Dubrovnik

Another day, another country… 

The crossing from Montenegro into Croatia took us a little longer, as we were finally entering (gasp!) the European Union! This requires us to be fingerprinted. There is a queue of traffic waiting at the border, but only one fingerprint machine, so this is a long, slow process. Eventually we got through and sped off into Croatia.

We reached our hotel, the originally named Hotel Dubrovnik, a little after midday. We dumped our baggage, then Danijela took us on an unofficial tour of the Old Town of Dubrovnik. She enjoined us to not refer to her as a guide, as she is not officially registered as a guide in Croatia. The punishment for guiding without a licence in Croatia is a fine of up to €1,000 and deportation, apparently. Seems harsh. We walked along the town walls, which involved a lot of steps (I didn’t count them). One of our group is acrophobic, and as the walls got higher, the side walls got lower, and he was somewhat stressed. At one point we came to a junction where we could either carry on along the walls, or return to ground level, which we opted to do, as beer and pizza were calling to me. Danijela showed us the Rector’s Palace and St Blaise church, and offered us a taste of candied orange peel from the market, before releasing us on our own recognisance. (Incidentally, we've come across St Blaise before!) 

We headed straight to the nearest hostelry for some lunch. The first beer made a hissing sound as it disappeared down the hatch, so I promptly ordered another. Turns out the place we’d picked wasn’t actually a pizzeria, so I had a burger instead.

Danijela had issued us with bus tickets and a Dubrovnik Pass (Multipass!), both valid for 24 hours from activation, which allowed unlimited access to buses, and free entrance to various museums, once only. We’d already used them to climb the walls, as we went to see the Rector’s Palace after lunch. The Rector was the head of state of the Republic of Rugosa, of which Dubrovnik was the capital, between the 14^th and 19^th centuries. It was then conquered by Napoleon, subsumed into Napoleonic Italy, before being amalgamated into the Austro-Hungarian Empire until World War 1.

By this time I was getting museum fatigue, so we headed back to the bus stop, bumping into two of our group along the way. The bus ride back was less comfortable than arriving as we had to stand, but it was at most 15 minutes so we were OK.

In the evening Danijela had organised for us all to go out to Madonna, a local restaurant a couple of minutes’ walk from our hotel. The area we’re in is all pedestrianised and populated by hotels, bars and restaurants. As usual, the two other New Zealanders in our group cried off. (They’ve been a bit weird: they’ve attended most of the daytime tours and included activities, but in the evening we’ve not seen hide nor hair of them. We strongly suspect they’re sitting in their room drinking gin & tonic.) 

Most of our group enjoying dinner

The restaurant had a seafood emphasis so I had the tuna steak, which was cooked properly (seared but not overdone) whilst Nicola had chicken prosciutto. After the dinner I was elected to give a speech for Danijela, thanking her for all her work in keeping us informed and looked after. We then promised undying love and to keep in touch with each other. As you do. We repaired to the hotel bar for a nightcap. Some were leaving early the next morning, either home or onwards in their journeys, so we farewelled them. 

The next morning we packed up, breakfasted, and then headed back to the Old Town to extract further value from our Multipass before it expired. We visited the house of Marin Držić, a Croatian playwright who shares many ideas and plots with Shakespeare – largely because they were referencing the same source material, either from classical Greece and Rome, or around Italy (think how many of Shakespeare’s plays are set in the Mediterranean. It's not like he was from there.) Nicola bought one of his plays and will provide a book report in due course.

 We then went up the cable car. There was quite a queue for this so it took us a little while to get to the front. The cable car was built in 1969 and wasn’t really designed for its current purpose as a tourist attraction – there are only two cars, each on a separate track, going back and forth up the hill. Nevertheless, the views over the Old Town, and wider Dubrovnik area, were spectacular as we ascended. At the top there’s some viewing platforms and a café, but it was a little early for lunch, so after exploring all the photo opportunities we joined the queue for the descent. When we reached the bottom and emerged…no queue! A case of bad timing as we’d hit the mid-morning rush. 

One day I'll learn how to hold a camera straight

We also located the gate we should have taken to get to the cable car, and returned to the Old Town. There, we chanced upon a restaurant that sold pizza! Who’d'a thought it? We lunched on pizza and salad, the inevitable beer, and then wandered the streets a bit. When we tired of that we caught the bus back to Hotel Dubrovnik. Our 24-hour tickets had expired by then so we had to negotiate the vagaries of Dubrovnik’s public transportation system. They’re quite simple, really: you can buy a ticket for cash on the bus for €2.50, or get an advance ticket for a mere €1.73, which lasts an hour from when you first activate it. We’d just missed a bus, which was packed to the rafters, but by the time we’d sorted out our tickets another one came along, and we became true Croatians by jostling to the front (“use your elbows!” as Danijela had advised us) to secure a seat for the, yes, 15 minute journey back.

We were waylaid by an ice cream parlour for a few minutes, then collected our suitcases, ordered an Uber, and took ourselves off to the Hotel Dubrovnik Palace, which is substantially more palatial than our previous accommodation.