No sun shirts required
when we arrived in croatia, and had left italy I almost let out a loud sigh of relief. no longer was I the one, doing the planning of where to go, what to do and handle the language. it was time to hand it over to the croats of the family to lead the way. Or so I thought. As nice as Trogir is, I thought it would be difficult to fill in our 5 days here - so we headed to Dubrovnik. The drive there was quite depressing. The Croatian coastline is spectacular, but the inland scenery is barren and rugged. I felt quite sad at the contrast to the beauty that we saw in Italy only a few days earlier. A lot of croatia is half done - I thought that it was half done - because of what was destroyed in the war - but it turns out it was mostly new developments where the money had simply run out to complete. Despite the emptiness of the tiny towns and harsh landscape - it does have the best highway (autostrata) - we have come across. No-one uses it, its relatively new and helps you get to your destination in no time.
As we drove down the road into Dubrovnik - my sadness was gone - as before us - was a remarkable picture, of cliffs, water and the walls of the old town - simply stunning. We had organised through the tourist office one nights accommodation for the 7 of us - within walking distance to the"old town". we were met by "marko" the Dubrovnik slum lord - who for a few euros showed us where we would be sleeping, free parking (this is a godsend) - and where to go for lunch. Off we went to a great lunch by the ocean of fresh seafood, wine, chips, cheese in oil, olives and tasty bread.
The danger of wine at lunch time for me - is that it hampers my ability to shop in the afternoon! Much to the bambinis delight I had forgotten their togs - so we had to buy new ones, so that we could have an afternoon swim. the girls finally got their first pair of bikinis and didn't have to wear a sun shirt as they jumped from the cliffs into the ocean. we were starting to look a little european!
this morning we finished our time there with a 2km walk around the high walls of the old town. I will have a lasting memory of our bambini No 3 as our tour guide - giving us an insight into how spiderman would jump down from these walls into the ocean below. He also give little snippets about how old the castle walls were - maybe 6 or 7 years old! An english women behind us wanted to join our tour.
we are back at trogir now - and looking forward to the next leg - which is to Hvar a tiny island off split - which is listed as being in the "top 10 of the worlds most beautiful islands". Bye for now.
As we drove down the road into Dubrovnik - my sadness was gone - as before us - was a remarkable picture, of cliffs, water and the walls of the old town - simply stunning. We had organised through the tourist office one nights accommodation for the 7 of us - within walking distance to the"old town". we were met by "marko" the Dubrovnik slum lord - who for a few euros showed us where we would be sleeping, free parking (this is a godsend) - and where to go for lunch. Off we went to a great lunch by the ocean of fresh seafood, wine, chips, cheese in oil, olives and tasty bread.
The danger of wine at lunch time for me - is that it hampers my ability to shop in the afternoon! Much to the bambinis delight I had forgotten their togs - so we had to buy new ones, so that we could have an afternoon swim. the girls finally got their first pair of bikinis and didn't have to wear a sun shirt as they jumped from the cliffs into the ocean. we were starting to look a little european!
this morning we finished our time there with a 2km walk around the high walls of the old town. I will have a lasting memory of our bambini No 3 as our tour guide - giving us an insight into how spiderman would jump down from these walls into the ocean below. He also give little snippets about how old the castle walls were - maybe 6 or 7 years old! An english women behind us wanted to join our tour.
we are back at trogir now - and looking forward to the next leg - which is to Hvar a tiny island off split - which is listed as being in the "top 10 of the worlds most beautiful islands". Bye for now.
On Facebook, there is a option to 'like' a comment or story that someone gives... to let the writer know there there is someone out there actually reading what is written.
ReplyDeleteSo in Facebook style, I would like to 'like' this story.