2 nights, Villa Micika. We had a nice meal down by the sea, I had some seafood, cannot remember what, it will come back to me, nice though. It was 1am by the time Roland had joined us and we needed beer, we stumbled across a bar, maybe the only one open and could only fit 8 people ... read more