"Cavtat was here first!" a Cavtat Travel Page by Rusket

Cavtat is the croatian form of Civitas Vetus, the area of the Roman town Epidareus. Epidareus was ruined by Slavs and Avars in the seventh century, and legends say that the inhabitants fled to the safe area of Ragusa, which later became Dubrovnik. Much later Cavtat was rebuilt as a medieval town, but there are many monuments from it's early history, and more to be found in ongoing investigations. Remnants of the old aquaduct are still visible.

Cavtat, a small town of approximately 2000 inhabitants, is the administrative center of Konavle municipality in Dubrovacko-Neretvinska county. This is the southernmost area of Croatia, with borders to Bosnia & Hercegovina and to Montenegro. The name Konavle is derived from konali, that is canals, because of the aquaduct and the canals irrigating the Cavtat hinterland.

This was my second visit to Cavtat, the previous one was appr. 30 years ago. One of the things I remembered most from my first visit can be seen on this photo: Lemon trees. I remember picking lemons and oranges right from the trees in december! That was great for me, coming from the winter in Norway in the second half of the 1970-ies! We had been driving down from Beograd though Montenegro, having a Central European climate, and all of a sudden, we were in a totally different climate zone :-)

Another one of my memories was eating in an outdoor cafe the day before Christmas Eve. And I remember walking along the beautiful promenades of Cavtat and wading in the ocean. Sea temperature was 18 C, and the locals thought I was crazy when I said I wanted to take a swim :-)

Today Cavtat is mostly a tourist town, perfectly situated only 5 km from Cilipi airport, close to Dubrovnik and with great possibilities for bathing, sunbathing and water sports.