Dubrovnik, Croatia

We are a day behind in our blogs. Yipes! Forgive us! Yesterday we were in Dubrovnik, Croatia. You would think with all the history and beauty of France and Italy, Croatia would be anticlimactic, but wow, what a beautiful place. The city itself is quite lovely. It is another Mediterranean place where the mountains meet the sea. The coastline is gorgeous with blue, blue water and pretty houses. Dubrovnik is actually a city inside a city. The old town is intact. It is a walled city that was built toward the end of the 13^th century. The modern part of Dubrovnik is also quite pretty. The houses are similar looking with white sides and  red ceramic roofs.. The modern city is built into the hillside.

We started our day with a guided tour outside of the city walls. In fact it was a guided tour that included a cable car ride. The cable car was able to hold 30 people and took us up to the highest peak in Dubrovnik. From the top we could actually see three countries at once. We could see the mountains of Croatia, the mountains of Montenegro and very close by we could see Bosnia as well. We also could see places where the city was shelled in the early 90s during the war in that area.

After our cable car tour we walked down into the old city. We crossed over a real drawbridge, which used to be pulled up every night long ago and through large doors that used to be locked to keep the city safe.

It was really a great day. Mike ordered fried fish based on a recommendation from our waiter. I think he expected something breaded and deep fried. Instead he got all these little teeny, tiny fish that still had their little teeny tiny eyes and fins and scales and brains etc, etc. It looked like someone just took a scoop to their home fish tank, fried it all up and called it a meal. All those teeny tiny eyes were glaring at Mike from his plate. Mike is a trooper and an adventurous eater. When we asked him if he liked it he said “yes!” Asked if he would order again, he gave a clear “no!”.

We did more than just eat in Dubrovnik. We wandered around and took in as many sights as possible. The city had been hit by many earthquakes over the years. The worst one was in the 1700s, so while the wall was still intact and some buildings were as well, much of the city had been rebuilt in the 1700s giving it a more “modern” feeling. It cracks us up to say that architecture from the 1700s and 1800s is “modern,” given that we are Americans, but here in Europe that really is modern.

When we were in Italy, I always remembered to carry a sweater and leggings so that I could cover bare shoulders and legs when in the churches. However, we never actually made it inside any Italian churches, though we admired the outside of several. In Croatia, however, we wandered into a nice church and were admiring the different frescos and statues when someone came over to me and told me to cover my shoulders. I did not have anything with me, so we had to leave the church. Kicked out of church. Awesome.

Dubrovnik was just so beautiful though, I feel like I am not doing it justice. Once I get home I will link my photos to this blog. Dubrovnik has a smaller version of the Spanish Steps. I can’t wait to compare pictures from Rome to see how similar they are. Max and Madison, the animal lovers that they are, managed to make friends with a few stray cats. There were several lounging around and though they were trying to snooze, they never balked at a belly rub.

Croatia is also the only place we visited that isn’t using the Euro as currency. We got some kunas to spend. It was a challenge trying to convert in our heads kunas to US dollars. One kuna is worth about $5.50 and a little over $7.50 euros. Math, math, math!

Well, my computer battery is about to run out. We were at sea today and will be again tomorrow. I will combine those two days into tomorrow’s blog. See you then!