Last Day! Dubrovnik, 26th August 2015

Well here it is, the last day of my trip - I'm not counting tomorrow as that will be all travel, from Dubrovnik to Split, Split to Bristol then Bristol to Hereford.

We got up early to walk the walls before it got too hot, although at 08:30 it was still scorching. The walls are 2k around and, as with the rest of Dubrovnik, involve a lot of steps. I've heard quite a few people complain, 'not more steps', but I'm using it as good justification for otherwise being pretty sedentary these last few days. 

The views from the walls were, as you might expect, spectacular. Across the pinky-red rooves of the town within, and out to sea. The walls are higher and thicker on the landward side, the original architects suspecting threats to be more likely across the land. 

Yesterday, at the war photography exhibition, we found that the walls were still capable of doing their job, protecting the citizens within, even with more modern weapons than those around when the city was built. During the war in the nineties, Dubrovnik was under siege for for a year and the people trapped within were without running water for 138 days, but the city didn't fall. Thankfully, the attacking JNA, Jugoslavia National Army, were more interested in occupying the city than destroying it.

Many of the scenes in Game of Thrones were filmed here and at nearby Fort Lawrence, and you can see how well the city played its role as Kings Landing, the towering, imposing walls, glowing almost white in the sunlight. But for us, it was a great way to really see the city, adding another dimension to what you get from wandering the streets below.

Fort Lawrence.

Our place is down the shadowy street at the foot of the picture.

Dubrovnik is known as the Pearl of the Adriatic and it really is something special, but I'm almost immune to gorgeous places now, having seen so many on this trip. It has become completely normal to enjoy such history and beauty, I feel totally spoilt.

In the afternoon I went to the beach club. After all the travelling and sightseeing of the last month, it was nice to simply laze away the final few hours of my trip in the sun, with music drifting across the beach and the sound of the sea gently brushing the shore. 

Erik came to join me later on and we stayed until the sun had set behind the city, the sky airbrushed to a pale pink on the horizon. We had one last dip in the warm, clear Adriatic and then headed back to town for a sun-downer and dinner, a fitting end to a fabulous trip.

Dubrovnik, 24th - 25th August 2015

Before heading to Dubrovnik, we went to see nearby Trsteno arboretum where some of Game of Thrones is filmed. Dubrovnik itself is used for much of the setting of Kings Landing, so it makes sense to use other areas nearby for other scenes. It did make me wonder how film crews go about finding their locations - Trsteno is so small, despite being the only arboretum on the Adriatic, it most only have really gained recognition through its connection to the TV show.

Olive trees at Trsteno.

It was very peaceful and pretty, shady walkways, a very grand fountain and an incredible aqueduct that shows the determination of the person who commissioned the fountain, I could imagine them saying, 'just make it happen'! 

The aqueduct.

We arrived in Dubrovnik just after 11am and parked up. Car parking here is hard work and very expensive. We've realised that a car is unnecessary in Croatia. When we come here again, which we will, we'll travel by ferry instead. It is easy to transfer from the airport to Split and there are frequent foot passenger ferries to all of the islands and down to Dubrovnik. We'll also make more use of AirBnB as experience has shown you get better value accommodation and care, by people who have more at stake, than in hotels or accommodation provided by Booking.com.

Our accommodation is lodged high up a long flight of steps within the massive, 600 year old boundary walls of the old town. As well as containing lots of holiday rooms and apartments, the narrow, stepped streets are very definitely still residential with plants and kids toys decorating doorsteps and washing strung up high across the streets to dry.

We were hot and tired by the time we'd got the car sorted and carried our bags back to the accommodation, so it was time to head to the beach. Excluding our arrival day, we have two full days here, plenty of time to explore the old town and walk the ramparts, in a cooler part of day.  

Banja beach is the nearest to the old town, it is pretty, part sand part pebble, within sight of the old walls, but absolutely packed. Part of the beach is public and part is a beach club, playing chilled music, perfectly suiting a lazy, late afternoon sunbathe, assuming you don't get trodden on by someone picking their way to the sea through the narrow gaps between beach towels on the public part of the beach, or get shocked into alertness by a child falling on you, as happened to me.

On our first evening we went out for a drink and found ourselves, quite by accident, at a place that is notoriously difficult to find - Buza Bar. You access the bar through a hole in the wall, Buza means hole, and pick your way down some rocky steps to one of the tables perched at different levels on patches of rock, overlooking the sea. The rocks are on the outside of the city wall, and coloured lights illuminate the brickwork in a delightful mix of ancient and modern. 

There are no loos at Buza Bar so necessity caused us to move on. Sitting outside the next bar, at the junction of a couple of wide streets, conversation turned to architecture, simply because we were surrounded by so many incredible examples - ornate arched windows on the building opposite and four statues on the roof of the building to our right, but being ignorant of the topic, we could only appreciate the aesthetics and notice the variances. Erik then noticed some damage from the war in the nineties on one of the buildings and we found it really hard to picture the safe, friendly place where we were sitting as a relatively recent war zone. There is an exhibition of war photography taking place which we then decided we'll see while we're here. It feels important to acknowledge where this beautiful place has come from and what it and its inhabitants have been through.

Back in the direction of our accommodation, in a square at the end of the main street, an orchestra was playing and being filmed. Passers-by were able to stop to watch and appreciate the music and it was all very unstuffy and informal. We think it was a rehearsal for a festival of music that is taking place over the next few nights, but it was a lovely experience to stumble upon.

With my return home being imminent, my thoughts have turned to how I feel about it. I haven't come up with any fixed answers about what to do next, but I do have some kernels of ideas. Importantly, I don't feel the need to keep travelling. My wanderlust has been satisfied for now and I am ready to get back to real life, to seeing friends and family, getting back into training and working out how I want to earn a living going forwards.

The next morning, we got up leisurely and decided to go and see the war photography exhibition, conveniently located in one of the shady lanes near to us. The permanent collection covers the siege of Dubrovnik and the wider wars covering Bosnia and Kosovo that occurred in the wake of Croatia and Serbia declaring independence in the early nineties. I haven't quite processed my thoughts on this enough to write about them yet but Erik made a valid point that if you look at a wide enough timeline, almost every place in the world, and one time or another, or more, has been through a similar experience.

After the heat of the midday sun had passed, we went to the beach club at Banje Beach - a more opposite experience from the photos we had seen earlier in the day couldn't be imagined. As the sun started to go down, we indulged in a few cocktails before strolling slowly back for dinner at a fabulous little vegetarian restaurant located right at the foot of the steps leading to our place.

Banje Beach Club.

The main street, Stradun.

Zaton, 23rd August 2015

We had to cross the entire length of Hvar island to get to the ferry port of Sucuraj. The island is quite narrow so we got regular glimpses of the sea and across the channel to the white stone of the cliffs on the mainland, glowing brightly in the sun, looking almost like snow. 

The road, as it undulating up through the rocky terrain, was good. Smooth and well maintained with channels built in along the top of the cuttings for drainage. Croatia generally seems to have a good infrastructure and it feels safe and laid back with a definite lack of intimidation and edginess.

As we approached the eastern end of the island, the distant, higher peaks of the mainland loomed hazily from the sea. It was more sparsely inhabited here, the scrubby land dotted with olive trees, their silvery green leaves fluttering and twinkling in the warm breeze. The few properties we did pass had hand painted signs advertising wine and olive oil for sale, wares laid out, optimistically, on tables and barrels underneath parasols.

The air up in the high ground smelled really fresh, with nothing around to pollute it, apart from the few vehicles like ours, travelling the winding road which seemed to keep getting narrower.

I kept my eyes peeled for the lavender fields that Hvar is known for, the results of this year's harvest being very prevalent in the market stalls and shops in Hvar town and Stari Grad, but I didn't spot a single one. Perhaps here, unlike the large, swooping fields in France, the lavender is cultivated in small parcels of land hidden from the road behind dry stone walls.

Waiting for the ferry.

It was a small ferry from Sucuraj to Drevenik, back on the mainland, that took just 30 mins. On reaching the other side, we took the coast road south towards Dubrovnik, turquoise sea to the right, limestone slopes to the left, the scent of pine strong on the air blasting through our open windows and cheese on the radio. 

On the ferry.

The route passed numerous pretty villages, each with a cluster of shoreside properties and a beach with its roped off swimming area. It then moved inland, passing a flat agricultural area in a valley with rows of fruit trees and crops. Set up along the roadside were stalls full of the produce grown literally metres away - no concerns about food miles here. 

A few miles on, we pass into Bosnia Herzegovina, driving through the only part of that country that has access to the coast - just 15 miles.

After almost 2 hours we arrive at our destination. We didn't go quite as far as Dubrovnik today, instead staying in a small village called Zaton that hugs the shore of a tranquil cove just north of the city. This is so that we can visit nearby Trsteno arboretum where some of the garden scenes in Game of Thrones were filmed.

Our accommodation feels a bit like staying with your gran, if gran lived in 1960s Russia. Plenty of faux wood furniture, a fridge that is older than us, orange synthetic cushions and a bathroom so dated it could be about to become fashionable again. Our hosts are also ancient, he, clad in an open shirt over a baggy old vest, is half blind and she has a better beard than him. But the location is lovely, with a little secluded 'concrete beach', or jetty, complete with sun loungers and sheltered by flowering shrubs right in front of the property, giving direct access to the water for a cooling swim after the journey. The water is so clear that from up on our balcony, across the narrow street, fish can be seen swimming about.

The concrete beach.

Looking across the bay towards Konoba Dandy.

The view from the balcony.

After our swim, we found our room had been double booked and we had to move to the much nicer room next door, with more space and reduced old-people-smell.

Zaton is the kind of place where the one lone restaurant is either going to be a complete let down, because they can get by knowing that people have no other choice, or a little gem. Luckily for us, Konoba Dandy, with its checked tablecloths on the 7 table terrace by the sea, is the latter. We had a delicious seafood dinner for a very good price, the tonic for Erik's G&T costing more than the gin! 

Hvar, 21st - 22nd August

Hvar is bigger and more bustling that Stari Grad, but no less beautiful. White houses with red rooves line the hillside on which the town nestles, merging into the older limestone buildings plus a number of churches with pretty, ornate towers as you get closer to the water. There is a main harbour lined with bars and restaurants where the big boats moor, a charter yacht arrived last night that can be booked for a mere £411,334 per week, it was almost obscene, then there are a few smaller harbours either side.

We're staying next to a harbour on the eastern side of the town, a ten minute walk from the main square along the promenade that lines the rocky coast. Our harbour is busy with lots of small craft coming and going including water taxis to the islands nearby.

When we arrived yesterday, we headed out for a swim. The beaches here are mainly pebbly and lots of people tend to just perch on the rocks that allow easy-ish access to the sea, which is what we ended up doing. The water is mesmerising, such hypnotic shades of blue, turquoise and azure. Even in the harbours it is clear and bright.

I tentatively got in via the convenient steps, but Erik just scrambled in over the rocks, stepping on a sea urchin in the process, giving us an hour of strangely satisfying entertainment with the tweezers and a pin afterwards.

He then went in for a rest and I moved to the beach. It was small and crowded and I was amused by the contrast of a line of lads sitting on the jetty drinking and eyeing the girls and the two boys next to me having a lively discussion global politics and religion. 

In the evening we walked around to the main part of town and had a cocktail overlooking the boats before wandering about 50m to the square for dinner. As with Split and Stari Grad, behind the main drag are lots of small streets with curious boutiques and nice bars, cushions laid out on the old stone steps for customers. Hvar is known as a bit of a party town, but earlier in the evening is a mixed crowd - all ages and nationalities out enjoying the scenery and people watching. We were heading home as the twenty-somethings were heading out to party through the night.

Late on there was a thunderstorm going on somewhere in the distance - lightening was lighting up the sky but we heard no thunder for a few hours. There were a few layers of cloud lower down, but the sky above us was clear and stary, so when the lightening flashed it looked as though someone was turning on a light in the sky, glimpsed through a window frame of cloud, it was spectacular. The storm hit us in the early hours, loud claps of thunder and lashings of rain causing us to close our balcony door. But by morning, the sky was a perfect, clear blue.

After breakfast, we walked back to town to peruse the shops and decided we'd head up to the castle perched high on the hillside to take in the awesome views of Hvar and the Pekleni Islands, the remaining large boat in the harbour suddenly looking miniature. 

After a refreshing G&T, we walked back to our part of town to hit the beach. There was a strong breeze today disguising the heat of the sun and blowing up some swell, making it very comfortable to sit out. 

Tomorrow we leave Hvar via a ferry from the far end of the island, taking us back to the mainland and on to Trsteno, just north of Dubrovnik, but first, one more evening of cocktails awaits.