Dober Des and Dober Tam in Dober Dubrovnik

Day 2 in Croatia: Dubrovnik

This is some of our view during the day from our little room on the north-side of town. That's Gruž Harbour in the foreground and Lapad Bay in the back. Lots of red/orange, white, green and blue.


We started the day off early-ish and headed down to the Old Town. Here are the north-western stone walls of the Old Town.


We walked all the way around to the eastern side and made our way in and down. It's not (really) dirty, it's just very very old.


This is the Placa, the main pedestrian walkway in the Old Town, and the Clock Tower. The Placa used to be a channel that divided two settlements, but was then paved over in the 12th Century when they merged. We're still astonished about how old things are here in Europe.


This is the view down towards the other end of the Placa towards the Pile Gate. We had a quick breakfast over at one of the sidewalk cafes and watched the beginning of the influx of tourist groups and these funkily dressed-up dudes. We couldn't really figure out what their story was but figured it must have been important. There's also so many birds in Dubrovnik (and on the Croatian islands too). You can see the small zippy black little things in the sky in the photo.


This is St Blaise, the patron saint of Dubrovnik, standing atop his Church holding a model of Dubrovnik. You can also see him above all the entrances and on the city walls of the Old Town.


This is the Orlando Column (aka Roland's Column) in the middle of the Luža Square. It was carved in 1417 and the length of his right forearm used to be the official linear measure of Dubrovnik, the ell (51.1cm). Behind him you can see St Blaise's Church in a state of renovation.


This is Little Onofrio's Fountain.


And this is the bigger Onofrio Fountain, at the other end of the Placa. Very handy for when you are thirsty. Or a nice background when you want to pose with some delicious gelato (at the equivalent of 50p/$1.25!). Croatia is a fantastic place for Italian food. Italy's just over the water and they also get heaps of Italian tourists over too during the holidays.


We walked around a bit trying to get lost inside the city and checking out all the little shops and everything. It's quite amazing that people still live in there in the old homes. It's quite a beautiful place and it was a deadly shame that it was bombed in 1991-92 and also incurred earthquake damage.

We then decided to leave the Old Town and go for a swim at Danče beach, which is not really a beach at all, as it's rock. But the water is clear, cool, blue and clean. After some swimming and sunbathing to dry off we went for a drink and lunch before returning to the Old Town for a walk around the 'invincible' city walls. This is a view of the Placa from the Pile Gate-end.


You can see that a lot of the terracotta tiles don't match. That's mostly a result from the shelling from the civil war in Yugoslavia. They tried to repair and replace everything to try and make it as it was before the damage, but the company that made the original orange tiles had closed and they couldn't find anywhere that made any with the exact same hue.




And this is the Cockle Bay-esque Ponta ('Old Port')


Orange roofs everywhere and black birds


Us in Dubrovnik with the Old Town and the island of Lokrum behind us.


We then went back to our room for a bit of a rest. It was a long walk. However, instead of walking back we decided to catch a bus, and subsequently missed our stop and had to walk all the way back. We did manage to duck into a cheap Best & Less kind of shop and nabbed some cheap beach towels.

After a refreshing rest, we decided to go out to dinner back in the Old Town. Again, instead of the half-hour walk downhill to the Old Town, we made the mistake of catching the bus. Firstly, we waited for ages before it came. Then, we missed our stop and after a few stops realised we were on the way back to the airport. So, we jumped off and made the long trek back into town. Eventually we made it and tucked into some delicious seafood at Kameniće at the Gundulićeva Poljana ('Gundulic Square'). We tried their oysters (which they're named after), but were sadly dissappointed with their size and lack of tasty creaminess. We also had a large plate of mussels and also a large plate of deep-fried squid. Fantastic. We left happy and fed and avoided a third disastrous ride on the bus by hiking home.