April 23-26
We’ve been in Cavtat for several days now and enjoying lazy days with warm sun and long walks. Our trip here on Monday, by bus, was comfortable and scenic. We saw a great valley and what looked to be a very large area of crops/olive trees, and we think lots of orange groves. There were many roadside stands on the trip with crates of oranges. We crossed the 20km of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a 20 min pit stop in the only town on the coast of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We arrived in Dubrovnik in good time and caught the #10 bus to Cavtat. Our host met us and drove us to the flat – up a steep hill so that was nice!!!
Our hosts have been incredible and have excellent English. On arrival there was a large bowl of fresh fruit and a bottle of wine. Shortly after arrival we were given fresh cake!! Mato works at one of the large hotels in town. I’ve requested that we not get a new delivery of towels every 2nd day! It took a lot of convincing of “eco” issues to get them every 3rd day. We get periodic deliveries of the new harvest of cherries, and a lovely collection of roses. Tanya said they will just go bad if they aren’t cut!! We hope to sit with them this weekend and enjoy a bottle of Croatian wine together and learn about this part of the county and the war here in the 90s.
We’ve walked the 2 peninsulas of the town, along the waterfront(s) and wandered through large hotels and their gardens! I’m watching the sea temperature as it’s up 7 degrees since we got here, but it’s only 67degF at the moment so it may not be a place to swim. In the summer when it’s really crowded, the water is very warm and there are lots of places to swim. We found a small spot with steps down to a fairly cleared pebbly area out on one of the points where there’s also a kayak rental place. We may get kayaks and venture out to one of the islands. There’s been no wind here, or none to speak of, so kayaking anywhere would be very easy.
April 30- May 1
We’ve enjoyed our slow mornings here!!! We do try to get out for a walk but sometimes it’s not until early afternoon. I’ve finally started working on a blog!!! It’s been a challenge to get things going, learn what plugins are really helpful and how to organize a nice looking theme. I’m pretty much on track after about a week now and have made a couple of “test” posts. I’m going to try to get my postings on my other web site (worldnomads.com) as they are taking down the journal function there. I was struggled any way as it was very hard to post photos. I’m going to backdate posts from our 2015 Turkey trip, my 2016 Europe trip, our sailing trip in 2017 to Martinique, or 2017 Vietnamese trip and of course this big trip that started in December. I’m not going to create new content just work off the old Turkey journals and the FB posts to get caught up.
On Monday we decided to try to find the Ron Brown pathway and see if we could hike it. It’s reported to be long, 5 hours RT without stops, so we expected not to get to the top, the memorial, as we headed out around 2pm. Ron Brown was the Secretary of the Dept of Commerce in 1996 when the plane he was on, with 35+/- other, crashed into a nearby mountain on its approach to the Dubrovnik airport. All perished. Something about the instruments.
The path out of Cavtat is very steep so we lazed out and took the bus to where the path starts to leave the populated areas. It’s a climb along numerous switchbacks of steep and rubbly, small rock, paths that wander up the face of a small mountain. We tried for about an hour but in the hot sun, it just was too much of a struggle. There was no shade to rest under. We probably got about a third of the way up before deciding it was going to be too much, and we’d have a hard time making the equally difficult walk down. The rocks were loose so secure footing going down had to be very carefully watched for. I took a small slide early on so it was probably good we turned and headed back. The views we got were worth the effort. It was hazy so photos from the top might not have been what I was hoping for. It was a nice walk along a different path to get back to town. We saw a field of poppies – nice!!
Tuesday was May 1, the international Labour Day, a national holiday. Some shops were closed and some of the stores that were open had limited offerings. We had planned for it and did go down to pick up a few things and our Dubrovnik tourist cards. It will give discounts to the city walls and several museums in the city. We hope to go in for 2 days.
Once again we headed for a walk in the early afternoon. This time along the coast, the Konavvle, on a pathway that goes from Cavtat, the little church at the end of our street, to Cilipi, about 8 km away. This was better than the day before. There was shade and it wasn’t nearly as steep. We walked about an hour, or more, and turned at Mocici. We hoped to find a ruin dating back to 3rd century, but it was not well marked and we must have walked by it. We decided to walk back along easier paths and roads! We headed back to the Cavtat village, on the water, and finally took a swim here. It was chilly but not cold, and felt good after the hot walk. The Adriatic is very salty!!! Floating was like being on a flotation lounger!! The beach was rocky but the water was the clearest I’ve seen – like being in a giant swimming pool with a rocky bottom. I wish I had a mask to view the rocks and small fish.
Trying to enjoy the sunny warm weather here as on Saturday it’s to Stockholm and it’s quite a bit colder there. We’ve enjoyed the spring here in Croatia – especially the abundance of nearly perfect roses. Never seen such large and beautiful ones as here.
May 2-3
We went into the old city of Dubrovnik on 2May. We have the city tourist card which does save money if you go to more than 3 of the 9 places and it comes with bus tickets to/from Cavtat which is worth 50Kn.
We took the bus in the first day, as it was later in the day, and we first rode the cable car to the top of the mountain overlooking the city that also has a terrific museum on the war (1991-1992) for independence housed in the old fort originally built by Napoleon’s army. It never fell during the war against the Serbs even though the Serbian army was well within range and quite visible. Additionally there were gun ships off shore that did a tremendous amount of damage to the old city. There are YouTube videos of some of the bombardment that occurred on Dec 6, 1991.
We walked down to one of the entrances to the old city. The walls are impressively high and thick!! The view once inside was down down down – a steep set of narrow steps down to the main street. It was narrow and passed by many shops and several cafes. Fortunately we found a way out that didn’t have the steps!!!
There are approximately 750 residents inside the old city’s walls, and numerous shops, cafes, restaurants, a school, and several churches. We couldn’t figure out how the trash and waste water is managed!! We visited the Maritime Museum which was an interesting history going back to before the days of Venetian rule. There were also large full and half models of ships – sailing and steam, which were beautifully crafted.
On the second day to Dubrovnik we took the boat. There are several lines, but we had gotten friendly with Mario of SeaLine. It was a nice ride in, about 35 minutes with good views of the shoreline. So much is steep and unbuildable, even the highway runs at a very high elevation once outside the city. Landing at the boat dock also meant we were inside and did not need to climb up or down steps to come or go!!
Our first visit was to the City Walls. This is a narrow pathway on top of the ramparts and surrounds the city. It’s one way in counterclockwise and your ticket is good for one entry only. As we didn’t know this until we were on and “stamped” in, we ended up walking the entire circuit of about a mile – 2000meters. With all the stairs, both up and down, it took over an hour. The views of the city were terrific. We did see a few spots both in the wall and in the city where the bombs of the war had caused great damage.
It was interesting to see, mostly on the boat ride, a number of properties such as large hotels that were abandoned or never completed. These are/were owned by non Croatians, likely Serbians or Montenegrins, and after the war were no longer citizens of Croatia and could not do anything with the property. We saw a small hospital on the water, beautiful location, in Cavtat that has been abandoned as well as a very large house near the restaurant we ate at twice.
While in Dubrovnik we also went into a small art museum showing the works of a photographer. It was small and the photos showed a neat perspective. I’ve forgotten who it was!!!
We had lunch in the square and then wandered into 2 churches – small and very ornate. We caught the boat back just as it started raining and encountered rough seas and thunder and lightning on the crossing back to Cavtat. The boat was quite rocky and rolly and one of the children cried the whole way out of fear. Even some of the adults were white knuckled, but we were fine and we congratulated the captain on our disembarkation on the good job he did to minimize the impact of the seas.
May 4
Friday was another quiet day with a long walk in the afternoon. We started organizing our gear and had a terrific dinner of fresh Sea Bream, at the restaurant 10 minutes from the flat (and not down the hill!)
It was hard saying goodbye to Marco and Tanya as they have been wonderful hosts. Several deliveries of fresh cake, fresh roses, fresh cherries, fresh fruit and wine on arrival, and a gift of cherry liqueur on departure. And the never ending battle of trying to keep our towels from being replaced every 2 days!! Marco has relatives in DC so hopefully we’ll see them again.
Next – Stockholm.
Konavle, Croatia ·May 5
Well, on the way again. Photos soon of our past few days with visits to Dubrovnik. Now in the lounge for a bit of a breakfast topup. 3hr flight to Stockholm in an hour. Leaving beautiful sea and mountain views of Croatia and back to being in cities. 3 nts Stockholm, the a train to Copenhagen for 4 nts, then to Amsterdam for 4nts, more trains – Paris for 4nts, then Avignon for 6. Alot of booking effort these last few days. Not sure what’s next – possibly Portugal and Spain. Being in Croatia in 2 places over 19 days has been great. We loved our flat and our hosts, in Cavtat – best hosts so far.