Day 10 – Dubrovnik

Today we were back on sightseeing mode to visit the old walled town of Dubrovnik. We walked to the bus station because I didn’t know if we had to buy tickets on the bus or not (we did) so I wanted to go make sure. Bad start to the day as I made my girlfriend walk more than she had to in the 32 degree heat. We were told exactly what my girlfriend told me and we waited at the bus stop for bus.

The bus stopped at the gate entrance (of which there are only two entrances to the city) and we were met yet again, with a mixture of locals. This time, they were selling their ‘Game of Thrones’ tours, canoe tours, walking tours and wall tours – all using the Game of Thrones logo to get all the Americans running over to buy them. Now, I have never watched the hit TV series, although I’ve been told often enough to start, but I’m guessing that parts of it were filmed here, and there were further hints with an armoured clad ‘warrior’ with his wooden sword posing for pictures with tourists inside the walls.

We wandered along the main streets and peeked up the steep side streets (where the locals lived). They were so steep and long, and were all reasonably empty except for a few washing lines with their clothes. We stuck to the main roads and saw all the major attractions. We also visited the ‘hole in the wall’ – a literal hole in the wall that leads you to a bar on the cliff outside. A successful day in my books, but I had promised my girlfriend a beach and swimming.

After lunch, where I ate a very large burger and my girlfriend a laughably small pizza (at the same price, which she couldn’t even finish), we headed to the ‘beach’. There was no beach. There were just rocks, stones and nowhere for me to change into my swimming gear. My girlfriend did go for a swim though, with a group of young pubescent boys that seemed to annoy her, so we moved to another ‘beach’.

It was no better but it did have a pier. I read my book and my girlfriend slept beside me. No swimming for her…anyway, the sun was hiding behind the clouds so wasn’t really a day for it. With more walking about, we learnt a couple of things: there are hundreds of cats in Dubrovnik, seriously, everywhere! The Croatians are about 10 years behind in music, playing Kylie Minogue, Abba and Daniel Merriweather (remember him?) on the radio. And they actually don’t have any nice beaches. Its a beautiful place though, don’t get me wrong (I recommend renting a boat/yacht and island hopping).

Anyway, we left the old city as we thought there would be cheaper restaurants outside the walls and we were correct. Oddly enough however, the one we went to was situated right beside a very, very posh restaurant for tasting (the cheapest thing on the menu was €120). It was empty. I quite enjoyed watching tourists check out the menu, only to be disgusted by the prices and run away. My girlfriend unfortunately missed all this but instead became acquainted with the blackbird paying her a visit and the canoe group returning from a hard day of paddling just down from the balcony we were on.

Returning back to grab our bags, we headed to the port to catch our ferry to Bari. We were told that we could board 2hrs before the departure time. Well that wasn’t true. We had to queue and it was full of old aged Italian mothers/grandmothers and their partners all busy trying to work their way to the front, only to be passed by us after passport control walking at a leisurely place. They were probably last on the boat anyway (it’s not like we had allocated seats or anything…).

The boat journey was from 10pm to 8am and we went for the cheap option (deck seats) where we had the privilege of sitting in the bar, falling asleep to the sounds of an American dad and his son talk about his vineyard and his wine tasting and his university and the army and his zzzzzzzzz………