Old Town

Today was our day to discover Old Town Dubrovnik. We headed down early to get to the walls when they opened at 8am, heeding Rick Steves' advice to avoid some heat and crowds. As is the case 90% of the time, Rick did not steer us wrong (the tiny coastal road he sent us down to find the best winery in Croatia a few days ago is a whole different story though...).

The walls were not crowded for the first half (until the cruise ship tours showed up), and really wasn't too hot. After his description in his guidebook, I was expecting a much more arduous task to walk around the top of theses old defensive walls and towers (there are something like 650+ steps along the loop). We were rewarded with amazing views of the city, surrounding area, and Adriatic sea. Well worth an early morning! It's easy to see how the walls defended the Republic of Dubrovnik from invading Venetians, Ottomans, etc for so many years. They are no joke (at some points 18 feet thick). They were even used in 1991-1992 during the siege of Dubrovnik by the Yugoslavian/Serbian army to protect themselves against bombing/other attacks. Amazing they are still so useful today.

I can definitely see why Dubrovnik is discussing limiting the number of cruise ship passengers per day. Today was a relatively light day we think, with only 2 cruise ships in town (a large Royal Caribbean and a smaller local one). Old Town was an absolute madhouse by 12:30 or so when we descended from the cable car and made our way out of the town gates to our lunch cafe just outside the walls. There was literally a line of people waiting to enter the Old Town area. At that point, we'd enjoyed wandering and seeing the Old Town sights for several hours, so we happily enjoyed the breezes at the cafe, ate delicious mussels, had a few beers, and then meandered back to our hotel area to find the local rocky beach (complete with kids jumping off the cliffs into the sea).

We had a random brief respite from the humidity when it dropped from 50% to only 30% in the few hours before dinner. Sadly by the time we got back to our hotel a few hours later, humidity levels were back up near 65%. Ugh. Amazing what a difference the humidity can make in feeling comfortable or miserable (we all had sweated through our clothes - again - by about 10am).

Our dinner tonight was at a restaurant recommended by a local and was just outside the city walls. Another amazing meal (with fantastic cheese from the island of Pag), and beautiful views of the walls through sunset and getting lit up at night.

Tomorrow beth, erin and i are sea kayaking out to a nearby island. If there are no further posts on this blog, you'll know it didn't go well for us (kidding - mostly...). I'm worried my arms will fall off before we make it to the island, and I'll just be floating along in the Adriatic unable to help myself. Luckily, there's a motorboat that follows us, so I can always hitch a ride if I get too tired. My parents are heading to different islands via a boat, so they could always stop to pick us up too :)