Dubrovnik, Croatia -- Day 1

On September 18, Paul and I celebrated 5 years of marriage! We have had a wonderful few years, and were lucky to have Paul's mom and sister volunteer to come to England and stay with Charlotte while we took a trip to celebrate -- just the two of us. After 20+ months of traveling with baby, it felt like the ultimate luxury to pack only a backpack and jet off! It was also very comforting to know that Charlotte wouldn't miss us much at all -- she loves all her grandparents so much!

I did most of the planning for our trip, so before we left I was a little nervous that I'd forgotten something major in the planning process. That nervousness didn't abate when I realized, as we were leaving the house at 4:30 am, that I'd input the wrong license plate number into the website for our reserved parking spot at the airport's long term car park. The machines there have an automatic plate-reader that let you in if your plate number matches a reservation. A phone call later, it was all settled, but it didn't make me feel too comfortable about the rest of my planning. Amazingly, we had no other issues whatsoever on the trip. It all went smoothly!

We flew from London Stansted airport (about an hour from our house) to Dubrovnik, Croatia using EasyJet airlines. We were surprised at the fact that you only have to scan a boarding pass and go through the scanner machines to enter the airport -- no passport/ID control until you get to your gate. A little different than other airports we've been through! The flight was easy, and we landed mid-morning in the rain at Dubrovnik's airport, which is really several miles south of the city. We got some kuna (Croatian currency) from an ATM, bought tickets for a shuttle bus to the city center, and we were off! 

This was our first experience using AirBnb for accommodation on a trip, and we had wonderful experiences both in Dubrovnik and Split. Our host for the Dubrovnik apartment, Ana, gave us instructions for how to find the place. We got off the shuttle bus outside the Pile Gate (one of 3 gates to the walled Old Town), entered the town, and walked only a few blocks down to find the apartment right off the main street (the Stradun). All the streets in the Old Town are dominated by pedestrians, except in the early morning when deliveries are made by small trucks and handcarts. It was still raining, but after Ana explained the apartment and showed us a few places on the map, the rain had stopped and the sun was peeking through the clouds. We headed out quickly to start exploring.

A little background info: The Old Town of Dubrovnik is a walled medieval city that was a very important port for many years. The walls are still intact, despite the significant damage to the city that occurred when it was bombed by the Serbian army during the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. At the time, it was unthinkable that such a beautiful tourist destination would be bombed (for no real reason, according to the Croatians) but it was under siege for many months. The roofs have nearly all needed to be replaced on the buildings in Dubrovnik from the damage sustained. It's returned to its former tourist-attracting glory, and is a very popular stop for cruise ship day trips. Mid-day was always a little crazy to negotiate around the crowds of retirees following tour group leaders!

We found the actual "hole in the [city] wall" that leads to Buza II, a recommended spot for sitting and overlooking the Adriatic with a drink in hand. It was so wonderful to be there, relaxing, feeling awe-struck at the "I can't believe we're here! We were just at boring-old-home 5 hours ago!" nature of travel. 

After enjoying a drink, we realized we were starving! We found a takeaway pizza window and it was delicious. 

We stopped back by the apartment briefly to change clothes; no need for jeans in Southern Europe! Properly attired, we then headed to the Ploce Gate to start the Wall Walk. You pay to get up onto the walls, and have to walk in a clockwise direction around the city. It was quite warm up there, with all the sun reflecting off the white bricks -- we were glad to not be doing the walk in the middle of the summer. We followed the self-guided tour from the Rick Steves book I had borrowed from the library, and followed his recommendation to start at the Ploce Gate vs the Pile Gate, as this forces you to do the steepest climbs of the wall at the start of your walk, and then it's fairly easy from then on. We loved seeing the beautiful views into the old town, up the mountain to the east of the city, and across the Adriatic. Hope you enjoy the pictures Paul took!

(PS -- there are a few of my pictures scattered in here as well; I took a whole day's worth of pictures on my phone without realizing I had a weird filter on. Ugh.)

Ploce Gate

Overlooking the Old Town's harbor

Starting the Wall Walk

Paul enjoying the Wall Walk; weird iPhone filter accidentally applied

Looking across the Old Town Harbor to the island of Lokrum

A very characteristic side street in Old Town; many, many steps!

Panorama of Old Town Dubrovnik

Lots of other people doing the Wall Walk that day as well

Pile Gate; you can see a bus dropping off more tourists out front!

The old water reservoir for the town; a great gelato-eating and people-watching spot for us!

Looking down the Stradun, the main street. Our apartment was a few blocks down on the left.

Taking a short rest in the heat.

Looking in toward the harbor.

After we finished our Wall Walk, we decided to head outside of Ploce Gate to a small rocky beach area to enjoy watching the waves and the boats coming in and out of the harbor. It was a peaceful spot, with a resident cat hanging out. There were lots of stray cats roaming about Dubrovnik, and we were surprised how many people stopped to pet them (although we are admittedly more dog-people than cat-people).

Looking back toward the city from our perch on the rocky beach.

Looking toward the south from the beach.

We were continually impressed by this HUGE yacht that was anchored outside the harbor. That's a normal size motorboat pulled up the the side entry of it. Crazy big.

Random kitty.

We headed back into the walled city to find some dinner. We ate at an outdoor restaurant that specialized in capon and seafood. Paul ordered a seafood pasta that required quite a bit of shell-cracking and assembling on his part :) We agreed that the food wasn't quite as good as we'd hoped at this spot, but the ambiance was nice.

After dinner, we enjoyed strolling around town and grabbed some gelato to enjoy the people-watching from the water reservoir's steps. The lights of the town at night are very romantic and lovely against the medieval stone walls of the buildings. I was reluctant to head back to the apartment because the atmosphere was so nice.