Dubrovnik.....just beautiful!!

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The weather is back to what we have been use to over the past 4 weeks,fine and sunny.The thunderstorm has cleared the atmosphere and the air has got that fresh feeling about it.
We have been hanging out for a fish dinner since we left the UK and we had thought that the Adriatic coast would provide what we were looking for.However there is an absence of any fishing fleet here and it looks like we will have to wait until we get further north up the coast to get our fish dinner.
So on our short shopping trip for dinner we ended up buying chicken again and as our daughter Leigh says 'you can't go wrong with chicken'...just as long as it is fully cooked!!
It is Fathers Day back in NZ and I cannot celebrate with our girls but Gretchen will compensate with a chicken dinner and we will finally drink the bottle of bubbly that our Golf Croquet friends in Edinburgh gave me for my birthday in July.We have been waiting or the right moment!!
We are only a short drive away from Dubrovnik and we headed off there to spend a few hours walking around the old city.
As we approached the city on the main road high above the city itself we caught a glimpse of a cruise ship anchored close into shore and ferrying passengers ashore by lighters.We took the opportunity to stop at a vantage point and looked down on the old city area we were heading to walk around.The view was awesome with the terracotta colour of the roofs set against the clear blue colour of the Adriatic Sea.Just beautiful!!!
We weren't sure where we would find a car park for RR as looking at the old city when we drove past on our arrival it didn't look like there was space for a car park in the old city which is very compact and car free.
However the city has built a car park that is actually underground and it is well located for us as we came off the main road heading down towards the old city area.
The city was badly damaged in the siege of 1991 with almost all of the roofs of buildings in the old city having to be rebuilt and they have done a great job.
After the war finished the city had te re establish itself as a tourist destination and we figure the car park is one of those facilities built for the city to get itself back on the tourist map.
It is only a short walk down to the outer walls of the old city.
We expected the place to be busy but it was a bit more than that with hordes of people milling around the small paved area outside the old city entrance.They were being formed into walking groups to head off into the old city and we guessed they had come from at least one other cruise ship berthed at the wharf in the new part of the city over the hill.
The walls of the old city are probably the thickest we have seen and appeared to have been built to be inpenetrable and they seemed to have survive the bombing of the city pretty much intact.
Despite the crowds we were able to walk easily around the old city and took in the catholic church although there was a mass going on and we thought it best to return later to see it better.
The cathedral was our next stop and it was interesting to see that it had been left largely untouched by the bombing.It had been damaged more by an earthquake in 1979 when the eastern wall had almost come away completely from the rest of the building.It was a fairly plain cathedral unlike those we saw in the UK or western Europe.
Off the main plaka there are numerous narrow alleyways running off both sides up gentle rises ending where the wall runs around the city.There are shops mixed in with locals accommodations and it was fascinating walking through some of the alleyways seeing how the locals live with all these tourists around every day of the week.
Off one of these we ventured through a small door in the wall to find a drinks bar perched on the rocks outside the wall.We had of course been told to look for this place by Leigh or we would probably have never found it.All of the small two person tables faced out to sea with about half under cover and with the sun shining down we thought that was the best place to be.We ordered a couple of cold soft drinks and sat back and soaked up the view out over the blue Adriatic.As Gretchen went to organise a photo of me the young woman sitting next to us offered to take a photo of us both.She had been listening to our accent and guessed we were Kiwis as she was!!And surprise surprise she was from nearby Okiorere(near Matamata) and had been working in London for the past 3 years.So after weeks of not hearing another Kiwi voice we spent 20 minutes or so chatting to her.Before we left to go back through the small opening in the wall back to the city we ventured down the stairs to the waters edge where there was a group of half a dozen people who were sunbathing and occasionally dropping into the water to cool off.What a life!!
The small harbour area at the south of the plaka and outside the wall was teaming with passengers off the cruise ship and the yellow lighters were buzzing back and forth ferrying people to and from the Costa Fortune(yes that was really the name of the cruise ship!!)
To take in all that we had seen on the ground we then headed for a walk around the wall of the city.
The wall is not at the same height all around the city and it rises and falls with the lay of the land so the walk gives you a different view of the city depending on how high it climbs with the angle of the sun also giving different shades to the terracotta roofs.
We were fortunate enough to be on the seaward side as the Costa Fortune(what a name for a cruise ship!!)saied off to its next destination.The sight of the large cruise ship so close to the wall was very impressive!!The white superstructure against the blue sea was a brilliant contrast.
It took us over an hour to wander around the wall during which we stopped to take photos and video regularly.The city and the surrounding hills and sea are just so photogenic.
Its hard to make up our minds now as to whether Dubrovnik knocks Santorini as the most beautiful places we have visited on this adventure.
The crowds had thinned out considerably by the time we came down off the wall and we walked back to the church that was having a mass when we first looked in on it.It was closed!!
The walk up the hill to the car park was a bit of a struggle in the heat which was now around 32C(or so the car told us when we got going)and the first cold beer when we got home wasn't going to touch the sides as it went down.
Gretchen cooked a delicious chicken breast dinner and we did drink the bottle of bubbly to celebrate NZ Fathers Day as the sun set over the hills above Mlini.
All in all a perfect day of sightseeing,drinking(not to excess of course) and eating.

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Comments

[Leebee]

So pleased that you found the bar on the outside of the wall and pleased that the BBA could stretch to a couple of drinks out there. My call on which place wins as the most beautiful has to be Santorini....Dubrovnik is outstanding and between us Cormac and I took over 3oo photos while we walked about the wall, but Santorini has to win....the caldera, the whitewashing, the sea....

[Rin]

Nice photos! And although I haven't been to either Santorini or Dubrovnik, I say wait until you get to the Cinque Terre in Italy to make that call and you'll have another contender for the most beautiful place!! :-)