DUBROVNIK

15 – 17 August 2010

Caught a taxi to the airport, which took us past the less pretty side of Zagreb. The side that was what we’d expected to see – brown and grey apartment blocks, grimy shop windows and grafitti everywhere (seemingly the bane of this side of the world). We were tickled by a particular series of spraypainted messages which went through the usual logos, profanities, proclamations of devil worship, metal bands, to end on The Jesus And Mary Chain (very long compared to the usual Slayer, Megadeth, Metallica stuff), basketball, La Coste. La Coste? Really?!

A 45-minute flight later, we landed in Dubrovnik at 13h00 on Sunday. Beautiful coastal town, no stranger to tourists judging by the fact that every second house advertises itself as accommodation to rent. We dumped our stuff at our very neat little apartment and headed out to explore.

Dubrovnik has an Old City, literally the original city from medieval times within the old city walls etc. It was a bit disappointing as it was really just restaurants (no surprise mostly pizza, pasta and seafood) and souvenir shops, but we did enjoy wandering the narrow, winding cobbled streets at the top of the town where people still live in the little ramshackle units all one on top of the other, with original little doors and windows).

We’d decided we didn’t want to do dinner in the Old City as the restaurants were all expensive and dime a dozen), so headed for the Dubrovnik Port where we expected to find bars and restaurants lining the waterfront. No such luck. Oddly, there was very little entertainment there. We managed to find a nice enough place for some sundowners and cards, but all they served food-wise was pizza and ‘sendvices’, so we were once again on a mission to find an eatery.

We walked the full length of the waterfront to literally the edge of town (across the road from the bus station) and found a place that had a lasagne and chicken pasta thing we’d have settled for, but they were out of stock (a very common, very frustrating occurrence) and the waitress suggested we have the… Pizza.

No dice.

We left in a huff and luckily soon stumbled upon a little bistro where we were delighted to find they had awesome seafood pasta options. The waiter was very confused when we greeted him with asking what they DIDN’T have, meaning what was out of stock and whether they didn’t serve pizza. Astoundingly, they had everything on the menu (and a few specials that weren’t) and didn’t even serve pizza at all! We shared a salmon tagliatelle and a tomato/seafood pasta, which were both perfect, alongside a switch to the local brew, Osujkvo. Nice. The only marring of this perfect formula was getting my first bee-sting ever. Not allergic though. Phew.

MONDAY

Monday we took a ferry from the port in the Dubrovnik Old City out to a nearby island, 10 minutes to Lokrum. We trekked around to the olive groves, the monastery and the fort, dotting our mission with dips in the ocean on all sides. First time in the Adriatic for both of us! It’s bluer than blue and refreshingly cool and very salty. Pity they’re not sandy beaches though – rocky coastlines make for tricky entry and exit and the big rocks under the water have left parts of our feet a bit shredded. 🙁

Still, a great day out. Caught a bus outside Old City so as the see the remainder of the peninsula – and see if there was anywhere else to dine. We took the bus a full circuit, so are satisfied that we’ve seen everything Dubrovnik has to offer – and found a spot on the opposite side of the marina to where we’d been the night before.

Settled in for a few sundowners on a bar that serviced a little jetty with 4 or 5 tables and entertained ourselves with views of our little piece of paradise and a man in a speedo(n’t) coming into port and mooring his little boat called ‘Tina’ right in front of us.

We had the perfect dinner at a little spot across the road called Bistro Riva. Unable to choose (and not having to), we shared a calamari and rice, mussels (which were peculiarly battered and deep fried – unusual, but good) and lasagne, which turned out to be layers of thin pancakes with mince between and cheese melted on top (not what we were expecting, but also nice).

We had planned on walking off our dinner to go home and pack, to get an early night for this morning’s bus ride to Split (4.5 hrs so figured we’d try get out early), but got sucked in by a warm and inviting bar called Cavello’s a few minutes from home). The barman took a fancy to us and plied us with Jagermeisters (also served in tumblers, so probably fascinated by us throwing them back) and brought out his guitar and played us sing-along English songs (mostly classics like Stairway to Heaven, Beatles, Hotel California etc) and sang some Croat songs to us, and was delighted when Christian showed him how to play Wonderwall.

TUESDAY

We had gotten home much later than expected, which made the morning quite a challenge. Could certainly have used a good old chicken and mushroom pie. No such thing in Croatia. They didn’t seem to do any savoury pastries (loads of pancake, croissant and doughnut style things stuffed with sugars, jams and fruit though) and the supermarkets didn’t do our typical deli or bakery things, so no pies, subs etc (not even pizza slices which is odd around here!). The locals (according to one of our tour books, which we didn’t believe until we saw it) seem to favour eating dry rolls. No butter even!

We ended up sourcing our usual picnic pack and getting on the bus for our long journey.

So, first thing on the agenda in Split would be to find something (non-pizza) to eat with a view over the magnificent port and azure ocean.