Man's best friend, indeed
Laura Butterbrodt
Multimedia Journalist
Dubrovnik
July 16 & 17
Our last stop of the sailing trip was Dubrovnik. We decided to forego our last swim stop because it was a pretty overcast and chilly day on the water, plus we were anxious to explore the city on our last day. We got to port and got ready to paint the town red, as the Med Sailing Holiday promotion suggested on its itinerary and like Hannah had envisioned months before we left. We put on our red dresses and called an Uber to go into the Old Town, which is where we met our lovely taxi man, Sime. More on him later.
When we got to Old Town Dubrovnik, we crossed the drawbridge into the walled city. We spent some time meandering through the passages and shops, including a gelato place where I dropped my ice cream scoop from my cone immediately upon trying to eat it. </3 As we kept walking, we came across the admission booth to walk on top of the city's walls. Despite it being a little pricey and the temperature drastically increasing from earlier on the boat, we decided it was a must-see and went for it. We probably weren't as enthusiastic after about three minutes of walking with no shade, but the views really were spectacular, and it did feel good to get some steps in after a lot of lounging on the boat over the last week. The differences in the style of homes on the inside and outside of the walls were really striking, too, since you could turn your head in either direction to really compare them.
A very interesting scene of Croatian tradition in a souvenir shop
Old
New
After our walk around the entire wall, we were READY to sit down for some supper! It took us a while to pick a spot, but we ended up choosing a modern little Mediterranean-Asian fusion place. I loved it! We got a ton of water (Jana 800, the best kind of water <3) and a chocolate cake for dessert to celebrate Hannah. Next, we went to a Buža Bar that was literally a hole in the wall that opened to a carved part of the cliff for seating for drinks. We got a drink there while we watched the sunset, and it was so nice and serene!
ily jana i owe u my life
We set off to explore more of the Old Town after, where we came across a pirate parade, some historic stairs and plenty of cats. We wandered for quite a while in search of a bar a jewelry saleswoman recommended, and when we finally found it I had some kind of a gin and tonic cocktail that was quite truly one of the best drinks of my life, but I don't remember what was in it! The bar, Revelin, is apparently one of the biggest and best nightclubs in Dubrovnik, but the club was still closed because of the pandemic, so we enjoyed a much more tame night with some live music and Michael Bublé while we looked out over the water.
Historic stairs
Yes it was alive we checked
Was tempted by the shame mojito/shame cocktail, but ended up getting a regular mojito, easy on the shame
Hello
The next morning, we had to get up and leave Nabucco and crew </3. It was really sad to say goodbye to everyone else, but Hannah, Sidney and I were all developing really bad colds, so it did make things a little bit easier.
We spent about three hours killing time at brunch in the marina, then we called up our good old taxi driver Sime from yesterday, who told us about his panoramic tours of the city he runs. He came and got us and our luggage and took us up the mountain to some overlook spots of the city. He took us way up to a viewpoint near the top of the mountain, where we could see Bosnia and Herzegovina just over the hill. The road was really steep and only one lane wide. There were mirrors at the end of each turn to see oncoming traffic. "Are there a lot of crashes here?" I asked Sime. He laughed really hard: "That is a very good question!" as we nearly got crashed into by someone else.
We went past a lot of ruins, many of which were from villages bombed during the Yugoslav Wars. Some of them were featured in Game of Thrones.
The walled Old Town seems a lot smaller from above than it did during our walk!
Sime told us the light orange-roofed buildings were quarantine stations, lazareti, built for the plague in the 1300s.
Sime then took us down the back side of the moutain, where we passed through a small village and ended up at an abandoned spaghetti factory with a little waterfall. No, seriously, I checked, and it really was a flour and pasta mill! I'm obsessed. He also showed us a spring and said the local legend says anyone who drinks from the spring will go back to Dubrovnik to get married. Sime, call me!
He knew he couldn't top the abandoned spaghetti factory, so we got dropped off at the bus station to wait for our bus back to Split, where we'd catch our flight home the next morning (except Kristen, who stayed an extra few days). Of course, the bus was late in typical Balkan fashion, but about five hours later and a quick trip through Bosnia and Herzegovina, we were back in Split and had a quick bite to eat before we said goodbye to Kristen because Sidney, Hannah and I were dying from our colds.
This bridge is almost done. When it is, people will no longer have to drive through Bosnia and Herzegovina to get from Dubrovnik to the rest of Croatia.
We took a cab to our Airbnb for the night near the airport. After we finally found the house, which was way off the beaten path in a gorgeous vineyard, we barely had time to enjoy the beautiful home because we had to take our COVID-19 tests (all negative, yay!) and try to get some sleep before we had to go home. I wish we could've enjoyed the homemade wine the host's father left us, but we did try some of his fruits, and they were much better than the peach with the earwig in the pit from Vis! Oh yeah, that's a story I forgot to tell.
I'm sure there are many, many stories from this trip that I didn't get in this blog. Even though it was only 10 days, we covered so much ground and had so many precious encounters. I can't wait to tell these stories for years to come. I hope you enjoyed the stories and the photos. And if you ever go to Croatia, please take me with you and drop me off at Froggyland!!!
Love, Laura
