I woke up naturally at 6:30 and decided to use my new-found adult freedoms to sit in front of the TV and eat coco puffs. Finally! Vengeance is sweet. Much like coco puffs. Eventually Tessa got up and also had some coco puffs and we explored that satellite TV is really over rated. The Croatia channels were better (no wonder even the homeless people speak English- all the shows are in English with subtitles). With the exception of Al Jazeera English which is even better than CNN.
Anyway, after wasting enough of our time in front of the tube we got our stuff together and started to walk to the Old City. On our way it quickly became clear that we were going to need some sun screen to get through the day so we made a stop at Tommy to try and find some. Then we remembered that we were in Europe and even sunscreen is sold only in pharmacies. So once we got to the Old Town we bought some (hooray for Croatia pharmacists who speak English!).
Then we decided to act like real tourists and walk around the city walls. All the guide books say that this takes about an hour and a half but we took two and a half hours because we kept taking photos. There were gorgeous views on all 360 degrees. On one side there was the coast with the Elephiti Islands and the city of modern Dubrovnik. Inland there are large gray mountains (behind which lies Bosnia!). On the next side there was a large bay with big nice hotels and the island of Lokrum. And on the fourth side, or course, there was the open Adriatic. And in the
middle there was Old Dubrovnik with all the clay roofs and Venetian buildings.So after two and a half hours of climbing up and down stairs in the sun (but no burn!) and taking photos we came down from the walls and decided to check out one of the pizzerias that Ante had recommended to us. Mmmm. Fresh lemonade and vegetarian pizza. Then we walked around the Old City and visited the Palace of the Rector which had a little historical museum in it. We got in for free. Not really sure why, the guy just waved us in. [Note: Finally, traveling as two young woman pays off- multiple free museum entries- whooo hooo!!] Then we got some gelato (kiwi! even better than mango!) and ate it on the pier outside the Old Port. Then we visited the cloister of the Dominican monastery which was quite and shady and quite pleasant. Then we walked back home and eat Chinese ramen noodles and watched "Murder at 1600" with Croatia subtitles and went to bed.
[Recap: Coco puffs. Pizza. Gelato. Ramen noodles. Gastronomical freedom is so sweet.]
Tuesday April 15th
The next morning Ante offered to drive us up Mount Srd (the big grey mountain overlooking Dubrovnik). It was really interesting because Ante is a really friendly guy who has lived in Dubrovnik his whole life and so he had a lot of interesting facts, including about how Dubrovnik was sieged and bombarded in the "Homeland War" in the early 1990’s. As he drove us in the mountain he told us about how the Serbians mined the village and there were still mines around so you had to stay on the road and paths (he didn’t have to tell me that twice!). Once at the top he took us inside a fort that was destroyed during war and showed us the view of Dubrovnik. He also pointed to a village on a mountain a little bit farther inland and said that it was actually in Bosnia. On our way driving down the mountain he showed us the greater area and the village where he was born and the second house that he owns. He was even nice enough to drop us off at the bus station because we wanted to check the bus times.
We check the bus times and the boat times at the new port and then headed back to the Old City where we had some delicious pasta for lunch. Then we visited the cloister of the Franciscan monastery and a museum (got in for free again) that included Europe’s oldest continually functioning pharmacy and a bunch of cool religious relics. I mean, who doesn’t want to see St. Ursula’s head? Then we took a gelato break. Then we walked around trying to visit a war exhibit and an old fort but we couldn’t find the entrance to either. We left the Old City and explored an old fort that overlooks the city. Then a bunch of clouds rolled in so we walked home in the rain, made some lentils and veggies for dinner, watched some Beverly Hills 90210 and a French documentary about the Amish, and went to bed.
Wednesday April 16th
The next morning we took a very boat to Lopud which is one of the Elephiti Islands. It was a beautiful day but the village on Lopud was a little deserted since the real tourist season doesn’t start until May. We visited a tiny little church which was very pretty. Then we followed some signs for the old Fort of Saint Ivan. We followed the path for about an hour and twenty minutes through first a little neighborhood, then some people’s backyards, then a field, then a forest, and finally up a very large rocky hill. When we arrived at the top we found the fort in ruins (it wasn’t in any of the guide books so I have no idea when it was built) and we walked around and took some more photos.We finally decided to come down and tried to get some lunch but were just stared at when we sat down at a restaurant so we bought some gelato instead and sat on a bench in the sun and watched a stray cat and played "6 Degrees of Separation" and waited for the ferry back to the Dubrovnik. Once back in Dubrovnik we were pretty tired from our hike and from sitting in the sun for an hour and a half and sitting on a boat for 2 hours so we bought some dinner and lunch supplies from Tommy and went back the apartment, ate some pasta, watched some American crime shows (oh how I miss those) and went to bed.
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