The Eagle Has Landed!
So we had two more delays at Newark, which for a brief time had us worried the whole thing would be canceled. That would have meant missing a material chunk of the start of the trip and a few nights at an amazing location.
Luckily, the sky’s parted, and the sun even made a brief but welcome appearance!
Annnnd here we are - the beautiful country of Croatia and city of Dubrovnik.
Jenn being a history teacher always has notes for me to share the history of the places we visit, and I’ve already learned quite a bit. Those familiar with the location know the city is surrounded by a city wall it was started as early as the 7th century and is incredibly well maintained.
As always, Jenn did an incredible job planning and found us a condo located right inside the city hall at the harbor with amazing views and really solid people watching :)
A pic from our balcony
After showering and freshening up a bit, we decided to explore the old town. Even though we were in Dubrovnik for 3 nights, the weather forecast was calling for rain for the next 2 days, so we decided to take advantage of the gorgeous day.
We started on the Stradun, the main thoroughfare. While there we stopped to have our first beverage of the trip. The beer was nice and cold!
First drink in Croatia!
The Stradun
Once we recharged we continued to wander around the old town, knowing that we couldn’t really get lost since the town is surrounded by walls. Eventually we found the staircase made famous from Game of Thrones (“the Shame stairs” as they are now known) - don’t worry we kept our clothes on while climbing it!
We meanderedthrough some beautiful streets, we found ourselves at the Buza Bar. Buza means hole in Croatian and this was an accurate name as you literally go through a hole in the wall and built into the rocks is a makeshift bar - nothing fancy, just beer and wine - but the view is incredible! We found a great spot and watched as people cooled off from the hot day by jumping from the cliffs into the Adriatic. One guy had so much liquid courage that he climbed up to what seemed like an impossibly high point to jump. Check out a video here: https://vimeo.com/717033346
Speaking of liquid…after having some I needed to pee, but alas this hole in the wall bar did not have a restroom. In fact the nearest public restroom was nearly 10 min walk away - now we know why all those people were jumping into the sea ;) I didn’t have my bathing suit (or enough courage from the liquid) so instead I had to walk back to our apartment via the walk of shame stairs. As I traveled, I wondered how many bar patrons had waited too long to find a toilet and their walk became a quite literal walk of shame.
After all that walking and drinking we were hungry and tired so we grabbed dinner on the same street as our apartment and called it an early night!