Grand Hotel Park, Dubrovnik, Croatia

Today some of us ventured back in Dubrovnik and walked around the wall encompassing the old town. It takes a good couple of hours when you add in stopping for pictures, and the weather was great.

Update, in response to Jeff's question in the comments:

According to our tour guide (and I'm going from memory so don't hold me to it ) and skimming Wikipedia, it was founded in the 7th century and eventually came under the control of Venice. The Venetians left to go conquer someone else, and when they returned they weren't invited back in the city.

It has always done a good job of holding its own in conflict, but in the war back in the '90s the Serbs bombed the crap out of it for no real reason.

It's also my understanding that the path I hiked up the other day is there because it was used by the citizens of Dubrovnik to take supplies up to the soldiers fighting at the top of the hill, where the big cross is. They were severely outmanned, and many, many lives were lost.

                           

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Grand Hotel Park, Dubrovnik, Croatia

On Thursday we left Trogir for Dubrovnik, late as usual, for the three hour drive to Dubrovnik that ended up taking almost seven hours. Turns out Croatians are known for being late everywhere, to the point that the clock town in the old town in Dubrovnik only updates every five minutes, since in Croatia if you’re within 5min you’re considered in the ballpark. Apparently this year’s tour is going much better than previous years in this regard, so I should consider myself lucky. I also now know why I’m always late: hey, it’s genetic. What can I do?

Before we left we were warned that the drive would be going down very windy roads and that we should take Dramamine if we thought there was a chance we’d get sick. I hadn’t been car sick since I was five so I figured no problem. You can guess where this is going. I’m glad that I only had two pieces of bread with three pieces of cheese for breakfast that morning (remember the commie food I mentioned previously?) because only some deep breaths and concentration allowed me to get to the first rest stop in Markarska without getting sick. We stopped for lunch, but all I could force down was some ice cream and a Dramamine. I started feeling a little better after a while so I walked along the promenade and through the town square while everyone else had lunch.




The reason we were going down the coast was because of the scenery, which did not disappoint.


Every time we’d turn a corner we’d see a different variation on the same theme.


Eventually we turned a corner and saw the bridge leading into Dubrovnik.


Upon driving into Dubrovnik our guide told us that instead of going to the hotel to check in we were going to go directly to the old town for a tour. My biggest concern was that I didn’t have any suntan lotion and the tour was going to be over two hours, but fortunately it was only 30 degrees when we got there so it wasn’t an issue.

The old town is as spectacular as the postcards. A small, walled city that to this day houses over 2000 people, old town also has 46 churches (not all of which are operating), which is a bit of overkill if you ask me, but they didn’t so they have 46 churches. During the war in the 90s Dubrovnik was shelled for the first time ever, and you can still see where the shells hit on some of the buildings.


It turned out that we were in town at just the right time, avoiding the huge cruise ship crowds and in great light for photography.


Everyone was really tired from sitting in a bus for so long, so we all just sat in the hotel’s outdoor lounge and had a couple of beers before heading to bed. The hotel here is exactly the opposite of the one we just came from: top-notch all the way. The food is great, it’s right by the beach and also has two really warm, salt water pools. And I even got my own room, so for the next four days I don’t have a roommate.

Life’s rough.