Sunday, September 20, 2015
Clay was up before the alarm again and woke me at 6am. We
were at breakfast at 7am. As the guy behind us on the bus this morning put it,
he had to fight for breakfast. Kompas gets serious points off from me for
putting us at this distant mega-hotel for 2 nights in Dubrovnik. And the guy
that said it has an Adriatic view with a balcony! We have a view of another
wing of the hotel with 3 stories of balconies that are all looking into our
windows about 20 feet away. I don’t think he can imagine how disappointed and unhappy
I am about Lacroma Hotel! The bus was loaded and left for our morning Dubrovnik
tour at 8:15am as scheduled. Gabriella told us last night that she was going to
note where we are sitting this morning and we must rotate clockwise 2 seats
every day we get on the bus thereafter. We’ll see how this goes. Our first stop
was south of the old city to get a photo of it in its entirety. The bus stopped
about a block from where you could actually take a photo and after we all
unloaded 2 more buses parked in front of ours and everyone had to get past
those buses and their passengers to get a photo. This was what prompted the
fighting for breakfast comment since he had to fight for a photo as well. I
have no idea what that was about. To be sure they always do the same thing and
they had to know. Anyway…
We drove about another 2 km past that spot to get to a
roundabout to drive back to the old walled city for our walking tour. It is
cooler and windier today but it hasn’t started raining yet. We got dropped at
the bus stop and saw where to get the number 6 bus back to the Lacroma this
afternoon/evening for 15 kuna each. That is a bit over $2pp. It sounds easy
enough. Our guide today was Zoran. He was 23 and a soldier during the
1991-1995. Dubrovnik was destroyed for the 2nd time in its history
then. We did see a missile hole they left in the Franciscan Monastery when they
rebuilt it and one other corner that has not been restored but the city walls
are back intact. He pointed out that the Croat soldiers were armed only with
pistols or rocks and were not allowed in Dubrovnik in uniform so the shelling
was strictly of civilians. It is hard to imagine. So by the time we entered the
Pile Gate it was raining. I learned that
the flimsy windbreaker I brought as an outer layer this trip is not waterproof.
I didn’t want to use an umbrella in a crowd of 38 people for the very reason
that I had people’s umbrella hitting and poking me as well as they’d stand
close and let their umbrellas just dump water on me. No point to my thoughts of
courtesy to others. The good news is that it was not cold so it didn’t matter that
I was soaked to the skin. When the sun came back out in the afternoon, it was
clearly the back end of a cold front since it was not near 100F today but
closer to 80F. Without the breeze it was still brutal in the sun again today
though. We visited the Rector’s Palace last after walking a big loop inside the
walls. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site so evidently they were pretty
strictly controlled on rebuilding and it shows. It looks amazing. It reminded
us both a lot of Sarlat. After the tour ended around 11am, we went in search of
lunch. We weren’t that hungry yet, but figured a dry place to sit inside while
we waited for clearing (or not) and time to decide how to proceed with the day.
We were appalled by the prices and the heavy food on menus. According to Zoran
there are only 800 inhabitants remaining in the walled city. Every building is
now either a bank, a shop or a bar/restaurant or a church. He says locals
almost never go there and it exists as a tourist attraction only now. So, there
were tons of expensive restaurants. Also the menus were heavy on seafood. For
some reason in Kotor, Gabriella had advised to avoid the seafood and she didn’t
say anything about it here so we didn’t know if the warning had carried up the
coast. We finally found a sandwich place. I don’t have a receipt from there so
I don’t know the name but it had buffet in the name. I don’t know why. It was a
tiny place with a very limited menu. We shared a Dalmatian platter of salad,
bread, oil cured cheese and local ham like prosciutto. Clay had a beer and I
had a Coke Zero. We got mostly dried out and by the time we left the sun was
out. So, it was decided we wouldn’t take the 2pm tour bus back to Lacroma
Hotel, but stay in town. The 2 things we had been advised to do here were walk
the city walls (900 steps) and ride the cable cars to the top of the mountain
over Dubrovnik for the view below. Neither of these things was advised in the
rain and lightning, so once it cleared we were back on track. We started with
some delicious ice cream cones.
They were not cheap. Then we found our way back to what
Zoran had pointed out as the lowest/fewest stairs point to get up on the city
walls. It costs 100 kuna pp to get up there and you have to have your ticket to
get scanned at one more point after entering at least. After that we came back
down and did some shopping and some scouting for dinner on our way to the other
side of the walled city and a gate out to get to the lower cable car station.
It was 108 kuna pp for roundtrip tickets. Both of these are flat out money makers.
We know there must be dozens of tour groups in town today and we saw at least
one cruise ship docked. There were loads of people and they were all doing the
same things! Lots of crowds and long lines. We like the views from up there
though. We didn’t realize that if you want to visit the remains of the fort up there
that you need to buy a combination ticket at the bottom, so we skipped the fort.
It houses a photographic exhibit of the 1991-1995 war and Clay didn’t want to
see that anyway. We came back down around 4pm. Around 4pm -4:30pm, we picked
Ragusa 2 as our dinner spot. They had outdoor seating that felt comfortable and
she talked to us about the menu as we were looking at it. We were about half
way down a steep hill and it was a good place to take a break. Plus the steak
with peppercorn sauce I had noticed 2 corners down the alley was 40 kuna
cheaper here. I got that for 140 kuna plus a 1 liter pitcher of tap water with
ice cubes! It was very exciting. This is the first ice we’ve seen since Gatwick
Airport. Clay got a big draft beer and a sea bass dinner. It was good. My
peppercorn sauce was fiery hot and we still can’t figure that out! I had some nice
twice fried fries with it. It was 320 kuna for the meal. Even though we sat
down pretty early for dinner, it was after 5pm before we ate so while we
usually eat an early dinner this wasn’t too early. They also brought us each a
glass with 2 ice cubes and about 2 fingers of chilled raki after we ordered
along with a bread basket and olive oil with garlic and red chili peppers in
it. Clay really enjoyed the raki and now he just needs to find an ice source to
enjoy the small bottle he bought in Kruje Albania!
We thought about having dessert somewhere else but after
sitting without ordering I decided I’d rather just take the 6 bus back rather
than spend another hour sitting outdoors. Clay got another ice cream cone and we
left Old Dubrovnik. Bus 6 runs every 10 to 15 minutes. By the time nearly everyone
in line had squeezed into every available inch of space on that bus, we left as
the next one approached and probably came along behind us almost empty! We did
spot the big parking lot full of tour buses behind oleander bushes as
instructed and exited with most of the other people left onboard. Zoran had
told us that there was only 1 stop past ours and then bus 6 headed back to Pile
Gate so we couldn’t miss our stop either coming or going. He was right.
We got back around 6pm. It looked like behind the hotel on
the Adriatic view side there might be a good view of sunset. So we went out and
spent about a 30 hour looking for a good place to sit and view it. We didn’t
find one and came on back after sunset. We did not go down to the beach. The literature
in the room says it is 250 meter walk from our hotel to another neighboring
hotel where we have complimentary privileges but you couldn’t see it from here
and there were a lot of stairs to get down there and back so we stayed put.
Plus the sun was setting behind an offshore island so higher would be a better
view than sea level. We couldn’t get higher so we stayed put.
A final comment on toilets. I know people always want to know.
Toilets have gotten consistently better in each country. They have also gotten
more expensive. The only free toilets we are finding now are in restaurants or museums.
In Albania, where some were frightful they were also all free to use. I’ll end
here. Tomorrow breakfast is at 7am again. Bags out at 7:45am. Bus leaves at
8:30am. We drive to Split for one night. We should be there sometime in the
afternoon. There will be a lunch stop at some point near where we cross into and
out of Bosnia-Herzegovina for about 20 minutes of our drive. It seems that
Dubrovnik is only connected to the rest of Croatia by the sea. Interesting. We
ate dinner last night with a couple who had toured there already and had
crossed through the same place to get here to meet us. They said they did not
get passports stamped there though they all had to show them as a border guard
walked through the bus. Oh well, the stamps we’ve gotten so far have all been
illegible and we’ll never know where we got them anytime we look through them
in the future anyway.
