Dubrovnik, Croatia ... July 29-31, 2008

We swam again this morning before packing up and checking out of the hotel and making our way to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Dubrovnik is about 220 KM down the coast from Split, but takes about 4 hours since it is on a 2 lane road basically the whole way. It is a beautiful drive, though, mostly following the Adriatiac coast, allowing for a mostly pleasant drive (except when behind a semi or two).This city is AWESOME! The old town sits right on the coast, surrounded by the mostly original 13th century wall that has protected it from both ancient attackers as well as modern ones. I say "mostly original" since in 1991 the Serbian-Montengrin remains of the Yugoslav People's Army (loyal to Serb Slobodan Milosivic's government) besieged the city for seven months until the Croatian army liberated it in 1992. The damage was repaired in the original style.
It is a completely automobile free city, so we had to park outside the walls and haul our stuff in by foot. We rented an apartment right in the middle of the old town, up a LOT of steps, but completely worth the trek. We got organized in our apartment and then took a walk through the cobblestoned narrow streets of this ancient city. We found a pizza place and of course had Gelato for dessert before putting the girls to bed.
The next morning we got up and casually made our way to scale the wall and hike the greater than 2KM of stone that circumvents the city. The wall itself was amazing, as was the view that it provided of both the interior of the city and the red roofed buildings, as well as the view to the surrounding countryside and the Adriatic.
We were told that Dubrovnik had a couple of SAND beaches. Maybe they do, but the one we arrived to was something in between rocks and sand...good enough, I guess. We took a bus that stopped right outside the city gate to the beach and spent a few hours relaxing in the sun. The weather was perfect, as it had been throughout the trip.
After the beach we made our way back to our apartment, but not before taking a drink from Onophrio's fountain, right after the entrance to the city.

We also tried out the famous tradition of the city of standing on the Gargoyle that is located just across from the fountain. You are supposed to see how long you can balance on this. I couldn't last more than a couple of seconds, but Katie and Ashley did pretty well.We had some more pizza for dinner and gelato for dessert (we are just across the sea from Italy, remember!) before being passed by the "parade" of Dubrovnik soldiers and heading back to our apartment for sleep.

Although it is not very accessible to get to for visitors that don't live in the area, Dubrovnik is certainly one of our top 2 or 3 European destinations that we have visited and recommend this to anyone!