We woke up early this morning to get an early start on a busy day - plus how can you miss a minute of this view and being able to have your windows open at 7:00a!
Our plan for the day was to ”walk the wall” around Dubrovnik as soon as it opened, so after a simple breakfast of coffee, yogurt and fruit, we headed to the wall entrance.
After paying a somewhat steep price ($30/ea - thanks Game of Thrones), we started up the stairs. This first pic is of the main water fountain inside the city, run in an aqueduct from the mountain, it has provided Dubrovnik with a continuous protected supply of water for centuries (we filled our bottles from it many times).
One of the corner fortifications - Don liked taking pictures through the arrow holes...
A long stretch of the wall and a couple of the forts
Here is a guard on one of the wall’s corners...
Part of the seaside wall - we learned from the kayak guide that some of Dubrovnik’s storms will actually cause waves to go over these walls.
There a several well preserved cannons throughout the walls and nearby fort.
There are many citizens inside the walls of Old Town Dubrovnik that call these buildings home - we thought this picture captured the contrast nicely.
What can we say...good lookin‘ (but that wall isn’t straight)
This is Lokrum Island in the distance, which we decided to take a ferry to this afternoon. This is also the island that we kayaked to the night before, which gives some perspective as to the amount of water we covered (~5km total kayak trip).
This is where we swam the day before...
Another fortification - amazing how preserved these towers (and the entire wall) are
To give an idea about the size of the city inside the walls , Don’s head equals about a half acre ;-)
Many of the buildings in the Old City were damaged when the Yugoslav Army shelled Dubrovnik after Croatia declared independence in 1991. In the pictures, any of the new looking roofs have likely been replaced after artillery damage - no one has gotten to this building yet.
This is one of the three oldest apothecaries in Europe - still with some of the original ingredients and medical books.
Included in the tickets to walk the wall was access to the nearby Fort of St. Lawrence, so we walked many, many more stairs to get down, over and up into it.
Here is one of several well preserved cannons...
...and some cannonballs...
...and another cannon in nearly new condition (that is Lokrum Island again).
Before we caught the ferry to Lokrum Island, we decided to get drinks at the local grocery and some pizza for lunch there. We also ordered this traditional Croatian dish called Soparnik - two layers of crust filled with chard and onions then baked, topped with olive oil and garlic...scrumptious!
We took a ferry to Lokrum Island (they run all day at 30min intervals) to get some nature and a little swimming. This is Dubrovnik’s getaway, similar to Central Park in New York. When we got on the island we played with the peacocks (they were everywhere) and took a short nap.
After snacking on our pizza. We headed to a nearby shore to swim. The waves were a bit rough on this side and there was only a ladder to get in, so it scared Tammy when a few big waves went over her head. We didn’t stay in long and got back up on shore with only minor damage.
After drying off, we walked the outer loop trail of the island and took this great pic of the city walls.
The trail is clear but a bit rough walking in places - here is a look at some of the nice coast section
As we approached the ferry landing area we found some good (safe) swimming spots, so we got in, enjoyed and goofed around!
We let a few ferries come and go while we enjoyed the water, then rinsed and dried and caught the boat back around 4:30p.
This is the cave we kayaked to (Betina Cave) yesterday from a distance.
Back in the Old Town we scouted for some dinner options, specifically looking for dishes unique to Dubrovnik. We ended up at a restaurant named Kopun which had two dishes that sounded good - Dubrovnik Capon & Šporki Makaruli.
We anticipated the steps home now that Tammy has counted them, and labored our way back to the apartment (today’s exercise = 10.6 miles/130 floors/20,000 steps). We relaxed for a while, then packed for an early morning departure to our next destination...Montenegro!
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