Here I am walking the walls of Dubrovnik!
The weather Gods are really shining down upon us here in Dubrovnik! We woke up to another sunny, clear blue sky, to match the amazing blue color of the Adriatic Sea!
I got up at about 6:30am and got ready for the day. CL and I were ready to get moving by about 7:30am-ish. We decided to go to the café at the corner of our street and the Stradun that Petar recommended yesterday. They didn’t open until 8am so we sat outside a few minutes and just before 8am the waitress took our order.
We had omelets and coffee. It was a vegetarian omelet for me and it was great, filled with
cheese, mushrooms, tomatoes and peppers. And the cappuccino was good too!
One of the nice things about this café is that being on the Stradun it has great people watching opportunities. Since we were there so early the Stradun was fairly empty and I was able to get some nice pictures.
As we sat having breakfast the groups of cruise ship passengers began to arrive and they were being led by different guides based on what language they were speaking. Luckily today there was only 1 cruise ship in the harbor. I can only imagine what it’s like when there are multiple ships in port. Petar told us in the summer months there can 12-15 ships will all their passengers descending upon Old Town! The ship here today had 3 tenders started bringing people to Town at 8am.
After our very delicious breakfast we decided to walk the walls in the morning, for a few reasons: 1- the light would be good for picture taking opportunities, 2- it would be cooler than in the middle of the day, and 3- we hoped to miss the big crowds. And we accomplished all three!
We decided to enter the walls at the Ploce Gate because we were closer to it and felt fewer people would use it. We were right. There was no line at all. We just walked right up to the ticket booth, paid our 50 Kuna each and started the walk.
It was ABSOLUTELY one of the most amazing experiences, again, just breath-taking views. I can’t even describe the color blue of the water and the red tile roofs of the homes of Old Town. I am trying to sear these colors into my mind while walking.
It took CL and I about 1 and a half hours to walk the entire wall and that was with lots of picture taking. The walk isn’t too difficult, but lots of steps up and down along the wall itself.
After walking the walls we made a stop back at our sobe and then walked around a bit more and headed over to the Buža Bar by following the “Cold Drinks” sign. This bar entrance is literally in a hole in the city wall that leads to a Cliffside bar that sits above the Adriatic Sea and below the wall walkway. It was great to just sit there, have a drink and soak up some sun and the amazing view.
CL and I each had a drink and sat back and relaxed, seems to be what we are doing best on this portion of the trip! As we were leaving the bar at about 1:30-ish we hear this big horn sound and look up to see the giant cruise ship that had been anchored just off the Old Port area moving back out to sea. It was so close to us, it felt like we could reach out and touch it. I thought, “No wonder all the passengers were touring the Old Town at 8am, they left at 1pm, not much time to see Dubrovnik”!
After drinks we walked around some more and found a place for lunch, which we had our main meal at today. We ate at Spaghetteria Toni, since we both wanted something other than fish. The food was pretty good, but not spectacular.
After lunch we did a little shopping and then stopped for some gelato. By now it was about 4:30pm and I wanted to go back up on the walls to take more pictures in the afternoon light. While I did this CL went to rent a car for tomorrow. In our walking about today we found a local car rental agency that had a car available for tomorrow.
Instead of going to Montenegro on one of the “canned” tours with Atlas we decided to drive ourselves down to the Bay of Kotor, Budva, and Stveti Stefan. This way we can follow our own timetable and not a group tour. Plus to rent the car will cost less then what we would have to pay for the Atlas group tour.
I went back to the walls at 4:30pm and spent about another hour and a half up there taking pictures. I used the camera so much today that I depleted a fully charged battery in one day! After we got back to our rooms CL reported success completing all the rental car paperwork. All we have to do is pick up the car in the morning.
Since we weren’t hungry we decided to go for a walk and check out the Pile Gate side of town. We found the Orham Restaurant, another recommendation from Petar. At 8pm the place was packed both inside and out and people were waiting to be seated. There was no menu outside, but we decided this would be our Dubrovnik “splurge” restaurant.
We decided to call it an early night and headed back to the sobe. What a great first full day in Dubrovnik!
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