We relaxed this morning, making coffee and breakfast while reading about the city and writing a little. We decided that we‘d fill the afternoon with a sea kayaking trip, so decided to do our city wandering this morning & early afternoon.
We started out on the uphill side of the city (away from the water) to work our way down the steps as much as possible. Before we even got in the city, we were already getting these striking views...
Minčeta Tower
Look how deep the moat around the city was (now used partially as a road)
Of course Tammy made a friend on the way...
A back alley door - undoubtedly to a rogue’s den
The seaside wall
We walked around the outside of the city walls a little, looking at the water then came across a unique swimming spot!
There were also a few local kids that clearly knew this swimming hole and spent most of the time jumping in the water with their little dog following (couldn’t catch the dog doing it, but got this snippet)
After swimming and watching for nearly an hour, we rinsed and dried off (have learned to do that with salt water) then walked inside the city, following alleys and small streets. The more walking we did, the more it seemed like we couldn’t avoid going up steps, even though we thought we should be going down steps as we were headed toward the sea (confusing).
It was well past lunch when we came across a place serving Mexican cuisine - we haven’t had Mexican for nearly two month! We eagerly shared a burrito and chips/guacamole and loved all of it. 😍
While passing through one of the squares we found a lady selling her Croatian sweet treats of crystallized orange peels, coated nuts and dried fig. We bought a few bags and some natural fig with almond in a roll shape to put on crackers.
It was getting close to our kayaking check-in time so we worked our way to near the Fort of St. Lawrence where the kayak trip was to begin.
We were a bit early so we sat in the bar above the beach and enjoyed a break from walking - the beer was local to Dubrovnik and the closest I’ve had to an IPA while in Croatia
After a brief orientation (with some words about rough water tonight) and handing out some waterproof storage containers, they were loading us into kayaks and we were off!
We left the bay and headed out into more open water. Tammy may have freaked out once we got hit by the first couple big waves.😳 The kayaks did great and were really stable, but there was some tense excitement for a few minutes. After 30 minutes of paddling, the guide stopped us (there were ~12 on our trip) to talk about the city. We learned that Old Town Dubrovnik actually used to be a lagoon that villages on each end of ultimately decided to fill in when they joined each other. This explained why it slopes down from the hill then back up toward the sea...and why it was such a great foundation to fortify the city with.
With another 20 minutes of paddling in rough water we turned and headed into the huge sea cave.
The guide had sandwiches and waters for us and we had over an hour to swim and play in the water (oddly, we were the only ones that got in). We swam, snorkeled and just splashed and sat it the water.
As our group of 12 was getting packed up, several other groups landed - we were glad to have had the cave mostly to ourselves. It does give some perspective about how big the cave was...
We got back in the water and headed out across the straight to Lokrum Island. Some tours would actually go all the way around the island, but the water was so rough that we had to just stay on the city side. As we paddled back, the combination of wind and big boats made the ride exciting (and still beautiful) with lots of up and down motion.
We saw the sunset right as we landed back at shore, unloaded the kayaks and gave back containers and life vests. They offered complementary bottles of wine so we took ours to go, then sat at a nearby dock recounting the trip, looking at pictures and drinking wine.
Tammy counted the stair steps back up to our apartment from here - 220. Our arms and backs were tired from paddling and our thighs and calves were tired from steps...time for Advil and a good night’s sleep.
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