Sweetheart Dubrovnik

We had a long winter this year. We were so sick of it in Holland that we booked a good week where we could be guaranteed some sun. It didn't happen. No one could calculate the accuracy with which a spell of bad weather and our holiday would collide. Oh well, what can you do?

We flew into Split on May 22nd and decided to jump on a bus straight to Dubrovnik. We seriously underestimated our travel time on the bus. 3 hours stretched to a very tedious 5.45 hours. But it didn't matter. We got to our little apartment in Lapad, got changed and asked our landlord, Mattheus to order a taxi into the old town. Mattheus refused. We took the bus.

The first thing we saw when we reached the old town centre of Dubrovnik were its walls. Katie estimated a good two hours to walk the whole way around and we grabbed our chance once we saw the sun popping out from behind the clouds. It was a good moment too as other tourists didn't want to risk getting soaked. Long story short, it was 45 minutes even with the hundreds of photographs we managed to take. The view was stunning. On one side you have all the red roofs of the city and the other you have the Adriatic Sea and the islands. It's jaw dropping. Mind you, it costs about 12EUR to do it and at the wrong times you'll feel like herded cattle going one-way only around a wall.

After the walls, wine tasting is the next most important must-do in Croatia. A friend recommended we go to a wine bar called D'Vino off the main street of Dubrovnik where we could taste some local wine. We chose to take a set menu of three small glasses of white from three different regions of Croatia. Fantastic. I won't try to describe the wines because I am no expert. We went on to taste the red, but of course. Fast forward a couple of hours and we are best friends with middle-aged couple Jude and Nige from Wales and hanging out of a pole in the Fuego nightclub outside the main city gate. But that's not included in the set wine menu.


Dubrovnik is set in a very special spot. Just off it's coast there are many beautiful islands to admire and visit and down the coast you can see the mountains of Montenegro. Taking the cable car to the top is well worth the 10EUR - so long as high winds don't cancel the service like it did for us. After the wine tasting the night before we were in fragile shape and I won't lie when I say I was relieved that it wasn't running.  But herself found a solution. She got talking to a taxi man who was out spotting an opportunity. For the same price as the cable car fare he would drive us up to the top and give us a little tour lasting an hour. The only catch was that we had to find at least 2 more people which was easily achieved. Tom, the taxi man, was very nice, took us to the top and gave us a perspective into what it was like to be living in Dubrovnik during the war. He showed us old barracks that were used by Croats and destroyed by the Yugoslavs. He pointed out the Bosnian mountains in the background and where soldiers died. He told us to look down on Dubrovnik and that every orange coloured roof was a roof that survived the war, and there weren't too many of them. He also told us we wouldn't reach Hvar town the next day. And so we rang Mattheus and see if he'd keep us another night. Grand.

Actually, here's a virtual version of Dubrovnik's Cable Car.

Not to bring the tone down but when your biggest problems in the world growing up are what to wear to the next teenage disco in town it's hard to imagine what living through a war really means. The War Photo Museum is not for the sensitive but I think every now and then we should be reminded that terrible things happen in the world and we need to be good to each other. We didn't know too much about what had happened in this part of the world (to be honest it's still not clear). But the war photo museum brought the fear and anxiety it to life for us. At only 4EUR entry fee it's worth every cent to take a look.

I could go on and on here about Dubrovnik. I've decided that our time in Split and Montenegro deserve their own posts. How and ever, in a nutshell here are some other things to take a look at in this fabulous city:

• Some scenes of Game of Thrones was filmed here. See if you can spot some of the backdrops!
• Listen to jazz at Troubadour Jazz Cafe. 
• Eat some amazing fresh sea food from any of the restaurants. 
• Go to the Cave Bar out in Lapad. 
• Check out some beautiful places of worship. 
• Take a day trip to Lokrum Island. 

What would I do if I go back? Basically a lot of island hopping. We were robbed of reliable warm weather and if we were to go back anytime soon we would visit Hvar, Lokrum Island, the Elaphite Islands and Korcula where Marco Polo was born. I'd also like to go exploring the oyster farms on the coast and the vineyards. What I won't be doing is hanging out of a pole again in the Fuego nightclub outside the city walls in Dubrovnik.

Or so I say.